Five-year legal battle that left a bitter taste of victory

Many at Nine Media are bitterly lamenting the fact their defamation case victory against Ben Roberts-Smith was delivered, in the end, to a newsroom executive that had little to do with driving and publishing the stories, writes Annette Sharp.

Many at Nine Media are bitterly lamenting the fact that the court’s decision to dismiss a defamation case brought five years ago by the nation’s most decorated war hero Ben Roberts- Smith against Nine was delivered, in the end, to a newsroom executive that had little to do with driving and publishing the stories when they were featured back in mid 2018.

Back in June 2018 when reporters Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters were filing the series of reports Roberts Smith would later take issue with, the SMH newsroom was helmed by editor Lisa Davies and overseen by Chris Janz, Nine's then chief digital and publishing officer.

Janz left in September 2021 while Davies departed two months later.

Janz’s former role was subsequently recast and James Chessell, who was newly installed in the role as group executive editor at Nine when the series first appeared having returned three months earlier from a stint as European correspondent to the AFR, promoted as managing director publishing.

Into his empty executive editor shoes stepped Tory Maguire – prompting Davies’ departure, or so it was widely reported.

Journalists Chris Masters and Nick McKenzie. Picture: AFP

Davies would be replaced by current editor Bevan Shields.

As a result those still loyal to the Nine newspaper’s previous executive found Thursday’s subscriber note, from Maguire, to the Sydney Morning Herald readers, especially galling.

Tory Maguire, executive editor at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields.

Maguire, who was in her second month at Nine in June 2018, wrote that the court’s decision had “vindicated our journalism” and went on to celebrate the victory in a corporate speech some SMH staff maintain is not rightfully hers to claim.

Maguire and Shields have a different management style to their predecessors, something that may have contributed to the departure of a host of well-regarded journalists from the SMH newsroom in recent weeks.

Downfall..... Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith

Most prominent among those to have left is finance reporter Jessica Irvine who quit the newspaper last month after her unpaid participation in a CBA advice video prompted a stern rebuke from management.

Also gone is consumer affairs editor Anna Patty who is moving to Prue Car’s office as senior policy adviser to the NSW education Minister.

Crime reporter Jenny Noyes is also going to Car’s office as a media adviser while rugby reporter Georgina Robinson, a 16-year Fairfax veteran, left last month to take a job with a media consultancy.

State topic editor Aparna Khopkar has also quit after more than a decade at the masthead.

Have Packer and Travolta bonded post-Scientology?

James Packer’s annual summer pilgrimage to the Mediterranean was a shorter than usual affair this year.

While it’s customary for the billionaire to spend many weeks, even months, summering in the region, Packer spent only a week on his pleasure craft IJE motoring off the coast of Spain and France before heading home to his estate in Cabo.

The timeline suggests he’d have missed — by just a few hours, this column hears — a visit by superstar John Travolta, who our spies report visited IJE with an unnamed friend last month.

Travolta was likely a guest of Brett Ratner, Packer’s one-time Ratpac movie-making partner, who kicked back on IJE in May.

It is customary for Packer and Ratner, a regular visitor to IJE, to entertain superstars and supermodels on the 108m yacht.

James Packer (left) and John Travolta both appear to have distanced themselves from Scientology, writes Annette Sharp.

Earlier this year the duo were snapped sharing a cosy lounge on IJE with filmmakers Spike Lee and Oliver Stone, and last year Packer played host to Robert De Niro, with whom he shares an interest in a Caribbean resort development and restaurant chain Nobu.

Travolta, whose wife Kelly Preston died of cancer in 2020 at 57, was sighted with Packer’s best mate, perennial master of ceremonies Ben Tilley.

On May 14, the Pulp Fiction star paid tribute to Preston on his social media account on Mother’s Day: “Happy Mother’s Day Kelly. We miss you and love you.”

Travolta who joined the Church of Scientology in 1975, has long been one of the organisation’s most famous members.

Wife Kelly, who he met in 1987, was also a Scientologist.

But within a year of Preston’s death, reports emerged Travolta was “breaking away” from the Church of Scientology.

Packer reportedly quit Scientology after his father Kerry died in 2005, prompting the question: have the two men forged a bond on the other side of LR Hubbard’s realm?