Our story last week about the big changes to Radio National in 2017 has sparked a great deal of anger from fans of the ideas network who fear management is dismantling the public broadcaster’s intellectual heart with cuts to specialist programming. This week there were emotional scenes at a meeting between staff and management as the changes – including giving a second program to conservative Tom Switzer and cutting most of the music programming – were discussed. Management team members were jeered when they claimed there was still music on RN because Fran Kelly played music on Breakfast. On Thursday staff passed a no-confidence motion against management – namely the architect of the changes, director of radio Michael Mason.
“The continuing erosion of specialist programming in music, features and religion is a serious breach of the ABC charter and a disservice to the Australian audiences that the ABC is funded to serve,” the motion said. “A systemic failure on the part of the senior radio management to genuinely engage or listen to the professional advice of Radio National staff about major change including the recently announced cuts to ABC jobs and programs.” The staff also slammed Mason’s recent introduction of a new layer of management with its “preposterously named executives” while reducing the number of actual program makers. A spokesman for the ABC said the changes to the line-up were made “to reinvest in new content rather than to cut costs” and staff consultation was continuing.
Crinkling catches on
Since launching in April, Australia’s only national newspaper for children, Crinkling News, has enjoyed strong growth and an even stronger response from families and schools who have watched children fight over the weekly copies ($4.50) when they arrive in the mail and enjoy reading the news which is presented in a non-scary and non-boring format. The ABC’s long-running Behind The News TV program is already operating in this space. As evidence it is here to stay, on Friday Crinkling News will become the first children’s publication to become a member of the Australian Press Council. Editor Saffron Howden, a former Fairfax Media journalist, says Crinkling News is a labour of love she set up to inspire kids to be involved in the world and to foster a love of reading and learning and writing. But this week came news that the Murdoch empire had spotted an opportunity and was starting up something similar, launching a free online newspaper in 2017. Howden is not deterred by the competition. “I am so proud our groundbreaking national newspaper for children has prompted a huge multi-national corporation to dabble in the same space,” she told Weekly Beast.
Keeping up with Karl
If you keep an eye on the tabloids you may have noticed an inordinate amount of interest in the personal life of Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic. When news broke of his separation from his wife of more than 20 years, Cassandra Thorburn, it unleashed a seemingly endless stream of stories about the television journalist in the tabloids, the women’s magazines and of course in the insatiable Daily Mail. In what is an unusual trend for Australia it seems Stefanovic can’t move without it prompting a story: Karl Stefanovic’s impressive weight loss; Cassandra Thorburn is joining Sunrise; Sofia Levin denies romance with Karl Stefanovic and “The moment Cass found Karl’s phone” are just some of the recent headlines in Woman’s Day. Co-host Lisa Wilkinson has noticed this recent obsession with her TV partner, and labelled it lies. “There’s a lot of rubbish out there at the moment, a lot of lies,” she told women’s news site Mamamia. “It’s been really interesting looking at weekly women’s magazines and seeing the way they operate in 2016. And seeing some of the online sites and seeing some of the lies they are happy to write.”
First Noel
The Australian, under editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker, is proving itself no less enthusiastic a cultural warrior than under the paper’s veteran boss Chris Mitchell, who retired at the end of last year. This week Rupert Murdoch’s conservative broadsheet reported a Noel Pearson speech in which he accused the ABC of being racist and then the day after assigned to the follow-up three reporters and a photographer to snap ABC chief Michelle Guthrie. Plus former ABC chairman Maurice Newman in a comment piece to reveal that it wasn’t just the ABC that was racist but SBS, Fairfax Media, Crikey and Guardian Australia.
“It’s not just the ABC, it’s the left media, it’s the commentariat, it’s the elites who feel morally superior and think simply by throwing money at people that somehow or other they’re going to be cared for,” Newman wrote. In an editorial agreeing with Pearson’s claims, the Oz pointed to its infamous Bill Leak cartoon as evidence the paper took a different approach to all these racist outlets. “The ABC, while heavily focused on a human ‘rights’ agenda, tends to pay little attention to the importance of personal responsibility,” the editorial said.
Guthrie hit back, telling staff in her regular newsletter that while Pearson was a “respected spokesman” his comments were “incorrect and misplaced”. “The ABC is proud of its record in engaging with Indigenous communities and in delivering stories from these communities to the rest of the nation,” she said. The MD pointed to the cadet journalist program, the Indigenous staff summit and Indigenous leaders Sally Riley (drama), Stan Grant (news) and Lorena Allam (radio) as evidence of its ongoing commitment.
Before Four Corners
Kate Wild, the ABC’s former Northern Territory correspondent, won two much-deserved gold awards – one for excellence in Indigenous reporting and one for campaigning journalism – at the Northern Territory Media Awards on Friday. As we reported in July, long before Four Corners’ shocking vision of Don Dale sparked a royal commission, Wild had been reporting on the brutality of the Northern Territory juvenile detention system for years, including the gassing of children and the use of restraint chairs. “Her work truly generated palpable change which has resonated around the country,” the award judges said. Wild is also writing a true crime book about a young man with a mental illness who was shot dead by police.
Guardian Australia’s Northern Territory correspondent, Helen Davidson, who won best print/text news coverage at the awards, was similarly praised for her investigation on the crisis within the NT juvenile detention centre – which also began well before the Four Corners expose. “Told through the eyes of an inmate, it demonstrated creative flair and a deep understanding of the issue, as did her ensuing pieces following the Four Corners footage outcry,” the judges said.
Pay (Weather)up
The Australian has been ordered to pay $100,000 to former Townsville Bulletin journalist Malcolm Weatherup whom the paper’s media diary editors, Sharri Markson and Darren Davidson, in 2014 referred to as “always under the Weatherup”. The long court case was a particularly colourful one with the Oz calling witnesses in an attempt to show there was truth in their article’s imputation that Weatherup was “habitually intoxicated”. Appearing for the plaintiff, Bulletin journalist Simon Price told the court Weatherup was not always intoxicated and he was a good journalist. Price said he “never heard the plaintiff referred to as “Malcolm always under the Weatherup” and he never saw the plaintiff at work “apparently intoxicated or affected by alcohol”.
The judge said the defence had not proved its case: “The evidence led by the defendant of the plaintiff’s consumption of alcohol fell well short of proof of a loss of control over physical or mental powers in the context of a disposition or tendency to be habitually so grossly affected.” He said Weatherup was “entitled to be compensated for the harm done to his personal reputation, for consolation for the personal distress and hurt caused by the publication and vindication to his reputation in light of the defamation. In the view I take the plaintiff is entitled also to be compensated by an award of aggravated damages.” Sources say with the combined legal costs, the defamatory paragraph is set to cost News Corp close to $1m.
