The Taeuber sisters sacked by Seven in 2017 are ready to speak in new podcast
They were the pretty sisters who lost their jobs as reporters at Channel 7 after alleging sexual harassment by a male colleague.Now Amy and Sophie Taeuber have bounced back from the trauma of their ordeal with a new business and new podcast.
They were the pretty sisters who lost their jobs as reporters at Channel 7 after alleging sexual harassment by a male colleague in Seven’s Adelaide newsroom.
Now, three years on, Amy and Sophie Taeuber, bosses of their own thriving South Australian PR agency, have released a new podcast. It is one they hope will empower others facing similar career crises to fight back or those who are simply interested in eavesdropping on the pair and their under-the-radar triplet sister, Kate, as they gossip about the latest trends obsessing them.
The podcast, called Outspoken The Podcast, is bound to interest and possibly make nervous
lawyers at Seven who worked feverishly in 2016-17 to shut down widespread media interest in the women’s dismissals.
Although Seven, in the face of evidence to the contrary, denied sacking Amy over her harassment complaint, claiming it was related to a “breach of contract” over her use of social media — something she denied — the television broadcaster ended up fronting up to a Fair Work Commission tribunal in February 2017 and settling an adverse action claim lodged on Amy’s behalf by Sydney workplace lawyer John Laxon.
It represented a small win for Amy — and Sophie, who lodged no claim — in their David and Goliath battle with the famously bullish broadcasting organisation.
Today, not even a non-disclosure agreement with Seven, signed by Amy, is going to stop the feisty Taeuber women from “rising from the ashes”, as they say in their podcast, and shed light on the siblings’ extraordinary story.
They also hope their production, which was recorded in the private Adelaide production studio of their business, The PR Bible, will acknowledge the support of a covert “sisterhood” of women who also battled unfair dismissal cases in the industry and were roused to action and reached out to Amy and Sophie when their story first started to stir in media circles in 2016.
The first woman Amy wants to acknowledge for getting her through the ordeal though is Sophie, with whom she now runs The PR Bible, with clients ranging from Volleyball SA to Real Housewives Of Melbourne star Gamble Breaux, and a host of shopping precincts and home loan providers in between.
“If you have to go through such a thing — losing your job, legally fighting back, being in the media spotlight, rebuilding — it’s good to have a sister to go through it with. We had each other and we could help each other out,” Amy said.
“That relationship helped us get through our darkest period.”
The new podcast doesn’t shrink from the story of their dismissal from Seven and begins with a well-packaged recap of media coverage of their battle which started in July 2016 when Amy was sacked after complaining to her Seven news bosses concerning an older male colleague who had allegedly made sexual remarks about her.
These included that she must be a lesbian because one in three women is and being told 27
was “over the hill” for a woman on television.
Soon after, Sophie, then a freelancer on Today Tonight on the same TV network, was also suspended by Seven never to be re-employed after backing her sister in the dispute.
Today Tonight reporter Rodney Lohse, then aged 42, (and first named by this columnist — as
the women remind me) later apologised for the alleged remarks but kept his job.
In their first podcast episode, now available in the Apple store, Sophie introduces the episode by laying out the women’s grand plan: “Today’s topic is about rising from the ashes and how to overcome your darkest days.”
As she told this column last week: “Righting a wrong can make you feel a whole lot better.”
Episode two will be released
next week and the women know Seven’s hawkish lawyers will undoubtably be among their new captive audience.
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