Welcome to Media Briefs, a weekly media tip sheet where I’ll run you through the week’s news, moves and chatter every Thursday.
The rusted-ons might recognise the name. In this iteration, I’ll bring you tidbits I’ve picked up, take you inside Australia’s newsrooms and give you a taste of the mood surrounding the week in the media. Media Briefs will also try to celebrate much of the great reporting on the industry we see every week — a “we read everything so you don’t have to” sort of thing — and include details that you might’ve missed.
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Anyway, let’s get into it: on Stan Grant’s Q+A exit, Sky News finding its Voice, some quarterly results, and Australian camera operators breaking protocol during Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to New Zealand.
Taken for Granted
Stan Grant’s decision to permanently step away from Q+A vindicated cynics in the ABC’s Sydney and Melbourne newsrooms this week. The speculation suggests that if management had been quicker to offer full-throated support of the former host, things might’ve been different.
“Can you blame him?” one senior source told Media Briefs, as chatter simmered moments before the official announcement was made on Monday. (Grant wasn’t alone in leaving the show. Q+A’s executive producer, Erin Vincent, also left recently, and has since joined the Wheeler Centre as its new CEO.)
Grant’s displeasure with the ABC’s effort, or lack thereof, to elevate and protect its staff of culturally diverse backgrounds was known well before he became the target of vicious racism post-coronation coverage. In late March, Crikey reported that Grant had sent executive leadership a letter panning the ABC’s “all white” NSW election night coverage that he said reduced diverse talent, including Jeremy Fernandez, to a “cameo” role. Grant wrote that that wasn’t his first complaint on the matter.
Over the course of my reporting on the ABC, Grant has on various occasions been described by sources as a “giant”, a “mentor” and an unrelenting “champion” of diverse staff at the broadcaster. Reflecting on Monday’s announcement, one source told me Grant has always advocated for the careers of the ABC’s Indigenous staff “without fear” for his own. “A tragedy.”
Sky finds its Voice
On the launch of Sky News’ dedicated Voice channel on Tuesday, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and union veteran Sharan Burrow co-wrote an opinion piece for Guardian Australia branding Sky News a misinformation machine and its new 24/7 “Voice Debate” channel “an affront to the foundations of Australian democracy”.
After tuning in a couple of times — once, briefly on Tuesday afternoon, and again for three hours on Wednesday morning — the channel was surprisingly tame. So far I’ve seen the same footage of Noel Pearson addressing the parliamentary committee twice; Bridget Archer addressing a Yes23 campaign town hall in Tasmania; and just one exposure to vision of One Nation’s “Recognise a Better Way” No forum at Adelaide’s Convention Centre.
All sanitised to the teeth, no doubt, as part of a brand safety promise to prospective media buyers, who at time of writing appear only prospective, given I haven’t seen a single ad. But I’m sure we’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop.
From the group chat
When the Yes and No cases were released last week, some of my sources — many of them young, from across three major newsrooms — privately questioned whether the news media had the vocabulary required to cover them with any conviction. They to-and-fro’d over the media’s efforts to cover the “duality of the No case”.
The issue is a live one for editors. In several conversations I’ve had with editors in recent months about their coverage, they said the importance of getting the referendum “right” wasn’t lost upon them.
When I was speaking to Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor in April, she stressed the publication’s efforts to cover the referendum differently. She pointed to the diversity of voices and views in the website’s opinion section and the lengths to which her reporters go to add context to a debate.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s executive editor, Tory Maguire, was less forthcoming. Still, “significant resources” have been dedicated to the story, she said. (It should be noted that these two papers were the first to cover Senator Lidia Thorpe and the troupe of activists behind the “progressive No” case.) In a statement last year, News Corp Australia boss Michael Miller said journalists and opinion writers have “a community responsibility to facilitate the conversation” and air “differing opinions”, while the ABC’s approach to the referendum is playing out in plain sight.
The news
Foxtel has signed a multi-year deal for exclusive rights to UFC, one week after sealing an extension to its deal with ESPN. (SMH)
Guardian Australia has rejected “unfounded allegations” of bias in its coverage of the Voice referendum made by the No campaign after two of its donors became Yes backers. (Crikey)
Spotify has clocked a record number of active users for the quarter but is still struggling to find a profit. (Axios)
Travel and auto advertising could offer some hope to a relatively flat ad market outlook in the media industry, which has been forced to wean itself off government ad spending. (SMH)
As Netflix records a lift in subscriber numbers in the US, revenues are falling in the Asia-Pacific. (AFR)
Former Network 10 political editor Peter van Onselen has been ordered to pay his former employer’s legal bills after he wrote a “disparaging” column about it. (The Australian)
Here’s a cute profile on the three writers behind The Paris End, a culture newsletter billed by The Age as Melbourne’s New Yorker. (The Age)
A syndicate of investors is reported to be in the final stages of squaring away a deal for the crypto-focused media outfit, CoinDesk. (WSJ)
And, finally, that story from Variety on the Jeff Zucker, David Zaslav and Chris Licht drama that CNN (that has drawn a storm of backlash). (Variety)
The moves
- Guardian Australia has gone on a hiring spree. Sarah Basford Canales will join the site from The Canberra Times as a political reporter in Canberra. She joins former ABC reporters Jack Snape and Ariel Bogle in heading Guardian-bound, along with former NCA newswire reporter Catie McLeod. Guardian Media Group reported on Wednesday a 24% revenue bump for the past year in Australia and New Zealand.
- Erin Vincent, former executive producer of Q+A, has left the ABC to take up a post as CEO of the Wheeler Centre.
