The Sydney Morning Herald has taken the unusual step of declaring war on News Corp, accusing the Murdoch empire of waging a vengeful and disgraceful “campaign” against US ambassador Kevin Rudd.
The Nine broadsheet took aim at News in an editorial no less, running it on the smh.com.au homepage on Friday.
“Rudd spoke sense about Trump,” the Nine broadsheet said. “It’s a vengeful News Corp that has the explaining to do.”
The SMH reminded readers that the push to get rid of Rudd was reinvigorated by Brexit cheerleader and UK GB News host Nigel Farage in a question to Donald Trump about Rudd back in March. Farage said the question came from “our friends at Sky News Australia”.
“News Corp has been running hard on this for months, ramping up a sense of crisis to the point where it has created one,” editor Bevan Shields wrote. “Media campaigns can be a force for good. This one by News Corp is a disgrace.”
Rudd has had a target on his back ever since his petition three years ago calling for a royal commission into the Murdoch media, which reached a high of almost 500,000 signatures.
The ex-Labor leader said Murdoch had become “a cancer – an arrogant cancer on our democracy”.
And Shields is not wrong about the “campaign”. This week alone has seen a tidal wave of confected outrage about Rudd’s historical barbs about Trump. Andrew Bolt, Chris Kenny, Sharri Markson, Steve Price, Rita Panahi, Tim Blair and more lined up to call for the former prime minister to leave his Washington post.
“Some people still can’t accept the world has changed, and silly Trump-hating Kevin Rudd must now quit as our ambassador to the United States,” Bolt said.
Kyle’s ‘white whale’
Just last week 2GB’s veteran shock jock Ray Hadley announced his last broadcast would be on 13 December.
It was a shock move as he still had two years of his contract to run and in July he clocked up a record 20 years as the No 1 broadcaster in the mornings slot – an incredible 160 consecutive ratings wins.
But this week the crown slipped: Hadley came third and lost his first ratings survey since 2004.
“There are no sour grapes attached to this. I can assure you when I made the announcement I made last week, today and the ratings were not in the back of my mind,” Hadley told listeners. “It’s not the end of the world, just the end of a record-breaking run.”
For other radio hosts over on ABC Radio, announcing their departure had the opposite effect. Sydney Drive host Richard Glover, who is leaving the station after 26 years, saw his share rise in his final survey.
His strong result, along with increases in share for Sarah Macdonald and James Valentine, helped boost ABC Radio Sydney to their highest share result in two years.
Glover’s final program will be on Friday 29 November.
In Melbourne, days after announcing he would be stepping back from Breakfast, Sammy J also increased his share – and he delighted in beating Kyle and Jackie O in the Melbourne market once again.
“I beat Kyle again in my final ratings today,” the comedian wrote on X. “So I’ll forever live rent free in his head. I’m his white whale; his tormentor; the last face he sees at night and first face he sees each morning. When he strolls on the beach at night, the wind will whisper ‘Sammy J’.”
Sammy J welcomed Channel Seven journalist Sharnelle Vella and former AFL captain Bob Murphy on air later in the week to announce the unlikely duo would take over as hosts in 2025.
Toning it down
After another poor showing in the Melbourne radio ratings for Kyle Sandilands, the KiisFM presenter has agreed to tone down the “graphic sexual content” on the Kyle and Jackie O show, according to ARN’s chief content officer, Duncan Campbell.
Campbell has told trade publication Mumbrella that, in an attempt to improve ratings in Melbourne, where the show is eighth in its timeslot, Sandilands was prepared to drop the worst of the smut.
“We believe, with the removal of the graphic sexual content, the show’s much, much easier to listen to now,” Campbell said. “But that takes time to change perceptions, obviously.
“It’s still sexual content … but not the graphic sexual content that it once was.”
The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young told Senate estimates earlier this month that the show included a competition where female staff recorded themselves urinating for the “boys … to figure out whose flaps made that wee”.
Justice Lee’s news fix
Justice Michael Lee schooled a room full of journalists about the art of not getting sued on Thursday.
The federal court judge is a popular guest speaker after his oft-quoted judgment in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case.
Speaking to the Alliance for Journalists Freedom summit in Sydney, Lee said journalists are entitled to express provocative opinions but the opinions must be based on facts and related to public interest.
He said the profession should consider developing a comprehensive industry code of conduct to replace the 13 codes in circulation, adding that the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance one was too general and only applied to members of the union.
“Perhaps it is time for an attempt to be made to synthesise all these codes into one comprehensive industry guide, which descends into more detail than mere aspirational statements,” he said.
Lee said the development of a comprehensive code for journalists should embed within it the interpretation of reasonableness in case law and the general standards expected of journalists.
Dressed in his signature navy pin-striped suit, Lee revealed he was an “old school” media consumer and had three newspapers delivered to his home each day. He didn’t say which ones.
Murdoch honour
News Corporation’s executive chairman, Lachlan Murdoch, held a belated gala dinner for the winners of the 2024 News awards in Sydney on Wednesday night.
The occasion also saw the announcement of the Sir Keith Murdoch Award to the Australian’s senior reporter Yoni Bashan.
Bashan won the top in-house award for his reporting of the war in Israel.
“In the wake of the October 7 massacre, the biggest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Bashan has travelled throughout Israel several times in the past year telling the stories of terror victims, people living in the shadow of battle, and the top Israeli figures leading the fight,” the Australian reported.
Murdoch praised Bashan for showing “tremendous courage, here and abroad”.
“He bore witness to trauma while reporting the conflict in the Middle East believing that the truth could be uncovered only by reporters on the ground, reporters who were courageous, impartial and fearless,” Murdoch said.
“It’s an honour to name him the winner of this year’s Sir Keith Murdoch award for excellence in journalism, the award named for my grandfather, whose spirit shines on, in you, Yoni, and in all we do at News.”
Sky pumps the numbers
Sky News Australia has triumphantly announced it is the “country’s first TV channel to reach 5 million subscribers on the world’s largest video platform, YouTube”.
We don’t deny they have a lot of subscribers on YouTube but it is impossible to tell how many of them are Australian and how many are international fans there for the rightwing opinion clicks. The high engagement on the site is also fuelled by the largely unmoderated comments section. (We also noticed that Nine’s 60 Minutes account has 5.9m subscribers but we’ll leave that alone.)
There was a wild claim about the popularity of Sky v ABC News: “On linear subscription television, Sky News has outrated ABC News by 204% this year”.
This is based on data for subscription TV homes only, in other words people watching the ABC through a Foxtel set top box. When you look at the numbers watching ABC News on free-to-air the reach is 1.9m for ABC News to 323,547 for Sky News Live.
