News Corp’s sports video embeds have anti-gambling campaigners appalled | The Weekly Beast

Anti-gambling campaigners have labelled News Corp’s use of a betting website’s video series “dangerous”.

The publisher is embedding a video series produced by Unibet, named “At Odds TV”, in sports articles on its major mastheads. The videos are not advertisements. They feature former sporting greats discussing coming games and giving betting odds across various codes, but they are heavily branded with the betting website’s logo.

The Alliance for Gambling Reform spokesman, Tim Costello, condemned the practice, saying the videos were clearly advertisements for gambling, but were “not really being differentiated from editorial news”.

“We are already seeing gambling normalised in our communities via sports betting odds being included in articles and television reports to the point children are being heard discussing their team and the odds of them winning on the weekend,” Costello told Guardian Australia. “That’s appalling.”

“We must not forget that gambling harm leads to the loss of much more than money. In extreme cases, poker machines cause the loss of lives due to suicide. Then there is the loss of homes, families, relationships, jobs, and much more due to gambling harm.”

News Corp and Unibet were approached for comment.

ABC boss turns down pay rise

The ABC’s new managing director, David Anderson, has turned down an automatic 2% pay rise saying it was “the right thing for him to do”, as the organisation faces its latest budget cut. Anderson announced the decision during a probing interview with the ABC’s own Jon Faine on Thursday. It comes amid tense negotiations between staff and management over the new enterprise bargaining agreement. ABC management offered staff a 1.7% pay rise last month during negotiations, which was rejected for being “derisively low”. The ABC has said it will present its final full offer to staff unions on Friday.

He’s not exactly going without though. While Anderson’s salary is not yet publicly available, in the 2017-18 financial year the previous MD, Michelle Guthrie, had a total remuneration package of $963,991 (according to the latest ABC annual report). A 2% rise on that figure would have been $19,280. For contrast, the prime minister of Australia’s salary is $549, 000.

In the 2017-18 financial year ABC executives took home $2m in bonuses, with one executive receiving a one-off $232,500. In June, Anderson disclosed to an all-staff meeting that that executive had been him. Last year, when he was on the board but not MD, his total remuneration package was $508,891.

Anderson’s near-$1m remuneration package was scheduled to rise under a decision by the remuneration tribunal, which decides the wages of top public servants. But he said he “did not think it appropriate”, given that he has been in the role only for about three months.

Strokes of hypocrisy

Australian swimmer Mack Horton’s podium protest against his Chinese rival Sun Yang touched off a local spat, after the Nine sports reporter Andrew Wu pointed out the alleged hypocrisy of praising an Australian for his anti-drugs stance while ignoring offences closer to home.

The Australian picked up Wu’s comment on the “social media platform Twitter” (thanks for explaining) and the largely hostile response it received, implying it may have breached Nine’s policy on what staff can and cannot say on social media. Wu followed up with a scathing piece in the SMH about the excuses Australia has made in the past for our own drug infractions (“My mum gave it to me. My coach gave it to me for a headache. We were told it was OK”). But by Thursday, the Oz seemed to have had a change of heart, running an exclusive interview on the front page with Sun’s “Aussie coach”, Dennis Cotterell, lambasting the “hypocritical” response from Australian swimmers to Horton’s protest. Good that we can all agree there has been a good deal of hypocrisy in this case.

If you can’t beat them …

Foxtel has revealed a plan to stop the haemorrhaging of subscribers to Netflix by awkwardly embracing the rival streaming service. This week, the News Corp-owned cable TV company announced a partnership with the US on-demand streaming monolith under which Netflix access will be integrated into a new Foxtel subscription package. This will give new and renewing customers to the sport and drama package an initial six months of Netflix access for free, and will be incorporated into a new and apparently simplified user interface through its set-top box, to be rolled out over the coming months.

The dying gasps of a dinosaur content provider? Possibly. Roy Morgan research this week showed that 11.5 million Australians now have access to a Netflix subscription, while 5 million subscribe to Foxtel, and that the overlap between the two is 3 million people.

Lessons from Christchurch

The Australian Communications and Media Authority’s final report on the broadcast of the Christchurch shooter’s GoPro footage in news reports on the day of the terrorist attack, as expected, did not reprimand broadcasters for airing the footage. But the final report did reveal a few interesting defences from the broadcasters who aired footage or still images from the attack.

The ABC broadcast still images from the bodycam, with none including any images of victims. SBS showed excerpts from the footage including victims being shot at (but no gunshots could be seen hitting any victims).

In footage on Seven, Nine, Ten and Sky News, Acma found that viewers could have understood that the people on screen had been shot but no footage of people being hit by gunfire was broadcast.

In Sky News’ defence, Foxtel said the footage had been used sparingly, and that it would not have been distressing for a substantial number of its viewers because most of them were adults. According to OzTam data provided to Acma, 84.7% of the channel’s audience is aged over 55.

Foxtel argued that the broadcast was in the public interest because of the public safety issues, the way social media platforms were used to broadcast such attacks, and to show “the presence of rightwing extremist activity in New Zealand and Australia”.

Similarly, Seven argued that 90% of its audience for the news was aged over 18. It said the footage had been carefully selected and was in the public interest.

“The fact that the attack was perpetrated on the basis of religious hate and intolerance also contributed strongly to the public interest element,” it said. “Much debate in Australia is currently focused on whether the broader community is too tolerant of hate speech or is insufficiently alert to the dangers presented by rightwing organisations. The Christchurch terrorist attack engaged directly with these significant and profound cultural issues.”

Acma has said it will now consult television broadcasters about potential revisions to the code covering the broadcast of user-generated content, repetition of distressing footage and vision warnings.

Are you sitting comfortably?

ABC staff received a terse memo from management this week after listeners were greeted with dead air during news broadcasts four times during the weekend.

In the memo to ABC Radio staff this week, newsreaders were asked to “ensure they are sitting comfortable and relaxed” in the chair “well before they go to air”.

“We had the ignominious situation over Friday and the weekend of four bulletins being missed by Radio News presenters,” the memo stated. “In each case human error was to blame.

“Readers should ensure they are sitting comfortable and relaxed in their studios well before they go to air, and their desk is set to their requirements.

“News and the networks consider bulletins being missed, causing dead air, to be a very serious issue. Make sure you’re on top of it and avoid a problem.”

Believe the hype?

When Nine announced its purchase of Fairfax last year, there were a lot of questions about how the marriage between two very different cultures would work.

How would a flashy, ratings-obsessed commercial network gel with the more staid newsrooms at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age? Would we see Kate McClymont on A Current Affair? Would Adele Ferguson be announced as the new host of The Block?

Well, we’re about to see the fruits of what is being teased as a blockbuster collaboration, with a joint investigation between Nine’s flagship current affairs program 60 Minutes and the two newspapers airing this Sunday. In classic 60 Minutes fashion, they’re not underselling the yarn.

The promo, released online this week, promises that a “major investigation” is set to “rock the foundations of Australia”. “Three major organisations have uncovered a story so big it can’t be missed.”

You wouldn’t want to under-deliver on that sizzle.

Michael McGowan, Josh Taylor, Christopher Knaus, Naaman Zhou and Stephanie Convery contributed to this report.