Lachlan Murdoch fills Rupert's empty chair at News Corp meeting | The Weekly Beast

News Corp held a global board meeting in Sydney on Tuesday for the first time since 2015. The company’s Holt Street headquarters in Sydney’s Surry Hills were buzzing with extra security as the editors of the Australian mastheads flew in for meetings with the New York contingent.

Co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch was joined by chief executive Robert Thomson and other board members, including the former president of Spain José María Aznar and former Olympics executive Ana Paula Pessoa.

There was one notable absentee, however. The executive chairman, Rupert Murdoch, was still laid up at home recovering from a back injury he acquired during a sailing accident. The 86-year-old told his executive team in January that he would need “some weeks” to recover from the accident, but several months have now passed and Murdoch senior is still lying low.

In what may be a signal of the power dynamics at play in the Murdoch empire, the board meeting was chaired by eldest son and likely heir Lachlan, with rival and younger brother James, the chief executive of 21st Century Fox, attending remotely. Sources say it is looking ever more certain that Lachlan will take the reins when Rupert Murdoch moves on. On the agenda no doubt were Foxtel’s discussions with Cricket Australia for the rights to all matches after 2019 to air on Fox Sports.

Prince Charles dons the Masterchef cravat

Good to know Prince Charles made the most of his trip to Australia for the Commonwealth Games by starring in a local reality show. He found time to drop into Darwin for a dinner with the Royal Flying Doctors Service, which was being filmed for a segment for the 10th series of MasterChef Australia. Producers Endemol Shine secured the royal guest because Charles’s wife, Camilla, is a fan, reports said.

Privatise the ABC? Who, me?

When the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, acknowledged at Senate estimates he was a member of the Institute of Public Affairs, many reacted with disbelief. The IPA’s agenda, after all, is the privatisation or breaking up of the ABC.

But it’s no secret Fifield remained a member or that he once held that view. In 2008 he gave a speech in which he proposed reducing the size of government, including privatisation and tax reform. He praised the sale of the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas and Telstra, Australian Defence Industries, the airports, CSL, the National Transmission Network and the National Rail Corp. And then he went further.

“Conservatives have often floated the prospect of privatising the ABC and Australia Post,” Fifield said. “There is merit in such proposals.”

As the minister responsible for the ABC, does he still support privatisation? “That’s not the position of me or the government,” Fifield told the committee.

Perhaps a new book from his friends at the IPA, researchers Sinclair Davidson and Chris Berg, will give the minister food for thought. Against Public Broadcasting: Why and How We Should Privatise the ABC, provides a road map for politicians who wish to dismantle the $1.1bn organisation.

“When the ABC was founded in the 1930s the problem was a scarcity of media,” the authors say. “Now that we live in a world of media plenty, it is hard to see why the government is still subsidising a media empire. This book provides an outline of how policymakers can dispose of the ABC, while at the same time preserving its value and realising that value for the benefit of taxpayers.”

Glee over Alberici

In other Senate estimates news, Fifield welcomed with glee the admission by the ABC’s managing director, Michelle Guthrie, that a dramatic restructure was to blame for recent editorial failures.

The minister has declared that a loud chorus of complaint from the government benches about Emma Alberici’s coverage of corporate tax policy has been “thoroughly vindicated”. Fifield was joined by Malcolm Turnbull and Mathias Cormann in savaging the ABC for what they claimed was a failure to “present a balance of views on the corporate tax policy”.

In a statement to his favourite organ, the Australian, after estimates on Wednesday, the senator said the ABC was right to acknowledge errors in the story.

“The government’s concerns about company tax policy reporting by the ABC have been thoroughly vindicated,” Fifield said. “It’s good that the ABC have accepted responsibility for these errors and have made internal changes to improve their editorial processes.”

Surprise SBS hire

Media buyer John Sintras, the former chief executive and chairman at Starcom Mediavest Australia and more recently global president of IPG Mediabrands in New York, was named chief audience and content officer for SBS on Thursday.

Sintras is replacing chief content officer Helen Kellie, who died of cancer last year aged 52. Kellie was an experienced former BBC marketer who worked with brands including Top Gear and Doctor Who and, more recently was hands on with SBS’ Struggle Street. The appointment might have been surprising for some given Sintras’s reputation as a media buyer and advertising executive rather than a program maker. A spokeswoman for SBS said Sintras would work closely with the directors of both TV and online and radio content, who “continue to be responsible for all production, acquisitions and scheduling in their respective areas”.

SBS managing director Michael Ebeid said Sintras was a seasoned and respected Australian media leader with a strong track record of inspiring his staff.

“As SBS increases its commitment to connect Australians with distinctive content and services on a range of devices and platforms, John’s passion in leveraging transformation and technology to deliver business growth, together with his in-depth knowledge of data optimisation and insights, will be invaluable,” Ebeid said.

Gibney v the Tele

Rebecca Gibney protested vehemently on social media this week at the tabloid treatment of a very personal issue in her family which she has spoken about on an upcoming episode of Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery on ABC TV.

Gibney said she was “extremely saddened” by the headline in the Daily Telegraph – “Gibney reveals sex assault horror: Grandpa preyed on me” – and had not been contacted by the newspaper or given any warning by the ABC that the story was set to appear ahead of the May broadcast.

Weekly Beast understands there were several mistakes that led to the devastating story for the New Zealand-based actor. As is customary in order to meet long print deadlines, ABC TV publicity loaded the episode on to its media portal for review a good month before the broadcast date. A TV journalist from the Daily Telegraph watched the episode and wrote it up, and there was no embargo in place to stop her. The ABC should have been more mindful of the sensitivities and put an embargo on the show, sources said.

But things really went awry when the Tele added a sensational – and factually incorrect – headline. Gibney was not sexually assaulted by her grandfather, because she managed to fight him off. So what was a gentle, sensitively handled episode about her family turned into a lurid story out of her control.

“I have not seen the show and I have not been contacted for publicity nor have I given any interviews for the episode so any quotes used have not come directly from me to any journalists,” Gibney wrote on Instagram. “My family and I are extremely saddened that I was not contacted or informed that this article was coming out (with an appalling headline which I did not say) and I am so sad that they are using our family to sell their newspaper. It’s not on. I have always been open about my personal issues and if it helps others then my job is done. What I do detest is somebody using our family’s personal story for publicity without even bothering to contact our family to clarify what is clearly a distressing situation for us.”

Home Delivery producers told Weekly Beast they would be pushing for the ABC to control the release of sensitive content to the media in future. “Last week the ABC released standard publicity material regarding the return of three popular ABC programmes: Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery, Gruen and The Weekly with Charlie Pickering,” an ABC spokesman said.

“The media release referred to guests on the new series of Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery, including actor Rebecca Gibney. The ABC did not provide any information to media about the content of the episode or the matters discussed by Ms Gibney in the program.

“The ABC is disappointed the Daily Telegraph has sensationalised matters of a sensitive nature to Ms Gibney, causing undue distress to Ms Gibney and her family.”