Nick Tabakoff
Nine presenter Amber Sherlock’s ‘divisive’ take on the Indigenous voice to parliament causes social media controversy
It’s still more than four months until the mooted October date for the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, but if one small story on the matter last week is any guide, there are plenty of controversies to come about how the voice is covered in the media.
The issue arose last Monday night in Nine’s national late news bulletin, delivered on this occasion by Amber Sherlock, who it’s safe to say is regarded as one of the network’s more colourful news personalities.
Sherlock was introducing a story on PM Anthony Albanese’s trip to Adelaide to deliver a keynote speech on the voice. But it didn’t take long for her introduction to cause ructions.
“The divisive voice to parliament has taken Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Adelaide tonight for a special keynote speech,” Sherlock started.
Eagle-eyed late night TV owls immediately picked up on Sherlock’s description of the voice as “divisive”, and posted it to Twitter within minutes.
Furious “yes” case supporters stampeded on to the social media platform to describe Sherlock’s description as “disgraceful” – even though she had gone on to note that Albanese’s speech on the voice had been “received very well”.
Demands started to emerge that Nine go on record to declare its corporate position on the voice in the wake of Sherlock’s words.
But it would also be fair to say Sherlock had her share of backers, with a number of “no” case supporters backing her description of the voice proposal as “divisive”. One respondent summed up the views of many: “It is divisive. Pretty much split right down the middle.”
Despite the claims and counterclaims on social media between “yes” and “no” case advocates, Nine’s news boss Darren Wick said his team had been “reminded about using emotive language when reporting news stories”.
It’s not the first time Sherlock has become the news, rather than simply reading it.
For those with long media memories, Sherlock was of course the presenter at the centre of the infamous Jacketgate affair which made national headlines back in January 2017.
Leaked footage out of Nine showed Sherlock telling off former sports reporter Julie Snook because she was wearing white.
“I need Julie to put a jacket on, because we‘re all in white,” Sherlock told Snook, with a third guest visibly wincing as the dressing down continued. “I asked her before we came on. Julie, you need to put a jacket on … Come on, I told you. I told you two hours ago.”
Sherlock later confessed that she “probably overreacted”.
How Nine celebrated the BRS verdict
The Nine camp’s formal celebration of its win in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case on Thursday night was an intimate affair, Diary is told.
The low-key dinner at up-market Italian diner Toppi at Sydney’s Martin Place was largely kept under wraps, attended by only a handful of Nine people, along with lawyers who helped the media group win the action.
Present from the Nine papers were the two principal authors of the articles at the heart of the so-called trial of the century, The Age’s Nick McKenzie and veteran investigative journalist Chris Masters. Others at the table were James Chessell, Nine’s publishing chief, and Tory Maguire, editor-in-chief of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, with key members of Nine’s legal team, including senior barrister Nicholas Owens SC and fellow Nine advocates Lyndelle Barnett and Chris Mitchell, and Nine’s in-house lawyers, rounding out the group.
We’re reliably informed that the legal eagles footed the bill.
One key absentee was Nine’s senior solicitor, Peter Bartlett of Minter Ellison – one of the country’s top defamation solicitors — who was on a rare holiday in Iceland when the judgment lobbed. The Minters team was instead represented by senior associate Dean Levitan, along with Tess McGuire and Jeremy Forbes.
We’re told the mood at the dinner was restrained. “It wasn’t a high-five day; it was a relief day,” one insider said.
Tears were shed and toasts were made for the most notable absentee from the night, the late barrister Sandy Dawson SC, who tragically died of brain cancer last November in the late stages of the five-year case, in which he also represented Nine.
It was noted at the private dinner on Thursday night that Dawson sat in on the case at times last year when he was gravely ill. He even appeared at the bar table in the Federal Court in Sydney next to Bartlett while Roberts-Smith was cross-examined.
Booze and Cheezels with Mike Sneesby
Back at Nine’s corporate headquarters in North Sydney, it was the company’s relieved CEO Mike Sneesby – with the prospect of recouping some of the millions he’s spent on legal fees defending Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation action – who led two hours of celebrations along with Nine publishing boss James Chessell at the SMH’s sixth-floor conference room.
We’re told The Age’s investigative reporter Nick McKenzie looked somewhat embarrassed by a standing ovation from colleagues as he entered the building after returning from the Federal Court around 4pm.
But who was the mystery “woman attached to the Nine camp” who Sydney’s Daily Telegraph overheard ordering “three cases of beer, half a dozen bottles of sauvignon blanc or rose, half a dozen bottles of prosecco, and some Cheezels” for the celebration?
Turns out it was a very senior member of the “camp” – Tory Maguire, the editor-in-chief of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – who made the hastily-arranged drinks and snacks order.
And as one newsroom insider pointed out, the fact that Cheezels and booze had to be ordered on the day was a sign there was no pre-planned victory celebration: “This wasn’t triumphalism, but overwhelming relief. Of course the newsroom had to come together. It was a feeling that this was a five-year court case for the whole company that finally had some resolution.”
ScoMo signs book deal with mega Christian publisher
A new book to be penned by former prime minister (and more recently, backbencher) Scott Morrison is set to move well beyond the world of Australian politics to be largely targeted at the lucrative US Christian market, Diary is told.
Morrison revealed through the federal parliament’s Registry of Member’s Interests 10 days ago that he had received a “royalties advance” from an international Christian publishing behemoth.
Insiders say the location of the headquarters of the book brand, Harper Collins Christian Publishing, in Nashville, Tennessee – at the very the heart of America’s Bible Belt – offers a big clue to the intended market for Morrison’s book.
Diary is told that rather than being a memoir about his political career, Morrison’s book will aim to have broader appeal to an international Christian audience. The pitch for Morrison’s opus, we’re told, will be along the lines of “how faith in God helped one of the few openly Pentecostal leaders on the world stage to get through some of his toughest times”.
Morrison’s thoughts on religion are likely to attract plenty of interest in religious publishing, at a time when Christian literature is booming in the US.
The size of the religious books market in the US raced up to more than $1.2bn in 2022: up nearly 50 per cent on just five years ago, driven predominantly by Christian publishing.
There will still be key insights into Morrison’s time as PM – most notably including managing Australia through the pandemic – but as one insider told Diary, politics will take a back seat to his faith.
“It won’t be a traditional political memoir,” the source said.
There are clues to some of the likely material in the book from a few much-discussed thoughts that Morrison has already put on record about faith and politics.
In Christians, a book of interviews on the religious beliefs of several prominent Australians by this newspaper’s foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, Morrison recounted that as a Christian, the human consequences of individual decisions under his tough border control policies had him in tears. “Do I search my soul and spirit when I make a tough decision? Yes. The Bible is not a policy book. I do believe I did the right thing, it’s not that God made me do it,” he told Sheridan.
At another point in the Sheridan book, Morrison told of the judgments made of his faith by others in politics.
“One former politician on a plane gave me a gobful about my faith and my decisions,” the former PM revealed. “I said to him, you can judge my policies as a Liberal, and you can judge their efficacy. You can’t judge my relationship with God.”
Perhaps the most discussed comments Morrison made about his faith came two months after he lost the federal election, when he gave a sermon to Perth’s Victory Life Centre, the Pentecostal Church run by former tennis champion Margaret Court.
Morrison said of God in the sermon: “We trust in Him. We don’t trust in governments. We don’t trust in United Nations, thank goodness.
We don’t trust in all of these things, fine as they might be and as important as the role that they play.
“Believe me, I’ve worked in it, and they are important.
“But as someone who’s been in it, if you are putting your faith in those things, like I put my faith in the Lord, you are making a mistake.”
With talk of Morrison’s imminent exit from politics reaching fever pitch, the former PM could soon have plenty of time to pen his book. Morrison couldn’t be reached on Sunday.
Laura Tingle debuts on ABC board as cuts loom
The ABC will hold a crucial last board meeting for the financial year in Perth on Thursday and Friday, with job cuts set to be announced this month high on the agenda.
The meeting will also be notable for another reason: it will be 7.30 chief political correspondent Laura Tingle’s first board meeting as an ABC director. Tingle formally became the staff-elected director of the ABC at the start of May, after winning a closely contested voting process for the position over business reporter Dan Ziffer.
Tingle will be a welcome reinforcement for a board which is short two members, because departed directors Joe Gersh and Fiona Balfour have still not been replaced.
Diary understands Tingle is unlikely to appear on 7.30 on Wednesday or Thursday nights, as she undertakes her first official engagements as an ABC board member, along with the chair Ita Buttrose.
Apart from fronting the two-day meeting and devouring hundreds of pages of board documents, Tingle is also expected to attend a night of wine and nibbles thrown by Buttrose at the ABC’s west coast headquarters in East Perth on Thursday night.
The aim of the night, we hear, is to embrace Western Australia as a pivotal part of the ABC’s national operations.
The meeting follows a gruelling month at the ABC which has seen it commission a review into how it responds to racism against staff, after Stan Grant said that sustained abuse after his appearance on Aunty’s coronation coverage caused him to walk away from Q+A.
Tingle is set to have her say on that issue and the ABC’s 2024 budget this week, along with the imminent cut of an as-yet undisclosed number of ABC middle management jobs.
The ABC will announce the cuts this month, in the wake of its restructuring into two broad divisions, news and content.
Another newsreader turns Instagram influencer
There’s been a growing trend in recent months of TV news personalities using their prominent “brands” on Instagram to promote a range of products.
As noted by The Australian in February, everyone from Seven Melbourne’s 6pm weekend newsreader Rebecca Maddern to Sunrise presenter Edwina Bartholo-mew, to name but a couple, have openly tagged and spruiked products on their Instagram pages – despite advice from the likes of journalism professors that it may not be the best look.
And yet it persists. Last week, Ten Melbourne news presenter Candice Wyatt applied her journalism skills to promoting a Richmond pilates studio, of all things – tagging the studio’s Instagram page, and even plugging a competition it was running.
“I’m starting a 6 week challenge at @studiopilates_richmond next Monday. Click the link to join me … or even win one@!”
When Diary called Ten about the post, a spokesman responded that Wyatt was “a paying member of the studio and was not paid for the story, she just really likes it”.
Still, a cursory look at Wyatt’s Instagram feed shows a collection of tags to various brands who have dressed or styled her, and restaurants and venues she’s attended.
This year, she featured a dress on Instagram that she wrote was “gifted” by the brand Forever New, together with a photo of her wearing the free dress.
At the time, Ten said she made the post to “support a local fashion brand”.
Koch won’t disappear from Seven
David Koch will on Friday depart the hosting chair of Sunrise, as part of what is expected to be an emotional final program on the breakfast ratings leader.
Diary is told Koch’s last episode, following 21 years of 4am wakeups for the Sunrise host, is likely to include tributes from his kids and grandkids, and no doubt a highlights and bloopers reel from some of his key moments in the Brekky Central chair.
As Diary predicted last November, Koch unveiled Matt Shirvington as his Sunrise successor on Monday morning.
But don’t expect Friday to be the final time you see Koch on Seven.
Diary hears under the terms of the two-year contract which Koch signed with Seven at the end of last year, he will continue to be a regular presence on the network’s shows, including Sunrise.
Seven sees Koch, as the network’s one-time money expert, as an important asset in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis where spiralling interest rates and inflation blowouts are making daily headlines.
So expect Koch to appear on Sunrise not from its Martin Place studio, but a few metres up the road: outside the Reserve Bank’s bunker on the first Tuesday of every month, when RBA governor Phillip Lowe weighs up whether to yet again raise interest rates.
And that’s not all. We’re told Seven intends to get its money’s worth out of a monthly retainer it will pay Koch until the end of 2024, with plans for him to front other big economic news, along with interviews with big-name business identities, and even telethons and conferences for the network.
There could also be some concern among Seven bosses that Koch isn’t snapped up elsewhere, once his contract expires in December 2024.
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