Last month, ABC bosses urged their staff to get off Twitter to escape “trolls”.
But some senior staff at Aunty are doing a bit of Twitter trolling themselves. And from what Diary hears, one post in particular could cause blowback for the ABC in this week’s Senate Estimates.
Laura Tingle — ABC 7.30’s chief political correspondent — somehow turned a simple fond farewell post to Aunty’s departing 30-year veteran Philippa McDonald into a political rant attacking a “smug” Scott Morrison and “government ideological bastardry”.
Unfortunately for Tingle, timing is everything. That tweet came a few days after the BBC announced what it dubbed an “imminent” new policy: the ability to discipline BBC staff if they aren’t “impartial” on Twitter. This policy could be a big problem for some at the ABC if implemented here.
The tweet from Tingle, who with Andrew Probyn is one of Aunty’s two daily pillars of political reporting, began by praising a tribute video posted by McDonald: “What a legend … It is what mere journalistic mortals aspire to.”
Things would have been dandy if she’d ended it there. But Tingle rounded it out with a savage burn for the government. “We grieve the loss of so many of our colleagues to government ideological bastardry. Hope you are feeling smug @ScottMorrisonMP.”
That’s one way to get ScoMo to call!
The tweet was subsequently deleted, but not before Tingle had attracted thousands of Twitter likes. Tingle hurriedly issued a watered-down replacement tweet the next day to celebrate McDonald’s “stellar career” — this time with no government or ScoMo abuse. Some of Tingle’s 156,000 followers disapproved, with one stating: “Damn, I liked the other tweet better” and another asking: “Thumb screws applied overnight?”
The deleted tweet was, of course, duly noted by the government and ABC, ahead of Wednesday’s ABC Senate Estimates hearing. Especially when, days later, Aunty cameraman Lincoln Rothall also got into hot water by writing in a newsroom “all staff” email that COVID-19 should win a Nobel prize “if it killed (George) Pell”. In that case, the ABC said his comments were “unacceptable”, and “dealt with under the appropriate procedures”.
There was no such direct action on Tingle’s tweet. But in the UK, BBC director general Tim Davie has just revealed strict new rules for staff to be impartial on Twitter — even allowing him to take staff off the platform altogether.
“The enforcement policies will be very clear: we’ll be able to take disciplinary action, we’ll be able to take people off Twitter,” he says.
Could David Anderson be asked to implement the BBC Twitter policy in Australia? Diary reckons Senate Estimates could get very lively indeed.
Emma and Mal feud ends over Glad
The years-long feud between the ABC’s ex-chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici and former PM Malcolm Turnbull finally appears to be over. Their common ground? Gladys Berejiklian.
Turnbull went on RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly last Tuesday to say of Berejiklian: “Leaders of her calibre are not easily found”, and “Is she the first woman to be let down by a guy? I don’t think so.”
That met with an enthusiastic response from pro-Gladys Alberici, who sent out a tweet, copying in Turnbull’s Twitter handle, quoting the ex-PM, with the message: “Well said.”
Turnbull responded by re-tweeting Alberici quoting him. It was a full-on Emma and Mal mutual admiration society — but it hasn’t always been that way.
Until last week, Alberici and Turnbull had nursed a grudge in common that dated back to February 2018, over Turnbull’s key role in a bid by former ABC chair Justin Milne to sack Alberici over perceived “bias” in her now-famous disputed corporate tax story and analysis piece. The ABC later found the pieces contained several errors.
A furious Turnbull had complained about them direct to Milne, who it later emerged unsuccessfully tried to instruct Aunty’s then-managing director Michelle Guthrie to sack Alberici over them.
Fast forward 2½ years to August 21 this year, the day of Alberici’s final ABC departure, and she was still firing off shots about Turnbull’s behaviour on the 2018 stories, accusing him of being a “bully”.
“Just cos you bully people doesn’t make you correct and others not,” she wrote.
“The countless letters you sent to the ABC were ridiculous and unbecoming of a PM.”
Turnbull curtly replied: “Pointing out factual errors in a journalist’s work is not bullying, and even more so when the errors were later acknowledged.”
Now the common cause of saving Berejiklian has done the seemingly impossible: bringing a warring Turnbull and Alberici together.
When Gladys met Ben
The Sunday Telegraph met with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Saturday for a sympathetic first interview since the momentous events of last week, near a Sydney lower north shore cafe.
But Diary hears the Sunday Telegraph’s Annette Sharp, who did the interview, wasn’t the only prominent media presence in the vicinity.
Ben Fordham, 2GB’s breakfast successor to Alan Jones, was spied at the cafe chatting to Gladys just before the interview.
Were the two catch-ups related? Fordham says the pair simply “bumped” into each other, related only to the fact that they live in the same general neighbourhood.
“I did bump into her just before she was doing her interview with the Sunday Telegraph yesterday,” he told Diary on Sunday. “I’m a very approachable bloke.”
Was the meet-up prearranged, we asked? “I don’t feel the need to explain my movements. You never know — I might even have been trying to line up an interview.”
2GB’s Great Divide
Still on Ben Fordham, the new 2GB had its first real opinion divide among its two most important presenters last week.
Breakfast and morning hosts Fordham and Ray Hadley were poles apart in their views on the future of Gladys Berejiklian, following her shock ICAC evidence last week.
Fordham was all Team Gladys, saying that she had done nothing wrong and must stay as Premier. But Hadley was about as different as you can get: adamantly stating that her reign over NSW was now terminal.
How did the pair handle their differences? By calmly discussing their divergent viewpoints, both with station bosses and each other.
Fordham tells Diary: “Ray and I have discussed it on air and off air. It’s a good thing. My view is I haven’t personally seen a smoking gun, and I don’t think we should be losing her. A healthy station is one where you can have different views, and I know some of our listeners agree with that.”
Hadley is also relaxed about their differing opinions: “I said to management: ‘He’s entitled to his opinion. We’re not always going to be on the same page.’ Maybe by Monday, I might be proven wrong — but I might be proven right and she might be gone.”
Leigh’s ‘Daryls’
Today, Diary makes a bold prediction: the name “Daryl” is about to become the male version of “Karen”. Leigh Sales, host of 7.30, certainly seems to think so, after the name took over national headlines last week with news of the six-year relationship between Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire. From Sales’ perspective, the name Daryl has fast become a metaphor for strong women drawn to “losers and idiots”.
Asked by ABC Sydney drive host Richard Glover about whether every woman “had their Daryl”, she replied: “Yeah, exactly. I have! … And it’s also not an uncommon story. The one that sprang to my mind was Huma Abedin, who was Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff and who was married to (disgraced former US politician) Anthony Weiner.”
Sales hinted she had a very personal understanding of Berejiklian’s experience: “A lot of us have dated losers and idiots … Among women, there’s sympathy, and a lot of us have been asking each other: ‘Why do strong, confident women like us sometimes end up with losers?’” Or for that matter, Daryls?
MKR dumped as Shark takes on MAFS
Greg Norman in. Manu, Pete and Colin out.
That’s right, Diary can exclusively reveal that Seven will take the huge gamble of pitting Holey Moley — a glitzy new golf show described by the network as an “oversized game of putt putt” — against the might of Nine’s Married At First Sight in the 7.30pm slot at the start of next year.
We’re told the bold move to kick off Seven’s new year with the Great White Shark and putt putt, replacing My Kitchen Rules, will be announced this week at the network’s upfronts.
So will the combo of the Norman, Sonia Kruger and Matt Shirvington hosting mega-sized mini golf on a Ninja Warrior-like obstacle course be any match for the country’s most popular TV show? Anything’s possible. Holey Moley is already filmed, the early buzz is strong, and Seven will promote the hell out of it during the summer of cricket — if it hangs on to the cricket rights, of course.
So where does the rise of mega minigolf leave MKR, Seven’s go-to show to kick off the ratings year for 11 straight years since 2010?
The official Seven response is “resting”. That’s TV speak for “unlikely to return” — although stranger things have happened.
MKR’s disappearance from the 2021 schedule follows a nightmare few years of the show being roundly thrashed by MAFS, giving Nine early-year ratings dominance.
It also leaves Seven with plenty of cooks and no cooking competitions, with ratings dud Plate of Origin (or POO) to be “rested” as well. So Seven’s super-sized roster of food masters, including Manu Feildel, Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and Colin Fassnidge, are on the backburner for now.
Thankfully for Seven, it is burning less money on chefs after cutting Pete Evans loose. These days, the only cooking Pete’s doing is reheating kooky COVID-19 conspiracies on social media.
Pete Stefanovic takes 3-2 lead over Karl
Sibling rivalry over news events can get pretty intense when you’re the Stefanovics.
Baby bro and Sky News breakfast presenter Peter is about to one-up his famous big brother on an important score: the number of US presidential election campaigns covered.
He flew to the US on the weekend to cover the combustible Trump/Biden contest.
This is his third tour of duty in the battle for the White House, having covered Barack Obama sweeping to power in 2008 and Donald Trump’s triumph in 2016. That compares with just two campaigns for Karl: George W. Bush’s second election win in 2004 and Trump’s win.
Karl wanted to head over this time, because he misses his strength of covering live breaking news events.
But Diary hears Nine doesn’t want Karl interrupting the Today show’s momentum, just when it has started gaining in the ratings. That momentum also wouldn’t be helped by him serving two weeks of quarantine on the way back.
So that decision leaves baby bro Pete leading the US election count 3-2 — and doesn’t he know it. “I’m ahead already,” he quips.
Johns’ SEN double act
Talk is running wild that rugby league’s most famous brothers will finally be reunited on air.
Diary has learnt Craig Hutchison’s SEN radio network has been in down-to-the-wire talks with NRL immortal Andrew Johns to pair him with Matty Johns on his new weekly Friday mornings hosting gig on SEN 1170 in Sydney.
We’re told the aim is to sign up Andrew in time for his brother’s very first show this Friday — the day after SEN 1170 rises like a phoenix from the ashes of 2CH on the AM dial at 6am on Thursday.
No more cuts: Aunty’s hiring spree
Was the ABC’s recent round of redundancies a program of genuine cuts — or did it have a deeper purpose: clearing the way for Aunty to hire the people it really wanted for the future? That question could well come up at Wednesday’s Senate Estimates hearing attended by ABC managing director David Anderson.
While Labor is likely to blame the 250 job cuts on the ABC’s government funding freeze, the government may take a look at the generous number of jobs available at Aunty as of last week.
Diary’s trawl through the ABC careers portal on Friday found no fewer than 24 jobs advertised — 18 of them in Sydney. Not an obvious sign of an organisation in full cutting mode.
Certainly, there have been plenty of jobs advertised in recent months — despite the redundancies of the likes of Emma Alberici, Philippa McDonald, Karen Percy and Andrew Geoghegan.
The jobs available rose last week, and ranged from a chief of staff for the ABC’s Asia-Pacific newsroom to a news and digital producer for 7.30, and several reporting roles. There have also been many top-level ABC executives hired since the start of September, well after the ABC in June started telling staff they were to be made redundant.
In the past six weeks alone, the ABC has unveiled Jennifer Collins as head of factual and culture, Lee Glendinning, a former Guardian executive editor, to lead delivery of regional and local content, and ex-BBC Studios executive Roberta Allan as head of content distribution. None come cheap.
Ten’s US ‘toecutters’
As far as glitzy TV launches go, Ten’s kick-off of its 2021 program slate last week was about as flat as it gets. Along with a paltry three new shows, none likely ratings blockbusters, many of Ten’s 2020 programs are now endangered species.
Wallabies rugby internationals are up in the air, Dancing with the Stars and Bachelor in Paradise were axed, and no mention of whether Junior MasterChef, Trial by Kyle, or Drunk History are coming back.
Diary is told it’s all about money. CBS took over Ten in 2017 — and for two years the US TV giant threw money at programs and parties. But when CBS merged with Viacom at the end of last year to form US media mega-conglomerate ViacomCBS, the partying dried up.
Unluckily for Ten, it’s in a division of ViacomCBS that also includes the UK and Israel. And Diary can reveal that toecutters have issued one simple instruction to executives: “Cut costs by 10-15 per cent EVERY year, or you won’t get your bonuses.” Brutal!
That means this year’s axing of jobs in Ten’s newsrooms and Studio 10 was the start — but definitely not the end.
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