It’s ‘dirty washing day’: Nine’s cultural entrails laid bare

Thursday, October 17, 2024 will be forever known as “dirty washing day” at Nine Entertainment.

It’s the day the bonnet was lifted on the culture of the country’s largest media company, showing it’s a less than well-oiled machine.

There is a certain discomfort in writing about one’s own employer, but not because it shouldn’t be subject to scrutiny.

Apologist in chief: Nine’s interim CEO Matt Stanton.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Rather, it has a certain glass house feel to it. Our mastheads, radio and television stations regularly expose the poor culture or misdeeds of other organisations, and while it is our obligation to also expose Nine’s own shortcomings, it opens the door to a further level of criticism.

Nine had little choice but to get to the bottom of a previously underestimated toxic culture inside its walls.

The iceberg was exposed earlier this year, when Nine’s broadcast division was rocked by allegations its former news boss Darren Wick had behaved inappropriately towards a female staff member. It got larger when other allegations followed.

Nine had become its own headline.

Ultimately, the company adopted the same strategic playbook followed by so many scandal-affected corporations – think AMP and its sexual harassment snafu, or Rio Tinto and its cave dynamite.

It looked for heads on spikes. In any organisation, the buck stops with the board and the chief executive.

It is no accident that now-departed CEO Mike Sneesby and the board decided there was a need for a “transition leadership” last month, with Sneesby under intense pressure after the Wick explosion.

Former chairman Peter Costello was also feeling his share of the heat. He left the boardroom “kitchen” in June after allegedly ramming past a journalist at Canberra Airport.

And no corporate scandal these days is complete without an independent report from an external source that delves into the ugly and often shocking detail of transgressions, and then provides a path for remediation.

The findings on Nine were unsurprisingly brutal. In the broadcast division, for example, 57 per cent of staff had experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment. The report also noted that perpetrators had not been dealt with, and leaders had attempted to cover up inappropriate behaviour.

Perhaps even more disturbing is that, while 30 per cent of staff in the broadcast division experienced sexual harassment, that’s pretty much the national average across all industries.

The next element of the corporate scandal playbook is to find corporate heroes – a leader who can be a “cleanskin” and able to reform its culture.

Interim chief executive Matt Stanton, who held a number of sessions with staff on the release of the review’s findings, looked like he was auditioning for that role.

He is taking the role of chief apologist on behalf of the company, and as future protector of its staff.

Nine is going through the process of finding a long-term replacement for Sneesby, so Stanton will have to contend with competitors for that role, both internal and from outside the company.

The final chapter of the scandal playbook will be the mea culpa roadshow, in which executives and the board must explain and apologise for the company’s shortcomings to other stakeholders, including shareholders, advertisers and readers/listeners/watchers of its brands.

But a fresh approach to its culture won’t be enough to keep shareholders happy after a financial year that saw its net profit slump 22 per cent on the back of a 3 per cent fall in revenue.

In a tough advertising environment, the company remains under pressure to cut costs despite making 85 publishing journalists redundant in August.

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