Faux journalist living in his own world of fantasy

Media industry, meet your very own real life Walter Mitty; Daily Mail Australia in meltdown; plus who’s off to London to cover the royal wedding.

Cartoon: Johannes Leak.

Media industry, meet your very own real-life Walter Mitty. When a tweet by Andrew Jaffrey appeared on Media Watch last week, the “journalist” (as Media Watch described him) was over the moon. “It’s taken me 11 years but tonight I made it onto Media Watch. My work here is done,” he posted to his many social media followers. But the TV mention had those in the know shouting at their TV sets. Media Watch isn’t the only outlet to lend credibility to Jaffrey, but the program really should have come up with a better descriptor.

NSW Police would like to confirm that they have not attended any premises in Kenthurst tonight in relation to these tweets. Inquiries will now be made into the nature of this information.

— NSW Police (@nswpolice) December 20, 2017

His modus operandi is to connect online with well-meaning, influential figures such ABC Radio’s Richard Glover and Nine executive Tom Malone, who inadvertently boost his credibility. Things came to a head last Monday when Media Watch referred to Jaffrey’s tweet about a Coalition party room spill. “Reports are Peter Dutton’s staff are working numbers to take the leadership.” The meeting was fiction, as the program pointed out. But why didn’t it expose Jaffrey?

Living in fantasyland

The MEAA lists Jaffrey as a freelance journalist. Yet he has forced many journalists into wild goose chases. The union should look at this evidence:

Case 1: Last August, Jaffrey posted an offer of employment from Al Jazeera to become Australia news director and open a bureau in Melbourne. Not true. Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas told Diary: “Andrew Jaffrey has never been employed by Al Jazeera, nor has he worked for Al Jazeera. There is no ‘Australia director’ for Al Jazeera, nor is there any Al Jazeera ‘Melbourne bureau’. I am Al Jazeera English’s Australia correspondent, based in Sydney.”

Case 2: In December, Jaffrey sent a tweet, since deleted, that prompted TV news crews to converge on Kenthurst, in the belief that police were raiding Don Burke’s property in the wake of sexual harassment allegations, which Burke denies. In a rare move, NSW Police tweeted a denial that it had attended any premises in Kenthurst that night. “Inquiries will now be made into the nature of this information,” NSW Police tweeted.

Case 3: In December 2016 Jaffrey posted on Facebook about a horrific crime in Guildford: “In 22 years of journalism, I’ve never cried in front of someone I’ve interviewed — that ended today speaking to the mother of a two- year-old (allegedly) beaten then killed by the mother’s boyfriend. It was all going OK until she showed me the presents her little girl will never unwrap.” He then urged people to read his story in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald. “We definitely didn’t have a story by him in the paper that weekend,” Sydney Morning Herald news editor Nick Ralston told Diary.

There are doubts about his academic qualifications. Charles Sturt University says Jaffrey is still registered as a student, so couldn’t confirm that he actually graduated last year with a Master of Arts (Journalism). And anyway, it doesn’t offer a course by that name. When Diary phoned him, Jaffrey seemed to have a reduced presence. He ­declined to comment about each matter we put to him. “I can’t at this stage. I have got an employer that wouldn’t allow it.” But which employer wouldn’t that be? At various times he claims to have worked for the ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, NBC, 2GB, Triple M, The Daily Telegraph and news.com.au. “I have really got no comment. I am not interesting and I have nothing to say,” he said. Sadly, Jaffrey has a lot to say on ­social media, and it causes all sorts of problems. His tweet about that leadership spill garnered hundreds of retweets from people such as Rhys Muldoon, who really should know better. Pedestrian even wrote a story about it. A sad indictment of the lack of fact checking in our times that Jaffrey gets away with it.

Mail meltdown

Meltdown at Daily Mail Australia! The website went into a spin yesterday over an article by April Glover, who describes her role as “responsible for breaking exclusive global news stories in a 24/7 newsroom”. Glover generated a story of her own in her piece on ­reality-TV star Florence Alexandra. “Florence initially rose to fame on Matty J’s season of The Bachelor, before unsuccessfully trying her luck at love again in Paradise,” Glover wrote. But then she followed with: “But most people who were educated at high school level know these vapid c. ts only go on the shows to find mediocre Instagram fame and make a living promoting teeth whiteners and unnecessary cosmetic procedures.” Whoops! The website is investigating. “Daily Mail Australia would like to apologise for inappropriate language that appeared on an article published by this site on Sunday morning. As soon as we became aware of the mistake, the wording was removed. The Daily Mail Australia apologises for any offence taken by either our readers or contestants of the show.” The pitfalls of generating original content instead of ripping off everyone else’s!

Short-listed

Four months ago the director of communications for the NSW Police, Strath Gordon, quit the service after 11 years and headed across town to the plum head of public affairs and communications for the Australian Olympic Committee. We might know his replacement this week. Names in the frame include Andrew Parsons, the former NSW Fire & Rescue head of communications who is now NSW Police’s corporate communications manager and is acting in the role, John Choueifate, who recently rapidly departed from Network Ten as head of news, A Current Affair crime reporter Simon Bouda, and Grant “Grunter” Williams, the former executive producer of A Current Affair who was moved from that role last year and subsequently departed the network. “The recruitment process remains ongoing,” the police media unit says. But Diary hears final interviews have been held and Grunter, a former police officer known to NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller, is the front runner.

Royal wedding

Who has scored the plum role of presenting coverage of the royal wedding between HRH Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on May 19? Nine has announced Georgie Gardner and Karl Stefanovic, while the ABC is planning Annabel Crabb and Jeremy Fernandez. But will Ten choose Carrie Bickmore or Lisa Wilkinson? Not that the two are rivals.

Quill controversy

At the recent Quill Awards, run by the Melbourne Press Club, the Gold Quill was won by a team from Fairfax Media and the ABC for an amazing investigation into Chinese political influence in Australia. Not everyone was happy. The entry for the top award winner listed three separate pieces of work from The Age, Four Corners and The Sydney Morning Herald and the bylines of Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, Chris Uhlmann, Daniel Flitton, Sashka Koloff, James Massola and Philip Dorling. And that is not even counting the three further researchers who toiled on the Four Corners report.

Peter Blunden, News Corp’s Victorian managing director — editorial, told Diary the award was “totally inappropriate”. “My issue is with a commercial enterprise being subsidised by taxpayers, and an ABC owned by the people propping up a commercial business, then standing together on a podium collecting awards and proclaiming ‘we’re the best’. It’s not sour grapes, it’s a bad joke. It is not the function of our public broadcaster to use its resources to benefit a company and be rewarded for it.”

Yes, Blunden oversees The Age’s great rival, the Herald Sun. But Melbourne Press Club chief executive Mark Baker tells Diary the issue is under discussion. “One of the things we certainly saw this year was a growing number of team entries and collaborative entries and we are certainly looking to see if this is a good thing. Are core journalists and key players getting overwhelmed by the more organisational nature of entries? No one formally complained on that subject but anecdotally people were unhappy with the Fairfax and ABC collaboration. It’s an issue we are happy to have as a general discussion about structure of the Quills and where we go from here.”

Political editor error

An embarrassment of riches at the Australian Financial Review on Friday. On page 39, Phillip Coorey was listed as political editor. Yet on page 35, it was Laura Tingle.