Academic Glyn Davis in line for ABC chair
An impressively credential candidate has emerged for the position of ABC chair.
An impressively credential candidate has emerged for the position of ABC chair. It is academic Glyn Conrad Davis AC. Back in September, when sacked ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie and departed chairman Justin Milne engaged in MMAD (managerial mutually assured destruction) Davis was leaving his post as vice-chancellor of Melbourne University after 14 years and now is an academic at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy. Recruiters Korn Ferry have been hard at work for the “independent” government panel tasked with sending a shortlist of suitable candidates to Communications Minister Mitch Fifield. (At the Senate inquiry last week Milne said he was approached about becoming chair “concurrently” by the recruiters and Fifield.)
Nominations closed only two weeks ago, with no shortlist presented to the minister, who is free to ignore the panel’s suggestions entirely, as has happened. But ABC executives are convinced Davis is in the running.
“I can see it,” said one of Davis’s former Melbourne University colleagues, who describes the ex-VC as “very smart and thoughtful” and “not afraid of making bold moves”.
At Melbourne, Davis led the creation of an entirely new curriculum at the university, a new model for Australia. And he launched a massive project to reorganise the whole university to put more resources back into teaching and research. The university executive said: “But he was also a great builder of consensus.” (Hello, Justin and Michelle!). “Because Melbourne is not a command-and-control environment. So to get anything done you have to build coalitions and he does that very well.” Compare and contrast that with the Milne-Guthrie era.
Davis is Labor linked from working in public service roles in the Goss and Beattie Queensland government. And get this: in the early 1980s, Davis was short of money and heard that the ABC local bureau in Canberra needed journalists. He dropped in at the newsroom and was told he could start immediately. He had just completed at ANU a doctoral thesis on, wait for it, the political independence of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. You couldn’t make it up!
Karl’s rum jungle
Is the Stefanovic-Yarbrough wedding being sponsored by Bundaberg Rum? Diary only asks because no mention of next Saturday’s nuptials between Today Show host Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough seems complete without a mention of the 19th century Queensland distilled sugar cane beverage.
Guests will gather next weekend for “Bundaberg rum-fuelled celebrations” said The Sunday Telegraph, while the pair bonded over “their ‘weird obsession’ with Bundy and Coke,” said The Sun-Herald. MSN reports that there will be a “Bundy Rum bar” while the Daily Mail said “Karl also toted a bottle of Bundaberg rum as he prepared to leave for the destination wedding”. Stefanovic handed the bottle to celebrity pap Jamie Fawcett as he headed for the airport yesterday.
Guests at the exclusive One & Only Palmilla Resort in Los Cabos will include James Packer, Richard Wilkins and, apparently, Julie Bishop. Contrary to earlier reports, Alan Jones will not attend. Stefanovic told The Courier-Mail: “I’m marrying a Queensland girl, there is going to be a few Queensland elements to the wedding. It’s a really important thing for us.” Unforgivably, this article missed the Bundy angle. Nine says there is no commercial tie in: “That’s just what they like, being good Queenslanders.” Someone should tell the wedding party that Mexico is tequila country.
PVO goes to Ten
Ten are billing it as a new POV for PVO. For Peter van Onselen, that means joining the network and being based in Canberra to become Ten’s network political editor, spearheading the network’s political coverage across its revamped 10 News First, The Project, Studio 10, 10 Daily and 10 Speaks. PVO, professor of politics with a PhD in political science and the foundation chair of journalism at the University of Western Australia, spent nearly 10 years at Sky News and will continue to write for The Australian. He starts next Monday, reporting to network director of news content Ross Dagan, who said: “At a time when cutting through the spin is more important than ever, Peter will ensure we know exactly what’s going on in Canberra, even when the politicians might not want that to be the case.”
Possibles v Probables
We might not find out who the new ABC chair is until 2019. A spokeswoman for the Communications Minister told Diary: “The government has commenced the legislated independent nomination panel process for the ABC Chair. The nomination panel do not comment publicly on the process or their recommendations. The panel’s role is to recommend to government a number of nominees suitable for appointment for each vacancy they are asked to consider.” Applications closed two weeks ago. Glyn Davis joins a long list of potentials including, Gilbert + Tobin managing director and former National Australia Bank director Danny Gilbert, who missed out at the final hurdle last time, former Australian Democrats senator Aden Ridgeway (and 2006 host of ABC’s Message Stick TV program), former publisher Marina Go, who is chair of West Tigers Rugby League and a Walkley Foundation director, former Telstra director David Thodey, who has been a candidate previously. Greg Hywood, current chief executive of Fairfax Media (until it is subsumed into Nine next week) “definitely would be keen” according to one Fairfax insider. Hywood told The Australian shortly after Fairfax shareholders approved the merger on November 19 that he would be taking a longer-than-usual skiing trip over Christmas. He was tight-lipped on his next career move. Indeed, he was giving nothing away when The Australian’s media reporter Lilly Vitorovich put it to him at the EGM, while Hywood’s indefatigable corporate spinner Sue Cato played bodyguard. “He was very stony faced,” she reported back.
Guthrie does a runner
Late into the evening on Thursday was a weird time for the Senate inquiry into political interference at the ABC to release submissions from Aunty’s sacked managing director Michelle Guthrie and departed chairman Justin Milne. Sources said there was back and forth over allowing Guthrie to keep her submission private. In the end it was released and Guthrie chose not to request that any of her evidence be heard in camera; although several board members, when asked why she was sacked, did request private hearings. It looks like we will have to wait until next year to hear from acting ABC chair Kirstin Ferguson and ABC management about the debacle.
But Guthrie did ask for photographers and camera operators, after they took preliminary shots, to leave the hearing room while she gave evidence, rarely requested by witnesses.
After her hearing, Guthrie was whisked away by Parliament House security, and media were led on a merry dance attempting to keep up with her speedy departure, which was assisted by Parliament House security officers and Australian Federal Police. She was escorted to the basement loading dock in an attempt to avoid media. Outside, two AFP police cars were waiting as Guthrie departed in a taxi. Guthrie’s peeps say her exit from Parliament House was the doing of security, not her.
Journalist is the news
Which brings us, in a neat segue, to Fairfax Media, sorry, Nine Entertainment Co journalist Michael Koziol, who during the Guthrie escapade had the detail of his parliamentary pass recorded by an officer who thought he was being filmed. Security didn’t file an incident report.
Two weeks ago, the same Koziol was confronted and grabbed by security guards and an event manager while he stood on a public footpath outside a building at Barangaroo in central Sydney reporting on a speech by the Australian Bar Association.
The busy Koziol is directing Love Barnaby: A 2018 Christmas Panto on December 14 at Sydney’s Giant Dwarf. Billed as “the grossest love story ever told” the production is still trying to cast Peter Dutton, if anyone is that way inclined.
An archive search revealed young Koziol shares an alma mater with your Diary columnist. It would be against the North Sydney Boys’ High Falconian Old Boys Code to publish a pic of him in high school debating team, which the vast News Corp archive threw up. So instead, here’s a pic of him from The North Shore Times in 2001 featuring in that nirvana of local newspaper journalism, a yarn about traffic delays. Clearly, he started young.
Email tags survive
It seems a minor thing, but any journo will tell you that their email address is a source of pride. A few years back, when News Corp was run by Kim Williams, there was a move to standardise everyone under a @news.com.au email, until a rebellion allowed staff to keep their masthead emails.
So a welcome relief for journos at The Age, The Canberra Times and the Sydney Morning Herald, as the Fairfax Media company name disappears into history after 177 years as it is subsumed by Nine Entertainment, that their emails are not going the same way. Staff at the metro papers will revert to masthead emails, reviving @theage.com.au and @smh.com.au. Staff who work frequently across both titles, such as in the Canberra bureau and business journos will be able to choose which masthead they want.
Next Monday is the first day of the new company. The tip is that Nine head of news Darren Wick will oversee TV and radio news across Nine and the Macquarie Network. But the idea floated by some, that Nine head of digital content Helen McCabe will head up Fairfax’s digital assets appears wide of the mark.
Tonagh takes a Squiz
Former Foxtel and News Corp boss Peter Tonagh is just one of the high-profile backers investing in daily morning news digest email The Squiz. Tonagh is part of a group tipping more than $400,000 into the project, founded by Claire Kimball, former press sec to former prime minister Tony Abbott and Woolies spinner. Other investors are, Nine digital content boss Helen McCabe, Penny Winn (a non-executive director of Caltex, Goodman and CSR), financial PR Ross Thornton, former Nationals MP Larry Anthony (son of Doug) and former Commonwealth Bank comms chief Kate Abrahams. The email which started with 900 subscribers in March 2017, now has 18,000 subscribers and advertising support from Commonwealth Bank, Woolworths, Future Women, Qantas, The Growth Faculty and Four Pillars Gin. Larissa Moore, Malcolm Turnbull’s digital content and social media manager, has joined the project.
Bauer’s new editors
Congratulations to Eugenie Kelly and Genevra Leek, appointed editors of Harper’s Bazaar and Elle magazines respectively. Both are highly regarded in the industry and regarded as deserving of their promotions, Kelly, a longstanding deputy editor and beauty director of Bazaar and Leek having also worked at Vogue Australia, In Style Australia, Glamour UK, Red UK and Marie Claire Australia.
The pair will report to Sarah-Belle Murphy, general manager, publishing and digital. The appointments come after Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Kellie Hush and Elle editor-in-chief Justine Cullen stepped down from their roles as publisher Bauer Media merged the print and digital teams of both magazines.
Now, each title will have its own editor, creative director and copyeditor, but share 11 other staff, including the all important fashion director and beauty director roles. Thirteen roles were axed as part of the restructure, but Bauer kept its promise to keep publishing both titles, although it seems barely separately. Even if it the lipstick is Chanel Rouge Allure, it still looks like lipstick on a pig.
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2GB’s own goal over Alan Jones
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