Fran Kelly, at the centre of a media and Twitter firestorm since hosting last Monday’s controversial Q&A program, has admitted to Diary that she should have done more to lower the temperature of the discussion by the episode’s panel of high-profile feminists.
Kelly’s admission comes in the wake of a decision led by ABC chair Ita Buttrose to pull the episode off all of Aunty’s platforms.
The program contained the inflammatory assertion by Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy that killing rapists might be needed to prevent rape: “As a woman, I’m asking: How many rapists must we kill until men stop raping us?” The episode raised hackles not only at ABC management level, but in government ranks as well, with suggestions Eltahawy and the panel should have been met with a firmer hand.
READ MORE: Brendan O’Neill writes cancel that privilege before lecturing the rest of us about how bad we are | Eltahawy slams patriarchy’s ‘female foot soldiers’ | Karl Stefanovic’s cut-price Today rescue bid | Gone Today, Georgie seeks new tomorrow | Oh brother: Peter and Karl Stefanovic in breakfast battle | Chris Mitchell writes there’s no pleasing lazy left journos | Chris Kenny writes on Aunty’s insular little world of green-leftism
Speaking exclusively to Diary, Kelly says she should have immediately taken on Eltahawy’s claim. “I needed to challenge the assertion that killing men is the answer to violence against women,” she says.
“I thought there would be a range of views on this in the panel. As it turned out, there was a not a lot of disagreement on the panel, and it was up to me to challenge Mona Eltahawy’s assertion.”
Kelly admits she was caught out by the fact panellists did not quickly contradict Eltahawy’s assertion. “When the panel didn’t disavow that call, it was my job, and in a fast-paced and furious discussion, I missed that opportunity.”
Kelly stressed to Diary that she disagrees strongly with what Eltahawy said. “But while I don’t at all agree that violence is the answer to violence, I thought it was a discussion that would be moderated within the panel.”
Despite this, Kelly believes the discussion about violence against women is an important national conversation. “Police in this country are called to a domestic violence incident every two minutes. The level of violence against women in our community needs to be discussed, confronted and addressed.”
Shorten not so sweet
It was a big week for Bill Shorten. On Thursday, he was forced to deal with the post-election fallout of the devastating Labor review that found his own unpopularity had been a significant factor in the election loss.
But two days earlier, right in front of Diary’s eyes, the tension of that looming Labor verdict seemed to be already showing. All it took for Shorten to flush it out was the appearance of Scott Morrison’s political right-hand man in the media-heavy Tabcorp marquee in the VRC’s Birdcage on Melbourne Cup day.
Diary was having a quiet drink with Yaron Finkelstein, ScoMo’s principal private secretary and one of the key architects of his May election win, when who but Shorten materialised to join the conversation.
For Diary, in the box seat, it was then simply a case of grabbing the popcorn and watching the fireworks fly.
Finkelstein gave as good as he got with Shorten, in an extremely direct exchange that suggests the six months since the federal election have done little to dull the stinging disappointment for the ex-Labor leader of his election loss. It went as follows:
Shorten: “You work for ScoMo? Yaron, isn’t it.”
Finkelstein: “Yeah.”
Shorten: “Yeah, f..k you. Just remember: the wheel always turns.”
Finkelstein: “Then let’s hope it’s a big wheel!”
It’s not the first time Shorten has used robust language on perceived enemies. Niki Savva’s book Plots and Prayers recalls that Shorten variously described ex-Ten reporter Jonathan Leaas a “c..t” and a “dickhead”.
Thankfully, a Cup day peacemaker was in the wings in the form of Shorten’s wife Chloe, who told Finkelstein, apologetically, with a big smile: “He can be very direct sometimes.”
Chloe’s intervention seemed to be an ice breaker, at least temporarily, between Shorten and Finkelstein, with the adversaries burying their differences to share tips on the Cup. Both even claimed a betting win when Aussie horse Vow and Declare passed the winning post first.
Karl takes a haircut
Around the corridors of Nine, they’re calling him “Cut-Price Karl”. Diary’s scoop on this paper’s front page on Thursday revealed the news the Australian media had been waiting for: that Nine boss Hugh Marks had finally agreed to release Karl Stefanovic from the doghouse and put him back on Today.
But as we noted on Thursday, Marks’s decision came with a catch: if Marks was willing to invest his own personal capital to “bring back Karl”, Stefanovic needed skin in the game as well.
That means Stefanovic will now risk a big chunk (possibly up to $1 million) of the $2m-plus he will earn in the last year of his contract to have his last big crack at breakfast TV.
Cut-Price Karl had no choice but to roll the dice on Today: his career probably could not have sustained another year on the sidelines. And if it works, he will field lucrative new offers at the end of 2020 from Nine and possibly other networks.
Meanwhile, dumped Today hosts Deb Knight and Georgie Gardner both want the escape hatch of the plum Sydney weekend 6pm newsreading job. Knight is the incumbent, and Diary hears she won’t give it up without a fight, or an attractive alternative.
And will either Knight or Gardner join David Campbell in hosting Weekend Today? Plenty still to play out there.
Incidentally, Nine’s own newspapers were very late on their own story when they finally ran the “exclusive” that Stefanovic and Allison Langdon would be the new Today hosts on Saturday, 48 hours after Diary had first revealed the news.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Saturday paper was dominated by the so-called Stefanovic exclusive from its Nine stablemate, interestingly giving Karl a higher profile than even the NSW bushfires.
The power of Pauline
Pauline Hanson’s camp was crowing after the news of Karl Stefanovic’s big comeback to the Today show.
Hanson made headlines two days before the May 18 federal election when she attacked battling Today co-host Deb Knight for questioning One Nation’s poll numbers.
“I’ve actually gone up since the last election, unlike your show, Deb, since you’ve actually taken over: you’ve actually gone down in your viewership,” she told Knight. “Should you hand over your job or should we bring Karl back? Should we bring Karl back?”
Hanson’s right-hand man J ames Ashby couldn’t resist contacting Diary to claim her Stefanovic prediction as just the latest in a long line of fearless Hanson demands that have come to pass.
“Family Law Inquiry. Bradfield Scheme. Bring Back Karl. They’re all demands Pauline’s made and they’re all coming to fruition,” Ashby trumpeted.
Beware the power of Pauline.
Age on the outer
Does The Age have a problem with the lucrative Victorian racing and gambling sectors?
The 20-page Melbourne Cup wraparound in The Age’s special edition last Tuesday — which you would normally expect the TABs and Sportsbets of the world to be falling over each other to buy prime space in to capture the last-minute punting dollar — instead contained not a single ad.
Strange. That is an awful lot of prime newspaper real estate going ad-free, for something that should be a money-spinner, given it is the feature of one of The Age’s biggest-selling editions of the year.
Even outside of the racing wraparound, we counted only four paid feature ads throughout The Age on Tuesday.
Diary’s sniff around Melbourne racing and gambling circles last week suggested that The Age may indeed have an issue with the industry.
There’s sensitivity about The Age’s coverage in recent weeks, with claims it put the views of animal welfare groups above those of the racing industry in following up last month’s ABC 7.30 story on the slaughter of ex-racehorses.
However, Nine newspaper sources have defended their coverage, saying they gave “balanced” coverage to an important issue.
Games over for ABC
Next year’s Tokyo Olympics will represent the end of an era in Australian broadcasting.
Diary can exclusively reveal that the ABC has taken the unprecedented decision to pull out as an official broadcast partner with the Games. Aunty’s decision ends nearly seven unbroken decades where it has been the Olympics’ sole non-commercial radio broadcaster, and is a clear sign that significant cost-cutting is already under way at the ABC.
An ABC spokesman has confirmed the move. “This is an incredibly tough decision, especially given our 67-year run as the official non-commercial Olympic Games radio broadcaster,” the spokesman told Diary.
“Due to competing budget priorities coupled with the fact that Australians can access Olympic Games coverage in many other ways, we have chosen not to pursue rights in 2020.”
That means that listeners won’t be able to follow the quest by sports stars like Cate Campbell and Ash Barty for gold in Tokyo. To put that in perspective, the ABC started as the Games’ radio broadcast partner all the way back at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. The decision means the ABC will not provide live commentary for the Olympics on radio, although it will provide daily updates throughout the event.
It is Seven, the official TV broadcaster of the Olympics, which onsells the radio rights to the Games. But ABC sources have told Diary that the price tag Seven put on the Olympics radio rights was not a factor in the ABC’s decision to walk away.
Instead, the ABC could no longer justify the cost of deploying a large local and international team to cover the games, at a time of significant budget pressures.
Stevens signs off
One of the Australian Financial Review’s marquee columnists, Matthew Stevens, is pulling up stumps.
Stevens, who also spent 18 years as a senior columnist and reporter with The Australian as part of a glittering 40-year journalism career, has revealed to Diary he will retire in January: “It is true. I am going to retire, and contemplate my options after retirement.”
Stevens said part of the reason for his retirement was the career success of his high-flying wife, Samantha Stevens, who is a group executive at Origin Energy and its corporate affairs supremo: “The success of my partner has allowed us to have choices. We have primary school-aged children, and we don’t want to use after-school care.”
AFR editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury made Stevens one of his priority poachings when he took over the paper eight years ago. We wish Stevens well.
All bets are off for Aly
Back to Melbourne Cup day, oneof Ten’s biggest stars, Waleed Aly, was a prominent presence in Ten’s VRC Birdcage marquee for his first Melbourne Cup. But he was treating the day more as a cerebral exercise than an excuse to get messy like at so many at Flemington for the big day.
As Aly explained to Diary early on race day: “I don’t gamble, and I don’t drink. So that’s going to be interesting!”
Aly, however, did say that he loved Cup day as a sporting purist, and even had a tip for the big race: La Trobe.
Unfortunately, Aly’s skills as a non-gambling racing tipster still need work. La Trobe finished 18th.
Waleed on ABC
For someone so synonymous with Ten, Waleed Aly continues to be a significant presence on your ABC, five years after departing as Radio National’s drive host for The Project.
Sometimes, it seems like he’s never been away.
Next Monday, Aly will return to Aunty in a major prime-time hosting gig when he fronts Australia Talks, the live TV event replacing Four Corners for one night, exploring the results of an ABC national survey into the lives of average Australians.
And that’s not his only TV gig with the ABC. Aly remains a monthly panellist on Aunty’s Sunday morning sports show, Offsiders.
Aly told Diary on Cup Day that he takes his Offsiders brief very seriously as a self-confessed “sports nut”.
He confessed to often coming into the ABC’s Melbourne studio on little or no sleep on a Sunday morning, after a full night on the couch watching sports from around the world — just to make sure he has missed nothing.
Now that’s dedication!
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