Crisis management specialist Greg Baxter joins Nine’s ‘rescue team’ over 60 Minutes scandal

CRISIS management specialist Greg Baxter has been hired to help ease Nine’s public relations pain over the 60 Minutes scandal.

CHANNEL 9 has hired experienced crisis management specialist Greg Baxter to advise the network over its 60 Minutes child snatch saga.

Mr Baxter, a partner at Newgate Australia — a spin doctor agency which guides companies through public relations disasters and their impact on shareholder confidence — joined Nine’s ‘rescue’ team last Monday, supporting a core management team including CEO Hugh Marks, publicity director Victoria Buchan, news boss Darren Wick and 60 Minutes embattled executive producer, Kirsty Thomson.

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The focus of his role, in the first instance, he said “was to provide more arms and legs” (manpower) to cope with the monumental scale of media interest; while offering strategic advice on government relations, both in Australia and overseas.

“I certainly haven’t worked on a story where people are (jailed) like this in a foreign country, but on issues that are really complex and very challenging, where you are sort between a rock and a hard place,” he told News Corp Australia.

60 Minute executive producer Kirsty Thomson is part of the Nine ‘rescue’ team.

60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown is locked up in a Beirut prison after the incident.

Nine’s response has been dictated by the tenuous legal situation their four staffers — reporter Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David ‘Tangles’ Ballment — find themselves in Lebanon, where contact has been extremely limited since their detention on April 6.

Mr Wick has been on the ground in Beirut since last Sunday, liaising with a Lebanese legal team and security specialist, Sallie Stone; however, it is understood all contact with those detained has not allowed for a thorough, private debrief.

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The Nine CEO told staff he would not launch a formal investigation into the current affair crew’s involvement in the botched child recovery mission until “everybody is back in Australia.”

Baxter, a seasoned communications veteran, was previously employed by building supplies manufacturer, James Hardie at the height of the company’s asbestos scandal.

More recently he provided strategic advice to radio giant Southern Cross Austereo, rehabilitating the brand after the many scandals associated with its former Kyle And Jackie O breakfast show and the 2DayFM royal nurse prank.

He was also the director of corporate affairs at News Limited until 2012.

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