Media Diary: ABC’s Greene calls in legal big guns; sacked Nine boss caught cashing in on staff discount
Defence correspondent Andrew Greene isn’t waving the white flag after being suspended for alleged misconduct, calling in the lawyers as the ABC tries to avoid another Antoinette Lattouf-style unfair dismissal case.
“Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war!” The ABC’s embattled senior defence correspondent, Andrew Greene, is unleashing the big guns after being stood down by the public broadcaster amid a drawn-out “press junket” scandal threatening to blow up his career.
Diary can reveal the widely respected veteran journo has engaged one of the country’s leading law firms, Addisons, in a show of force that suggests he will not be leaving the ABC without a fight.
It comes as Greene remains on indefinite leave nine weeks after the ABC’s Media Watch program exposed the scandal, with host Linton Besser accusing him of accepting free accommodation and business airfares from ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems while filing a story about the defence contractor’s German shipyards … before allegedly lying to his bosses about how he sourced content for the yarn.
Last week we revealed the ABC’s head honchos had already secretly settled on sacking Greene over the gross error of judgment, citing irreparable trust and confidential issues, but were seeking external counsel following Antoinette Lattouf’s successful unlawful dismissal action this year.
The defence drama and its ensuing fallout has divided many within the ABC, particularly given the broadcaster’s decision to publicly condemn Greene and his alleged conduct before he had even had an opportunity to defend himself, with several insiders telling Diary they believed he deserved a second chance, not least given his long and distinguished career at the broadcaster.
“Where is the loyalty for 15 years of quality service and an otherwise unblemished record?” one insider asked Diary. “He’s a genuinely lovely guy. Besser must be very pleased with himself.”
Sacked Nine boss still cashing in staff discount
Axed Nine News boss Amanda Paterson just can’t seem to let go of her former high-flying life at the station – nor the lucrative lurks and perks that came with it.
Diary can reveal the ousted Queensland news director has been caught out accepting a massive Nine discount during a shopping spree at a high-end fashion store more than six months after she was unceremoniously sacked from the network.
Sources familiar with the incident claimed Paterson had been enjoying lunch with two girlfriends in inner-city Brisbane in May when they decided to kick on with a little clothes shopping at the popular Carla Zampatti boutique on nearby James Street, in New Farm.
After loading up on $4000 worth of designer threads, including a rouge velvet suit and two jackets, she then headed to the counter to pay … but what happened next is a matter of some conjecture.
Some witnesses claim Paterson pressured the store to give her a gargantuan 50 per cent discount on her purchases.
Paterson told Diary an assistant simply recognised her and offered the big ticket reduction unprompted.
What isn’t in dispute is that Paterson knowingly accepted a huge $2000 half-price markdown reserved for Nine’s on-air personalities (and typically given in exchange for the exposure the label presumably receives for having their designs seen on television).
Talk about sale of the century!
Of course, Paterson hasn’t been a fixture on the small screen in almost two decades, having spent 17 years variously working as a news director and ACA’s Brisbane bureau chief, and has not worked at Nine since November.
Indeed, the most recent headline-grabbing stories featuring the former news exec revolved around her high-profile unlawful dismissal action against the channel … before she settled her lawsuit for a rumoured high six-figure sum in February.
Naturally, it didn’t take long for word of Paterson’s shopping spree to filter back to Nine, with the broadcaster getting in touch with her and giving her a dressing down for allegedly “impersonating” an employee – something Paterson has categorically denied ever doing.
“I had never been to that store before, the salesperson said she recognised me from a previous Carla Zampatti fashion parade where I was at a Nine table, then she offered me a discount,” she told Diary when asked about the incident on Sunday.
“I did not claim to be working at Nine,” she added, before joking: “I wish I had known earlier that particular store gave Nine staff a discount. I could have been saving money there for years!”
Still, any way you look at it there is that trivial matter of her accepting a Nine network staff discount when she wasn’t a Nine network staff member … a fashion faux pas to say the least.
What’s more, the incident unfolded just weeks before Paterson attracted similar attention for all the wrong reasons in June after appearing on trade mag B & T’s women in media power “long list” for 2025.
Paterson featured alongside 565 fellow candidates on what had to be one of the longest long lists of all time, while being described as an “acclaimed investigative journalist” at “Nine”.
The fact she hadn’t actually worked at Nine – or any other media outlet – in 2025, didn’t stop her bragging about making the list online.
“I’m humble and so proud to be named as one of 2025’s ‘super women who light up the media world with heart, hustle and heroic ambition’,” she gushed.
“Congratulations to my media girlfriends across Australia who also made the list … and a very special thank you to those who nominated me.”
Although she has since been cut from the list, an undeterred Paterson has since updated her LinkedIn profile to again state she is an “acclaimed investigative journalist”.
Not only that, she now claims she is “the first, and still only, female ever appointed to Director of News at Nine Network Australia”.
That particular suggestion might come as something of a surprise to the Nine’s powerful director of News and Current Affairs (and the woman who personally sacked Paterson), Fiona Dear, who might fairly claim to qualify in that category too.
Radio war and peace
How’s this for a sibling rivalry – late media magnate tycoon Bill Caralis’s children are openly at war little more than a year after inheriting the Super Radio Network from their father … or at least they would be openly at war if they were on talking terms.
George Caralis and his sister Despina Priala took over as joint directors of Australia’s privately owned radio empire – which boasts more than 40 stations across NSW and Queensland – after their unassuming multi-millionaire parents passed away within days of each other 13 months ago.
Their father died in Pindara Private Hospital at Benowa on the Gold Coast on July 19 after suffering a heart attack, while their mother, Pam Caralis, died in the same facility three days later after a long-term battle against chronic illness.
Their heirs’ fledgling reign was initially met with much fanfare amid widespread speculation they were keen to heavily invest in growing the radio business, with a view to turning Sydney talkback station 2SM into a serious competitor to Nine Radio’s dominant 2GB outlet.
Their first task was replacing the retiring John Laws, who stepped away from the mic for the final time last November, with an equally prominent breakfast show host before augmenting the line-up throughout the day.
They soon met with a range of radio talent, including former 2GB drive time star Jason Morrison, ex-Sunrise host Melissa Doyle and one-time Sky News presenter Erin Molan, about the position … but had differing views on how much they wanted to pay their next big name.
Ultimately, it wasn’t much and they settled on signing former Ten News presenter Ron Wilson for less than $200,000 before picking up sacked Sky News host Chris Smith to front their morning show for about $160,000.
But then, well, things started falling apart, with tensions soon flaring over their vastly different views on how to run the sprawling network, with things getting so heated they stopped talking to each other months ago.
Given the brother and sister combo each control 50 per cent of the company, that proved to be a bit of a problem and the internal workings at the outfit largely ground to a halt.
The angst was felt through the network, with Wilson even exiting the station after a short-lived six months behind the mic in June in the midst of the ongoing, behind-the-scenes saga.
Determined to break the deadlock, the sibling directors agreed to hire a former Queensland judge to mediate their media management stalemate … and interview potential candidates to chair the network’s board of directors and act as the critical deciding vote on all conflicts.
It was announced former Commercial Radio and Audio chief Joan Warner had been appointed to the key role effective immediately last week – and, although network staff are hopeful she will be able to resolve the sibling standoff, others aren’t as optimistic.
One well-placed insider told us Priala has already apparently been boasting she had managed to get “her woman” appointed to the decisive role … while Caralis remains concerned about their duelling visions for the network.
Either way, this should be entertaining.
Watts up, Triple M
Triple M bosses are secretly planning to axe Beau Ryan’s embattled radio show with fellow former footy star Aaron Woods after little more than seven months.
Even though the duo have managed to marginally increase the station’s audience share in the highly competitive Sydney breakfast timeslot, network insiders told Diary the station’s top boss had already consigned the ill-fated experiment to the scrap heap.
Instead, we hear Triple M is already in talks with former radio funnyman Merrick Watts about taking on the show’s key hosting duties from next year.
Watts had something of a trial run on the station for four weeks back in March after filling in for Ryan while he was off filming on his side hustle on Ten’s The Amazing Race Australia … and Triple M’s execs clearly liked what they heard, with Watts apparently telling mates he’s already got the gig in the bag.
There’s just one catch, though.
Watts’ soon-to-be new employers don’t just want him – they also want his former co-host, Tim Ross, to reprise the success of their one-time Merrick and Rosso show.
The popular program made the duo stars during the naughties for Nova before their infamous falling out saw Ross part ways with the station in 2009, ending their 11-year partnership.
It’s not the first time Watts has been asked to try to put the band back together, so to speak, with the comedian previously revealing he had received a huge offer for “more money than (we’d) ever seen” for the duo to reunite back in November 2018 … only for Ross to ghost him when he called to discuss the deal.
Let’s see if he answers the clarion call this time.
Kes Lennedy awards
Ahh, the ABC online and The Daily Telegraph … two media outlets so similar only their mothers can tell them apart … or so it would seem, according to the organisers of the Kennedy Awards.
After all, ABC reporter Joanna Woodburn got a bit of a surprise after picking up the prize for best regional broadcast reporting at the Kennedys, only to discover she apparently worked at the Tele – at least that’s what it said on the iconic notepad trophy she received at the media backslapping ceremony at Royal Randwick racecourse on Friday night.
The Orange-based journo won the award – named in honour of ABC newsman Paul Lockyer who died in a helicopter crash in 2011 alongside two colleagues while covering a story on Lake Eyre in South Australia – for a tidy medical investigation that appeared on the ABC’s 7.30 current affairs program and news website.
It wasn’t the only unfortunate and rather noticeable error made by the event’s organisers, with other names misspelt throughout the evening … while one late star’s year of death was even off the mark during the night’s otherwise moving in-memoriam tribute.
If ever a room of journos needed reminding of the true value of a good sub-editor, this was it.
Ten must ‘make good’
They reckon fortune favours the brave, and nothing could possibly be braver right now than sticking with Ten’s diabolically bad nightly news offering – the ironically named 10 News+.
Now, you might be thinking, fair go, Diary – we get it: it’s the worst prime-time news program in living memory. But why does it matter? It’s not like anyone watches Channel 10 anyway.
Well, we disagree. Not with the part about people watching Channel 10 … but the show’s disastrous flop certainly does matter.
After all, Ten axed the program’s predecessor, woke nightly gibberfest The Project, and what network insiders suggest was about 100 people working on that show, to make way for their new nightly news flop. Not to mention prompting the network’s only star, Sarah Harris, to quit.
Ten boss Beverley McGarveytold devastated staff at the time that the younger demographic that once made The Project a success had largely deserted free-to-air television and that “unfortunately, the show just doesn’t stack up any longer”.
Now, it’s worth bearing in mind that when McGarvey pulled the trigger and blew up The Project it was attracting an average national audience of about 400,000 a night – and while it rarely cracked the top 10 most-watched list, it was always in the top 20.
Two months on, and the same can’t be said for the catastrophic 10 News+, which has continued to shed viewers every week and now struggles to attract an audience a quarter of that size and often finishes well out of the top 50 most-watched shows.
Indeed, it has been so poorly received, just 1000 viewers were watching it at the end of last Wednesday night’s program in Perth – and this in a city of 2.5 million people – and was beaten nationally by programs such as PJ Masks Power Heroes, Ski Rescue Down Under, Outback Truckers, New Tricks, Bargain Hunt and a whole heap of other things we didn’t even know were TV shows.
And yet, for some reason, Ten refuses to accept there is anything wrong with their fizzer of a format being fronted by Amelia Brace and Denham Hitchcock. Oh no, nothing at all: it’s the Australian viewers who are wrong and simply don’t appreciate the program’s genius.
Make no mistake, though, sooner or later, things will come to a head, with television insiders telling Diary that 10 News+’s woeful ratings would already be hitting the network’s balance sheets.
“If the show rates less than what the deal the advertisers signed up for – and it’s hard to see how that’s not the case with 10 News+ – then the network has to give what we call ‘make goods’,” one well-placed source told Diary.
“That means making good by giving them additional ad spots in programs that rate accordingly … for zero. And that’s really expensive – it can wipe millions off the balance sheet.
“And, of course, the advertiser never wants to go back to the non-rating show ever again … and the show ends up getting cancelled. That’s how these things work – there’s no other way around it.
“The show is free for the audience so it needs to make ad money or die … and right now 10 News+ is in a death spiral.”
The question remains how long Ten will continue to stubbornly pretend it isn’t … because, like The Project, it’s simply “just doesn’t stack up” either.
What a balls up
Forget trying to win over sports fans to the round-ball game, the top brass at Football Australia would be on a roll if they could simply convince their own staff to commit to the sport.
After all, so many senior staff have been taking off from the sport’s top body their offices may as well be a departure lounge.
In the past few months alone FA’s chief executive James Johnson, chief of staff Alex Devani, chief football officer Ernie Merrick, chief football officer Peter Filopoulos, chief operating officer Mark Falvo, media and communications general manager Rebecca Trbojevich, and media manager Ann Odong have flown the coop.
“The paranoia at Football Australia is reaching fever pitch – I‘ve had so many staff members, office, technical, contractors, legal, tell me that FA is toxic,” one insider told Diary.
The staff crisis comes at a critical time for Football Australia, which confirmed in May it had suffered a $8.5m deficit last year.
Former Matildas star, soccer coach, Fox Sports commentator and current FA board member Heather Garriock has been given the unenviable task of filling in as interim chief as the sports body hunts around for a new full-time boss.
According to the recruitment ad, prospective new chief executives need to be capable of leading FA’s “people and driving an inclusive work culture” among other things … though it’s unclear who’s left to include.
ACA gets narky
There’s nothing self-appointed people’s champions at A Current Affair love more than hearing from loyal viewers – just so long as they don’t criticise host Allison Langdon, that is – she’s a TV Week Logie winner after all.
It’s a lesson Peter Haggarty learned the hard way after getting in touch with the show last Wednesday as the program was still going to air to request that Langdon “please, please” respectfully refer to boys and girls in blue as “police officers”.
“Calling them cops is disrespectful slang,” he opined in his email, not expecting much in the way of a response.
Never fear though, the team at ACA fired back with quite a fiery riposte within the hour.
“For decades police have produced bumper stickers for the community that say ‘cops are tops’,” the reply argued from the generic ACA email account. “Given you’re not talking on behalf of police, please don’t be a nark.”
The astonishing ACA email was signed off with “best wishes” but no name, suggesting whoever sent it probably knew it was a, shall we say, courageous decision to call a viewer a nark.
Haggarty was certainly less than impressed with the unnecessary name-calling, telling Diary: “I’m a little annoyed at the response. I was perhaps a little heavy … (but) to call me a nark is a little unprofessional. I may be an annoying husband, however, a nark I’m not.”
Still, given what ACA’s executive producer Amy McCarthy likes posting on her social media, it’s probably not the most questionable comment emanating out of its newsroom these days.
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