End of a loveless media marriage: Wilkinson’s uncertain future
Despite not having graced Network Ten screens for more than two years, Wilkinson is still on the payroll. But at the end of this month their broken marriage will finally be dissolved and the pair will go their separate ways.
We’ve now entered the last days of Lisa Wilkinson’s seven-year stretch at Channel 10.
Yes, despite not having graced the network’s screens for more than two years – or 743 days, to be exact – Wilkinson is still on Ten’s payroll. But at the end of this month the broken marriage that is Wilkinson and Ten will finally be dissolved and the pair will go their separate ways.
For Ten, it will free up some much-needed money, given Wilkinson was reportedly earning a salary of $1.7m a year. That sort of dosh can go a long way in a cash-strapped network. For Wilkinson? Uncertainty.
It’s hard to see how the one-time darling of breakfast TV, who turns 65 this month, has any kind of future in commercial television in Australia. It’s not that Wilkinson has burnt her bridges at Seven, Nine and Ten, it’s that she has absolutely torched them. First there was the acrimonious split from Nine, when she was brutally and abruptly dumped as Today co-host, which she countered with a tell-all book that exposed Nine’s not-so-nice underbelly.
A rapid shift to Ten in 2017 literally ended in tears in 2022 when she resigned from The Project, citing “the relentless, targeted toxicity by some sections of the media”.
And when she lodged an official complaint with the Seven Network in June last year about the Spotlight program that featured an interview with Bruce Lehrmann, Wilkinson had secured the trifecta – she was officially persona non grata at all three commercial TV networks.
Of course, the turning point in Wilkinson’s career was her controversial acceptance speech at the 2022 Logies, which drew accusations that the journalist could have imperilled Lehrmann’s right to a fair trial. In April this year, Network Ten and Wilkinson won their landmark defamation case against Lehrmann after Justice Michael Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, the former Liberal staffer raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House.
Lehrmann is appealing against the findings of the defamation case, with the case to be heard next year.
I won’t miss Media Watch: Paul Barry
After 11 years, Paul Barry will sign off as host of the ABC’s Media Watch on Monday night.
But the 72-year-old isn’t exactly getting all misty-eyed about the end of his time as industry judge, juror and executioner.
“I won’t miss Media Watch. I’ve done it for long enough,” he told Diary on the weekend.
Barry first hosted the program for a year in 2000 before being sacked by then ABC chairman Donald McDonald after the pair’s controversial on-air interview over government funding. Barry returned to the role in 2013 and he has been an on-air ABC fixture at 9.15pm Mondays ever since.
Asked for his reflections on how the media industry had changed since he first hosted the program, Barry didn’t opt for rose-coloured glasses.
“It’s amazing to think that there were no iPhones back then, and no social media, so newspapers had very little competition,” he said.
“Since then, more than half the jobs in Australian journalism have gone, while 90 per cent of ad revenue from newspapers and half the revenue from TV (in real terms) has disappeared.
“Remarkably, there is still a lot of great journalism around. But it floats on a sea of dross … clickbait, celebrity ‘news’, real estate news, stories ripped off social media without checking etc, etc.”
Barry cites his Lazarus-like comeback to Media Watch in 2013 as the high point of his ABC career – thus proving that everything is relative – and is proud of the fact he lasted as long as he did.
And no matter what you think of Barry’s tenure, he never pulled his punches when it came to calling out the misdeeds of his own employer.
“The ABC never officially censured us. We were always free to say what we liked. But there were times when stepping into the lift was uncomfortable,” he told Diary.
Of course, Barry hasn’t always been kind to The Australian and all who’ve sailed on her, so let’s not be too kind to the bloke.
But at least in retirement he’ll have plenty of time to regret his meritless attacks on the national broadsheet.
Oh, hang on … what’s that, Paul? “I don’t plan to retire. I’m looking for a new challenge. But first I’m having a rest.”
Barry will be replaced by ABC investigative journalist Linton Besser, who will present his first episode of Media Watch in February.
Bevan’s own goal
Part of the magic about newspapers is knowing – or pretending to know – a little bit about everything. Hiding any yawning gaps in your general knowledge is an art form in itself, and most journalists are pretty adept at papering over the cracks. And all journalists have cracks. So Diary was somewhat puzzled to read a public “confession” from The Sydney Morning Herald’s editor Bevan Shields on Friday about his uninterest in cricket.
“As we head into another summer of cricket, I have a confession to make: I’m not a massive fan,” wrote “Sheffield” Shields.
“Tennis? My favourite sport. NRL? Can’t get enough of it. AFL? Love it. But cricket? It just never clicked.”
OK. So the SMH editor hates cricket. Who cares? No one, of course! It ain’t a crime.
But for a masthead such as the SMH, cricket is the stuff. Most of the paper’s readers love the game, are invested in it, and particularly at this time of year want to read as much as they can about it.
So what must they think when the bloke who decides how much cricket goes in their paper publicly declares he’d rather watch paint dry than fawn over a Steve Smith cover drive?
Shields’s piece was the cricketing equivalent of deliberately running himself out. He would have been better to stay in his crease and wait for the right ball to hit.
Kim goes Rogan
Which brings us to Kim Williams’ decision last week to spout off about the world’s most famous podcaster, Joe Rogan.
Asked at the National Press Club about whether the ABC should be seeking to emulate Rogan’s success in capturing the “bro market”, Williams unleashed his inner fuddy-duddy.
“I personally find it (Rogan’s podcast) deeply repulsive, and to think that someone has such remarkable power in the United States is something that I look at in disbelief.”
Good one, Kimbo. Since you took over as ABC chairman in March, you’ve been banging on about the challenge of attracting a wider cross-section of Australian audiences to the ABC, particularly younger ones. And with one offhand remark you’ve alienated a fair few of them.
Newsflash: plenty of younger Australians like Rogan’s style and aren’t going to be won over by the ABC if the guy in charge looks down his nose at something that he admits he doesn’t even listen to.
Let’s hope Williams’s decision to “go Rogan” doesn’t turn too many potential ABC consumers away because the ABC chairman is legitimately trying to shake up the public broadcaster for the better.
Blunt assessment
ABC News Breakfast co-host Bridget Brennan, a Dja Dja Wurrung and Yorta Yorta woman, has lashed the media’s obsession with the antics of controversial senator Lidia Thorpe, chastising her industry colleagues for ignoring the plight of Aboriginal women in remote and regional Australia. “If you’re a journalist covering the scrutiny on Lidia Thorpe in the Senate but not the dozens of dead Aboriginal women missing and murdered (12 this year alone), or the landmark NT Coroner’s report calling this issue our ‘national shame’, then I just have no words for you,” Brennan posted on social media platform X last week.
Brennan didn’t mention any journalists by name but some of her ABC colleagues who covered Thorpe’s interjections at parliament last week might well be wondering if she was referring to them.
When Brennan took over the vacant spot on the ABC News Breakfast couch in August following the departure of Lisa Millar, she said her new role was an important step for Indigenous representation.
“I didn’t grow up watching Aboriginal women on the news, so it’s really an important moment for my mob as well,” she said.
In September, Brennan described last year’s Indigenous voice referendum defeat as similar to experiencing “whiplash”.
On Sunday, ABC news director Justin Stevens said: “Bridget Brennan has ABC News’ full support. Bridget is an outstanding journalist.”
Bowers signs off
Anthony Albanese gave veteran press gallery photographer Mike Bowers a rousing send-off at the Prime Minister’s annual Christmas drinks for media riffraff at the Lodge on Friday night.
Bowers, who has been with Guardian Australia for more than a decade following a lengthy stint with The Sydney Morning Herald, has announced he is ditching Canberra to do his own thing.
Albo delivered a kind tribute to Bowers at the end-of-year function at the Lodge in front of dozens of journos and a handful of ministers, including Jim Chalmers, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Toto the dog made a brief appearance in the garden at the start of the evening but disappeared inside when things became rowdy. Smart dog.
The Prime Minister obviously was sorry to see Bowers go. Any departure from the Guardian is one less ally for Labor, and of late the comrades are falling like flies.
Bowers, who is also a regular on ABC chat show Insiders, is just the latest senior member of the Guardian team to drop editor Lenore Taylor a note in 2024 to let her know there are in fact greener pastures outside their own green-tinged newsroom.
First to scarper was political editor Katharine Murphy, who shifted sideways to the PM’s media team in January, with other senior Guardian journos Amy Remeikis and Daniel Hurst following later in the year, and now Bowers.
Diary continues to hear whispers that all is not well inside the Guardian, despite the lowly remunerated staff recently scoring a 12 per cent pay bump across three years.
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