Alberici analysis backlash has life of its own

ABC chairman Justin Milne was one of many who ‘voiced his concerns’ to ABC management over Emma Alberici’s tax articles.

Johannes Leak’s view

ABC chairman Justin Milne was just one of many who “voiced his concerns” to ABC management over chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici’sarticles on corporate tax rates, sadly set to be some of the ABC’s best-known journalism of the year. Milne’s tone probably differed markedly from that of his old friend, Malcolm Turnbull, whom everyone in the ABC believes “went ballistic”. His office sent in a 1000-word complaint. Did the ABC cave to pressure? Management at the corp­oration might have breathed a sigh of relief when Alberici’s re-edited analysis appeared, with an editor’s note apparently thrashed out by the corporation and Alberici’s lawyers. “Passages that could be interpreted as opinion have been removed. Our editorial processes have also been reviewed,” read the note. It added: “Emma ­Alberici is the ABC’s chief economics correspondent and is a ­respected and senior Australian journalist.” Last weekend the ABC told Media that its editorial policies unit “had provided the advice there were issues with accuracy in the news report and impartiality in the analysis report”. This apparently differed from what Alberici had discussed with ABC management, and Diary hears Alberici was humiliatingly forced last Monday to contact journalists to seek details of the ABC statement. Tomorrow looms as a potential horror show when ABC brass are questioned about what happened, and when, by a Senate estimates committee. And down the track, the ABC complaints-handling unit, Audience & Consumer ­Affairs, will issue its response to the many angry complaints business leaders and government ministers fired off.

MORE: Chris Mitchell writes the ABC needs an economics expert

Written to order

Doing anything on March 23? IT journos will be heading en masse to Sydney’s Luna Park for the ­Lizzies, otherwise known as the 2018 ACS IT Journalism Awards. Have you put your entries in yet? Nor has Diary. But get this: one of the categories for “the technology media’s highest honour” run by MediaConnect and Australian Com­puter Society, is “best corporate content”. Over to Media­Connect chief executive Phil Sim: “Last year we had to make a ­number of decisions as to the ­eligibility of stories that were written as part of a sponsored ­arrangement, or specifically for a brand. In introducing an award for corporate content it means we can keep the traditional awards ­focused on ­content that is created independently, while also introducing a way to ­involve the many members of the IT Journalist ­fraternity — both past and present — who’s (sic) livelihood now involves writing corporate content.” Aside from the fact Phil needs a better grasp of spelling or a proofreader, adver­torial writing now gets a journalism award? Welcome to 2018.

Journos on board

Matt Peacock, the ABC journalist made famous in the Devil’s Dust miniseries about his investigation into the James Hardie asbestos scandal, took a redundancy and left the ABC on February 9. Apart from the obvious journalistic gap Peacock has left, there is the pressing issue of who will replace him as the staff-elected representative on the ABC board. The staff-elected director will be even more important to a board sorely lacking in media nous. The ballot is next month and will be run by the Australian Electoral Commission. It will be interesting to see how much sway the journalists’ union, the MEAA, has on who is successful. While the Commonwealth Public Sector Union actually has more members, it’s always been a journos’ race. In Victoria, former Southeast Asian corro Karen Percy is the MEAA nominee, while Queensland 7pm news presenter Matt Wordsworth is the endorsed candidate up there. More interesting is NSW, where those seeking MEAA endorsement are state political ­reporter Brigid Glanville, senior news journalist Philippa McDonald, news and sports presenter Tracey Holmes and business and finance reporter Stephen Long.

Worth recycling

Which brings us back to one of our favourite Diary items, from ­November 2015. And we didn’t even write it. Hat tip to Sharri Markson, now The Daily Telegraph’s national political editor. Let me take you back: “It’s the case of the missing bicycle that continues to captivate ABC staff. Walkley Award-winning journalist and former foreign correspondent Tim Palmer’s expen­sive bicycle disappeared from the ABC parking lot in Sydney. ­Unable to find the bike, he reported it had been stolen. The man who removed Palmer’s bike was none other than the ABC’s business investigative journalist and friend Stephen Long. It became a messy internal matter that ABC staff remain incredulous about. While he declined to comment, Long’s explanation to the ABC is that he thought the bike was going to be destroyed after an internal email warned bikes sitting idle would be disposed of. He apparently said it was simply a misunderstanding.” The ABC resolved the matter quietly. And now Long’s rival candidate is Palmer’s wife, Brigid Glanville. Only at ­Ultimo, folks, only at ­Ultimo.

An unhappy marriage

Raised eyebrows over in Western Australia at this line from the Seven West Media half-year finan­cial report, Appendix 4D. “The West has entered the next phase of transformation, leveraging the newsroom integration ­momentum that the new CEO, Revenue Director and Chief Marketing Officer have brought into the business.” Staff in The West Australian’s unhappy newsroom (11 journalists took voluntary ­redundancy last week) say newsroom integration has nothing to do with last year’s appointment of Seven West Media WA chief executive John Driscoll. Integration started three years ago when 7 Perth staff moved in with The West Australian and continued in late 2016 when The Sunday Times came on board after News Corp sold it to Seven West. In fact, the integration of television journos with print journos was such a mishmash those ­involved came up with their own very special nickname for proceedings: the marriage of the camel and the horse.

Sales’ pitch to pollies

Why the heck don’t politicians ­answer questions properly? Karl Stefanovic has sounded off about this to Diary in the past and now Leigh Sales has joined in. Doing her bit to add to the ABC stars in unusual public engagements genre, Sales fronted up to a Centre for Independent Studies luncheon in Sydney last week. The crowd ­included former ABC chairman Donald McDonald, who sat looking expectant that he might be ­acknowledged in proceedings. He wasn’t. Sales said pollies dodging questions was sometimes frustrating but it was self-inflicted damage. “When people do that they don’t realise how annoying that is to the audience. The number one piece of feedback I get from people is that, ‘Why don’t politicians ever answer the question?’ I think, you are on my show, you have a space speaking to hundreds of thousands of people with an opportunity to persuade people across to your position. You can’t just do that by waffling on, you can do that by making a reasoned, crisp argument. Frankly, I think they could make a lot more capital by being confident in their position like Howard and Keating used to be, and hopefully win over some voters.” Sales also had a good anecdote about the benefits of ­ignoring your boss if you really want something. She harked back to her first job in journalism at Channel Nine in Brisbane. “One day my boss pulled me aside and said he didn’t think I had the looks or the voice for a career in television. Every night I give that bloke a little wink and say, ‘This one’s for you’.”

Murray’s the man

Sky News wants to be on free-to-air television, and the pay-TV channel, owned by News Corp, as is this newspaper, has spoken to Seven and Nine about providing content on a free-to-air digital channel. Nothing to announce so far, but insiders at the network are keen to point out that Paul Murray’s long-running 9pm program is more popular than Stan Grant’s new ABC News Channel program A Matter of Fact. While some episodes of Grant’s program outrated Murray’s since its launch late last month, overall Murray comes out on top — Sky says by 5000 viewers on average, the ABC says by 2000. The kicker? Sky News is available in only one-third of the homes of the ABC News Channel, and ­despite this Murray is the winner.