Chris Uhlmann has big shoes to fill as Channel Nine’s new chief political editor after Laurie Oakes
CHANNEL Nine’s new political reporter Chris Uhlmann is likely to more than double his $255,400 pay packet by leaving the ABC after 20 years.
NSW
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CHANNEL Nine’s new political reporter Chris Uhlmann is likely to more than double his $255,400 pay packet by leaving the ABC after 20 years.
Uhlmann is stepping into Nine legend Laurie Oakes’s shoes determined to maintain the straight-shooting style that has upset so many people — and that suits his bosses just fine.
“I am not tripling my pay. But for those senators who are interested in ABC pay, I am getting paid more than I was at the ABC,” he said.
The 57-year-old said following in Oakes’s footsteps was working “in the shadow of an icon” and that he was committed to delivering quality journalism to a big 6pm audience.
Nine’s director of news and current affairs, Darren Wick, said: “People have accused him of being far too right wing or far too left wing and that suits me just fine.
“I think he is independent and right down the middle. No one in management told Laurie what to do and that is what we are getting with Chris.”
The report went viral with NBC calling it “a searing assessment” and the Huffington Post UK describing it as a “savage take-down of Donald Trump”.
“If I knew how to make that work again I would do it every night,” said Uhlmann, who is married to federal Labor MP Gai Brodtmann. The couple wanted children but could not have them.
He entered a Catholic seminary at 17 to train to be a priest but ended up a political journalist instead. “I am deeply indebted to the ABC, they gave me the best opportunities of my life so far,” he said.
His reporting has upset many. Crikey’s Gary Rundle criticised Uhlmann for his report on the Australian Secret Intelligence Service’s Nick Warner, who was supporting the Philippines’ controversial President Rodrigo Duterte.
“Uhlmann’s defence is everything we’ve come to expect from this Christian happy-clappy and ex-trainee priest — sentimentalist and engorged with fantasy,” sneered Rundle.
But Uhlmann’s friend and co-author of three political thrillers, Steve Lewis, said his critics were “living in la la land”.
“People who openly criticise Chris Uhlmann and claim that he is a right-wing god botherer do not know him and likely have never met him. They have no real understanding of the real world when it comes to intelligence and how that plays out with countries like the Philippines.
“Uhlmann has built the most impressive network of high-level contacts that most journalists can only dream of,” he said.
Uhlmann also sailed into a storm of criticism when he said South Australia’s reliance on wind power was linked to the power blackout.
The ABC received 180 comments and complaints about his coverage. Renew Economy journalist Giles Parkinson asked if the reporter was the “new face of the anti-wind lobby” while New Matilda’s Ben Eltham said he had “distorted” the ABC’s coverage.
Uhlmann did not back off, Tweeting that critics of wind power should not be “burned as heretics”. That response, he wrote, “should keep the pitchfork crowd busy for days”.
His ABC colleagues support him. 7.30 host Leigh Sales said: “Chris has a huge amount of courage as a journalist and he’s a genuine independent thinker.
“He never pulls his punches. Some people don’t like that and I think he’s often come in for undeserved criticism that has been really nasty and excessive,” she said.
“I love the bloke dearly and I think he’s a brilliant journo.”
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