Media Diary: ‘You’re still obsessed. Get over it’: PM’s message to Neil Mitchell
After conceding he picks up the prime ministerial pooch’s poo, the PM then arked up after being pushed by Melbourne broadcaster Neil Mitchell on his continuing closeness to ex-Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.
Covid lockdowns are, thankfully, receding further in the rear view mirror with every passing day. But the ill-feeling between Melbourne broadcaster Neil Mitchell and former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, which worsened during the pandemic, has not subsided.
Andrews famously black-banned Mitchell, refusing to appear on his program from 2017 through until the radio host’s departure from 3AW in December 2023.
And Mitchell isn’t letting go.
During an interview last week with Anthony Albanese, Mitchell – now the host of his own podcast, titled Neil Mitchell Asks Why – pushed the PM on his continuing closeness to Andrews, who has been drafted to assist his old friend with preparation for the upcoming election debates.
“I just can’t get over Daniel Andrews,” Mitchell put to Albo, as the 90-minute podcast was winding up.
That was enough to enliven the Prime Minister, who to that point had been relatively sedate throughout his chat with Mitchell.
“You’re still obsessed by him, Neil. Get over it! Get over it,” the exasperated PM implored Mitchell.
“He’s retired as premier and you’ve retired from 3AW. Move on mate. Move on.”
Mitchell then suggested that he, Albanese and Andrews should have dinner together.
“I can go and make sure that the cutlery is plastic,” the PM proffered.
“That would be a good idea,” Mitchell agreed.
Earlier, Mitchell probed Albanese on the big issues of the day, quizzing him on the toilet habits of the prime ministerial pooch, Toto.
Mitchell: “Who picks up the dog poo?”
Albo: “That’s my job.”
Mitchell: “Haven’t you got staff?”
Albo: “No I would never do that. I’m a working class kid from Camperdown and always will be. Never ask anybody to do something you won’t do yourself.”
The conversation then wandered into too-much-information territory, with the Prime Minister detailing Toto’s favourite place to go to the alfresco dunny in the gardens of The Lodge.
“You really like this dog, don’t you,” Mitchell put to the PM.
“I love this dog,” Albo gushed.
ABC news chief’s email snark
ABC news director Justin Stevens did his best last week to set the record straight about big bad News Corp and its pesky journalists, who, you know, have the temerity to ask questions about the national broadcaster that attracts more than $1bn in taxpayer funding every year.
During a Senate estimates hearing at Parliament House last Tuesday, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young asked Stevens about how the national broadcaster dealt with News Corp’s coverage of the ABC.
Stevens didn’t skip a beat in his response. It was as if he knew what the question was going to be before Hanson-Young had even asked it!
“I can confirm that News Limited do have a strange obsession with taking scrutiny beyond scrutiny and regularly agitating against the work of our journalists,” Stevens told the hearing.
“We’re flooded with their interest, but despite the very small readership, we do engage and respond to a lot of their queries quite regularly.”
Hmm, that’s strange. Because in our experience, the ABC’s “engagement” with News Corp (publisher of this masthead) isn’t quite as helpful as Stevens makes out.
Just three weeks ago, for example, Diary put a series of straightforward questions to the ABC about its handling of an editorial matter – specifically, the decision to remove a contentious article by Four Corners journalist Louise Milligan from its website.
Admittedly, we sent our email to the ABC at 1.10pm on a Sunday, which may have disrupted the sacred lunch hour, but we were somewhat taken aback by the snarky response from Stevens, who took issue with the fact that “you regularly interrupt our staff almost every single weekend with questions”.
Guilty as charged!
We do, indeed, ask questions … and sometimes our curiosity even strikes us on the weekend.
We can only assume that ABC journalists also ask questions on weekends?
At least, we hope they do, because that’s their job.
Anyway, Stevens gave us a good old-fashioned whack for our weekendus interruptus, and was particularly aggrieved that we’d sent a follow-up email two hours after our initial approach was ignored by the ABC’s gatekeepers.
“You will have a further response to this latest query but there is no need for the ungracious chest beating about it,” Stevens wrote, while also requesting that we “shed the unnecessary grandstanding”.
Now, Stevens’ combative style doesn’t bother us at all.
In fact, we kinda like it. Keeps things interesting.
But it’s a bit bloody rich for him to tell the Senate that the ABC is routinely open and transparent with News Corp journalists about matters pertaining to the taxpayer-funded broadcaster.
Because it simply ain’t true.
Not sheer gold
Triple M presenter Marty Sheargold committed a grave error last week when delivering his unvarnished view of the state of the Australian women’s soccer team.
His biggest mistake? Not being funny.
For those that missed it, Sheargold lost his highly paid radio gig after he took aim at the Matildas’ poor performance at an international tournament, the SheBelieves Cup, held in the US.
Among other things, he compared the team of professionals to “bitch(y)” schoolgirls.
Comedians can get away with a lot, provided they can deliver laughs, but Sheargold’s crude take-down sounded like the lazy ramblings of a tired, know-it-all dinosaur sitting in the front bar, and lacked any biting wit which may have muted some of the public outrage that led to him “parting ways” with his employer.
In the aftermath of his on-air remarks, media commentators lined up to give Sheargold a belting on his way out the door.
One of the presenters on The Project, Georgie Tunny, said the Matildas were “not above reproach, but what they are above is disrespect”, citing the team’s historic run to the World Cup semi-finals in 2023, and the record TV ratings that they drew at the time.
Channel 7 presenter Mel McLaughlin said during the network’s Wednesday evening bulletin that Sheargold’s remarks were “bizarre and pathetic”, and also referenced the fact that the Matildas’ “sold-out stadiums continue to speak volumes”.
On Nine, Olympian Cate Campbell said the Triple M host’s comments were “disgusting, revolting … and demeaned women’s sports”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also weighed in on Sheargold’s rant, describing it as “completely unacceptable”.
“The Tillies are just legends,” the PM said, meaninglessly.
On Sunday, the host of the ABC’s Offsiders program, Abbey Gelmi, opened the show by decrying Sheargold’s “misogynistic rant disparaging a beloved national women’s football team”.
“The fallout left us wondering just how to feel about the whole saga: sadness, that people with such demeaning attitudes will still argue that women’s sport is a joke, or relief that we’ve come so far that the shock jock was soon out of a job.”
Diary is not suggesting any of the above media commentary on Sheargold is necessarily unfair; indeed, the progress of women’s sport and the exposure that it now receives in this country is an absolute triumph, and something Australia should be proud of.
But some of the Sheargold outrage feels confected – certainly, the idea that the Matildas deserve “respect” simply because they performed well at the World Cup 18 months ago –doesn’t wash.
There’s also been an inconsistency to some of the media commentary surrounding Sheargold.
For example, just one month ago, respected cricket writer Gideon Haigh appeared on Offsiders and offered this assessment of the English women’s cricket team’s performance in a Test match against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
“Probably the worst team ever to be gifted a Test match at the MCG,” Haigh said of the English women’s team.
“What is objectively obvious is that their skills are deficient in every faculty.”
Aspects of the English team’s approach to the game were “total bullshit”, Haigh said.
Worst team ever?! Deficient in every faculty?!
Hang on, Gideon, they won the World Cup in 2017, and drew massive crowds along the way! Where’s the respect?
Just by way of observation, Haigh’s brutal (but arguably fair) assessment generated barely a ripple in the wider media.
The Outrage Dial didn’t move a smidge.
We wonder what might have happened had it been a jokey Sheargold, not Haigh, who made the comments about the Poms.
Of course, the worst thing that could happen as a result of this furore is if the Matildas, and other women’s sporting teams, are somehow protected from legitimate criticism and scrutiny because journalists – and yes, comedians – are too scared of the potential backlash.
That would set women’s sport back much further than a misguided attempt at humour by a talking head on FM radio.
Fitzy’s howler
Perhaps the most egregious example of hypocrisy that the Sheargold matter delivered came courtesy of Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons.
Fitz tut-tutted his disbelief that Sheargold “went that far over the line, with seemingly no clue that he was falling into the abyss, and why even his co-hosts seemed so completely clueless”.
And to bolster his argument, FitzSimons cited his own days in radio working alongside Doug Mulray and Mike Carlton.
“Their genius was to find the line, the cliff edge – and then they’d stand right on the edge, and nary blink nor waver for whole minutes in unscripted comments that brought happy punters in and kept the howling mobs, and lawyers, at bay. Both did it for decades, and never fell into the abyss,” the SMH veteran wrote.
Wow. As FitzSimons well knows, his great mate Carlton has been dwelling at the bottom of the abyss for years, thanks to his litany of disgraceful social media posts, including multiple anti-Semitic slurs.
Indeed, Carlton left the SMH in 2014 after he was chastised by then editor Darren Goodsir for abusing readers. Cliff edge, anyone?
For FitzSimons to cite Carlton’s “genius” as an example of how Sheargold got it all so wrong is mind-blowing.
Reality bites for chief
Nine’s interim CEO Matt Stanton has now been the fill-in guy for more than five months, as the company’s ridiculously long “global search” for its new top dog rolls on.
According to insiders, Stanton is still the favourite to get the nod as the next CEO, but senior figures within the joint have begun to question the strategy of the board, which is doggedly clinging to its “No Rush” mantra relating to the appointment.
Stanton delivered the company’s half-yearly results last week, and deftly avoided analysts’ numerous questions about CoStar’s $2.7bn takeover bid for Nine’s real estate platform Domain, even though it was the only thing that anyone wanted to ask about.
(“We will consider the CoStar proposal with a focus on the best interests of Nine shareholders,” in case you’re wondering.)
When Diary chatted to Stanton after the announcement of Nine’s results, we asked if he was frustrated by the drawn-out process of appointing the next CEO.
“These processes do take quite a bit of time … the board is committed to the search,” he said.
“So look, I’m just getting on with the job.”
But Stanton added that he didn’t feel like his past five months in the role had been an “audition” for the full-time job.
“Hopefully I’m successful,” he said of his chances.
Gravy plane
A fortnight ago, Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields scorched the NSW government for its association with the UFC and its boss, Dana White. He was so disgusted that NSW Premier Chris Minns had appeared on businessman Mark Bouris’s podcast with White that he emailed the SMH’s subscribers to declare that the conversation had made him “physically sick”.
It prompted an entertaining response from White after UFC312 at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena two days later, when he branded Shields a “wimp”.
White sat with NRL supremo Peter V’landys at the UFC event in Sydney and subsequently promoted rugby league’s four-match showcase in Las Vegas with a series of social media posts. And White offered the NRL further assistance last week, with the NRL teams who were part of the Las Vegas event allowed to train at the UFC’s high-performance centre.
One can only assume Shields will be penning another broadside at the NRL and V’landys for partnering with the UFC for its event in Sin City.
Or would that be biting the hand that feeds? Last week, Shields travelled to Las Vegas as a guest of the NRL for the second year running, along with editors and reporters from various mastheads, including those owned by News Corp.
Kyle and Jackie probes
The KIISFM breakfast show hosted by Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson is currently facing not one, not two, not three, but four investigations in relation to breaches of the commercial radio code of practice, as it relates to broadcasting sexually explicit content and standards of decency.
Nerida O’Loughlin, the chair of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, told the Senate last week of “a number” of investigations into the Kyle and Jackie O show relating to ARN’s Sydney and Melbourne KIIS licences 106.5 and 101.1.
Diary went digging and discovered the first two investigations are nearing completion – these relate to a complaint alleging a June 2024 broadcast contained sexually explicit content, and the fact that a response was not received from the Melbourne broadcast licensee as required by the commercial radio code of practice.
Two further investigations are considering the broader compliance of both the Melbourne and Sydney licensees of the program, including possible systemic issues in relation to the decency and complaint-handling provisions of the code.
As to when we might learn about the findings of these possible code breaches, ACMA says the investigations into the June 2024 broadcast are expected to be finalised in coming weeks, and the report will be published shortly afterwards.
Speaking to Diary about what a plan B might be for ARN if, for whatever reason, their current KIIS breakfast show might have to come off air, CEO Ciaran Davis said: “There’s not many people around the world who can produce the style of content they do.
“We are working very hard with some of our regional people or we could look internationally.”
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