Media Diary: Change of tune at The Age over newsroom clash
That’s how matters stood when Diary hit the presses last weekend.
But as we all know, things can change very quickly in this fast-paced media business. So quickly that by Monday afternoon, Elligett had dramatically changed his tune.
The Melbourne newsroom incident involving Latimore and Faruqi allegedly contained some pretty disgraceful language from the Indigenous affairs reporter, a Biripi man who has family ties to Thungutti and Gumbaynggirr nations, according to his online Age profile. Sources claim Latimore directed the words “f..king” and “c..t” at Faruqi and was overheard by others within The Age’s Docklands headquarters.
Not the sort of language any HR department would be pleased to hear when filling out workplace incident forms.
The incident took place after Latimore got wind that Faruqi was working on content involving Indigenous rapper Adam Briggs.
Latimore was less than impressed when he found out what Faruqi was up to and made his displeasure known via the foul-mouthed tirade.
Last Monday, after details of the newsroom debacle were published, Elligett kindly reached out to The Australian to help clarify a few points.
He had backed down from his official line of, “I’m not willing to comment on private workplace matters that are not in the public interest”. Instead, Elligett was far more forthcoming after the story became the hot topic of discussion among many in Melbourne’s media circles, and was keen to make it known Latimore was the one fairly and squarely in the wrong.
Elligett told The Australian: “There was an incident where one staff member was subjected to inappropriate language.
“The person on the receiving end of the outburst was offered the appropriate support and reasonable management action was taken regarding the person who used the inappropriate language.”
Thank heavens that helped clear up any confusion.
Interestingly, on Friday afternoon Latimore was busy busting out his own editorial content with none other than rapper Briggs.
And in a joint byline effort with fellow Age reporter Carla Jaeger. Faruqi was nowhere near this story.
In the “exclusive”, the duo revealed that Briggs was left pretty angry over Melbourne Storm’s “support of First Nations people” and the Yes campaign, despite the club’s director and part-owner, sports investor Brett Ralph, helping bankroll the winning No vote.
No gaffe: Cash ‘forgets’ Wyatt for a reason
Following the thumping rejection of Anthony Albanese’s Indigenous voice to parliament at last weekend’s referendum, shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash jumped on the first plane to Canberra and fronted the media bright and early on Sky News’s Sunday Agenda with political editor Andrew Clennell.
Clennell asked why the coalition had not audited federal funding for projects of Indigenous Australians while in power for nine years (as it is now calling for the ALP government to do).
“Andrew,” she sighed. “We never had Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. For the first time in Australia’s history we have someone of lived experience fronting Australia and being able to carry the conversation and, quite frankly, we now need to back Senator Nampijinpa Price in.
“This is, quite frankly, a historic moment for Australia.”
The peanut gallery on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, fired up as news items were published online under the headline: “Lib senator Michaelia Cash makes awkward blunder in interview about referendum.”
“Oof – what about her former WA colleague Ken Wyatt?” The West Australian’s federal political editor, Katina Curtis, wrote.
“This is unbelievable,” The Guardian’s Josh Butler chimed in. “Cash was in cabinet with Ken Wyatt – literally last year. Do facts just not matter any more?”
Butler’s got a point. Cash wasn’t being truthful, but it wasn’t a mistake, or “gaffe” or “misinformation”.
Failing to mention the former Indigenous affairs minister, who was also her former WA Liberal colleague and who does have “lived experience”, was no mistake and had everything to do with him sensationally quitting the Liberal Party earlier this year in protest over Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s decision that the Liberals would officially oppose the referendum.
Wyatt’s subsequent behaviour angered some sections of the party – especially in WA – which preselected, endorsed and helped him win elections for more than a decade, to become Australia’s first Indigenous lower house MP and the first Indigenous cabinet minister.
Wyatt campaigned with Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, and ALP member for Perth Patrick Gorman and Curtin’s teal independent, Kate Chaney, in Perth for the Yes23 campaign.
“Michaelia is the most dedicated Liberal. She takes zero prisoners. None. Nada,” one senior WA Liberal told Diary.
Mail on silk’s ‘new job’
Network 10 presenter Lisa Wilkinson knows how to make headlines, despite spending almost 12 months in the wilderness since she quit The Project, citing the “targeted toxicity” of the media.
She hasn’t been seen on the small screen since, but in her latest move the 63-year-old is suing her employer – how awkward – for $700,000 in legal costs in a defamation suit brought against Wilkinson and Ten by former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann over the Brittany Higgins rape case.
The Daily Mail Australia got stuck into the story behind the story on Friday, and headlined it: “Why Lisa Wilkinson’s extraordinary decision to sue Network 10 is deeply personal … and remarkably trivial at the same time.”
Fair enough, but many in the legal community were baffled to read a couple of details it contained about one of the country’s most high-profile defamation barristers, Matt Collins, King’s Counsel.
Collins, whose picture was plastered across the website’s homepage for hours, was given a new job by the Daily Mail Australia story, which referred to him “Thomson Geer’s Matthew Collins, SC”.
The story explained that although Ten retained Collins and lawyers Thomson Geer (who also represent The Australian and other media outlets) to defend it and Wilkinson in the defamation suit Lehrmann has brought against them both, the former host of The Project instead retained her own counsel.
This all occurred after Collins described Wilkinson’s now-infamous Logies speech about the Higgins story – the one that delayed Lehrmann’s criminal trial by three months – as “ill-advised”.
Lehrmann’s trial was subsequently aborted, with no findings against him.
When Diary checked on Collins’ new work status with Thomson Geer partner Justin Quill, he was quick to clarify that, no, the KC (not Senior Counsel) had not submitted his resume to the law firm and certainly wasn’t on their payroll last time he checked.
“While the Thomson Geer media team work very closely with Dr Collins, KC, on many big cases, he’s not a member of the firm,” Quill said.
But tongue in cheek, he added: “Of course if Matt wants to put in a job application for a summer clerkship or some other position, we would consider that.”
When Diary contacted the Daily Mail the publication called Collins to apologise and added an editor’s note to the story: “An earlier version of this story wrongly stated Matthew Collins was a SC, rather than a KC, and suggested that he worked for Thomson Geer. We regret the error.”
As for Wilkinson, Ten is holding its Upfronts on Friday in Melbourne to reveal its program line-up for 2024, and there’s Buckley’s chance she will be making an appearance.
Bourchier’s dilemma
ABC Drum host and Indigenous man Dan Bourchier, who led the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s voice coverage, revealed in an interview with colleague Adam Shirley last week that he had been faced with a serious dilemma upon learning he was one of 16 nominees for ACT Australian of the Year.
Another proud partner moment with my @Dan_Bourchier nominated for an #ACT Australian Of the Year nomination. This man has been a major contributor to the broader community in #Canberra but around the country over the years! Congratulations to everyone else listed too!!! pic.twitter.com/FoS34oFAt7
— Karl Lijnders (@KLijnders) October 21, 2023
His nomination description says he “speaks up for people without a voice – and scrutinises those who hold power” and that during the voice referendum “he provided balanced coverage – even while receiving threats and abuse for his coverage”.
Bourchier hit the phones to contact many Indigenous elders to help him decide whether to accept.
“I touched base with those elders when I got the call about (the nomination) but I instinctively felt that I was out of my depth to make a decision of whether to accept or not,” Bourchier said. Thankfully the elders were all in staunch agreement he should accept the nomination.
“They said, ‘you absolutely have to, this is not just about you, but you’re important to this’,” Bourchier said.
Shirley then read out three messages sent to the ABC text line during the interview with Bourchier, all hugely supportive of him accepting the esteemed nomination.
“That fills my heart because Adam, you, like I … don’t do the jobs that we do for those sorts of comments and in fact, probably want to step back most of the time when that starts to happen,” Bourchier said.
West pumping in cash
A plethora of Seven stars were summoned to Perth for Saturday’s annual Telethon, a 26-hour TV broadcast for the WA children’s charity, among them WA-born presenter Natalie Barr, who hosted in the studio.
Meanwhile, Telethon trustee and Seven West chairman Kerry Stokes predicted a final fundraising tally of more than $70m as he entered the event’s exclusive gala ball on Saturday, looking sprightly, with wife Christine Simpson Stokes.
Telethon trust chairman Richard Goyder was no doubt pleased to be in a room full of friends for the first time in a while and newly single billionaire Andrew Forrest, who recently split with wife Nicola, chose the ball to make his re-entry to the social scene.
The event boasted more individuals with high net worth, and higher self esteem, than a Davos convention.
There was one close call, when Twiggy Forrest almost came face to face with fellow billionaire Gina Rinehart – the two are not exactly on talking terms due to their divergence on the future of energy, but played nice for the night.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had a meeting to get to in Washington, but Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was in town ahead of the WA Liberal state conference next weekend, and seated with Rinehart and her top executives.
Former premier Mark McGowan attended, in his capacity as an ambassador for BHP and Mineral Resources.
However, all eyes were on the new kid on the block, WA gaming billionaire and tech king Laurence Escalante, who became a “million dollar partner” for Stokes’s charity on Saturday night, donating an additional $1m on Saturday night to his already $1m pledge made over a lunch earlier in the year.
Vanity prevails
SAFM breakfast co-host Rebecca Morse, one half of Adelaide’s Bec & Soda FM radio show (with Mark Soderstrom), penned a heartfelt Instagram post last week, but with a self-serving twist.
The Adelaide-based former Channel 10 newsreader-turned-radio-host let her 32,000 followers know how shattered she was that the voice to parliament referendum resulted in a resounding No vote (65 per cent of people in SA voted against) and by recent world events.
The Yes supporter revealed she was “gutted by the referendum result and shocked, saddened and overwhelmed by the senseless loss of lives in the current conflict”.
While the lengthy social media post seemed sincere, perhaps Morse should brush up on how to read the room.
Some of her followers were shocked at what had prompted the outpouring.
“So it may appear frivolous that I will be attending and sharing images from upcoming Adelaide Fashion Week event,” she explained. Say what?
The bizarre attempt to justify her narcissism was made loud and clear; despite the voice defeat and war in Israel her followers could expect to be spammed by Morse selfies and snaps of her donning trendy fashion lines alongside her chums at the glitzy three-day event.
She would be posting from alongside the catwalk, she said, because fashion week employs people and generates cash.
But she didn’t stop there.
“I think it’s important in this climate to do some things that give you joy,” she wrote.
“But I wanted to give some context so you know I’m not ignorant or oblivious. It’s weighing on me.”
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When Diary inquired of The Age editor Patrick Elligett about a newsroom incident in September involving senior Age reporters – Indigenous affairs journalist Jack Latimore and the newspaper’s culture editor, Osman Faruqi – we were told it was a “private workplace matter”.