Fallout continues for Emma Alberici’s Sardinia investigation
Australian/Sardinian filmmaker Lisa Camillo isn’t the only person worked up about Emma Alberici’s Sardinia investigation.
Australian/Sardinian filmmaker Lisa Camillo is not the only person worked up about Emma Alberici’s ABC Foreign Correspondent Sardinia investigation.
Diary’s revelations last week now have organisers of Australia’s annual Lavazza Italian Film Festival seething.
Foreign Correspondent claimed it had “cracked open” the story of the poisoning of Sardinia by toxic military weapons in Alberici’s episode, Secret Sardinia.
The issue is that the Italian Film Festival screened the Australian premiere of Camillo’s 84-minute film, Balentes (The Brave Ones), on the very same subject in September last year — more than four months before Alberici’s Secret Sardinia screened on the ABC in late January.
Festival director Elysia Zeccola was also unpleasantly surprised by the latest claim by Foreign Correspondent’s executive producer Matthew Carney, in Diary last week, that Secret Sardinia had broken the story “to an Australian audience”.
“I took exception to it,” Zeccola, who shares the Italian heritage of Camillo and Alberici, tells Diary.
“We screened Balentes 33 times in Australia in September and October.
“We definitely broke the story last year through Lisa.”
Zeccola also expresses strong sympathy for Camillo, given the lack of acknowledgment of her work in the Alberici version.
“It’s hard to make ends meet as a documentary maker,” he says.
“For this to happen to her (Camillo) is unfair, when she has put her blood, sweat and tears into it.”
Camillo has sent the ABC 28 screenshot comparisons where Secret Sardinia mirrored Balentes, and has also sent emails revealing the show never delivered on promises to properly credit her and her documentary film.
Ita’s PM links run deep
Scott Morrison said last week he had known new ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose “for a long time”.
Diary can now reveal that the connection between Buttrose and the Prime Minister’s family goes back further than anyone could have imagined: more than 60 years, in fact, to before the PM was even born.
The ties date back to when Buttrose was a teenage student in the 1950s at the now defunct Dover Heights Home Science High School in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
There, Buttrose went to school with Morrison’s mother, who was then known by her maiden name, Marion Smith.
The pair were not in the same classes, with Buttrose apparently in the specialist French class at the school, but Diary has established that they knew each other.
And that is not the end of the Morrison-Buttrose connections, which continued decades after the PM’s ABC “captain’s pick” finished school. Diary is very reliably informed Ita’s baby brother, Charles Buttrose, still a serving policeman, worked in the NSW Police Force’s Maroubra branch with Morrison’s father, John.
Charles, now well into his 60s, remains a police sergeant to this day, while John Morrison eventually retired after making it into the force’s senior ranks.
PM was watching
Still on Buttrose, Diary understands the genesis of our Ita running “your ABC” dates back nearly six months to September 24, the day Michelle Guthrie (who finally settled her legal stoush with the public broadcaster late last week) was sacked as managing director.
That day, Buttrose made a rare appearance on the ABC’s The Drum with host Ellen Fanning.
The subject? What’s wrong with the ABC.
“If I look at the board, and if I look at Michelle Guthrie’s CV, I don’t see anybody there with a lot of media experience,” Buttrose said at the time.
“And I think that is a failing of the board — they’re very well-credentialed, don’t get me wrong. But … I think you must have media experience if you’re going to run the ABC.”
The PM was watching.
Giving added impetus to the “Ita for chairwoman” push was a frank but widely overlooked admission from ABC director Joe Gersh during November’s Senate inquiry into political interference at the public broadcaster.
Gersh — a property financier with little media background — conceded the board needed “an additional member with experience in the media”.
With admissions like that, it’s little wonder Buttrose was quietly sounded out in January about her interest in the ABC job.
Missed reunion
A lunch for the ages with the late, great Mike Willesee as guest of honour was scheduled in Sydney for last Friday, the very day he died.
Diary can reveal the list of invitees was top notch: apart from Willesee himself, there was news doyen Brian Henderson, former Nine Network host Mike Munro, ad great John Singleton, news and current affairs boss Peter Meakin (now at Ten), and Mike’s brothers Don and Terry Willesee.
The proposed venue was Willesee’s favourite restaurant of 30 years, Lees Fortuna Court Chinese Resturant in Crows Nest, on Sydney’s lower north shore.
Mike was to have held court at the very same table he had occupied for the past 30 years.
But by Wednesday it became clear the big reunion couldn’t happen. Willesee’s health had taken a turn for the worse, and the lunch was cancelled.
Unfortunately, his condition deteriorated on Thursday, before the tragic news was circulated among the group late on Friday morning.
Seinfeld moment
Ahead of Willesee’s final farewell at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral this Friday, Diary loves a colourful story from the mid-1980s about the time Willesee and his show’s entire team at Nine, including Meakin and Munro, were fired by their ultimate boss, the network’s owner Kerry Packer.
It involves a TV package Willesee put together on the infamous National Times/Goanna affair, which saw sensational accusations (that were ultimately proved to be false) made against Packer in the mid-1980s. A few minutes after the story screened, the phone rang from the boss’s office.
It was Packer’s boy-wonder lawyer (and future PM) Malcolm Turnbull on the line, telling the clearly shocked junior reporter Munro that he was sacked.
“I’m here with Kerry Packer,” Turnbull shouted at Munro. “Willesee’s fired, Meakin’s fired, and you’re fired.”
Munro transferred the call to Meakin, who then relayed the bad news to the show’s host.
Willesee responded with his trademark pause and stare, before saying: “Tell Kerry, if he doesn’t like the story, he can sue himself.”
Willesee, Munro and Meakin then all defied their “sackings” and showed up for work the next day, a la Seinfeld’s George Costanza, and the episode was never mentioned by Packer or Turnbull again.
Money talks
Talks are finally under way between Sydney’s undisputed breakfast radio leader, Alan Jones, and 2GB bosses about the possible renewal of his contract.
Diary hears Jones’s reps have now formally registered his willingness to stay at 2GB beyond the date his contract expires, June 30. Under his contract, that move formally triggers the talks.
That now begs the $64,000 question: will Nine boss Hugh Marks overhaul a high-profile breakfast show for the second time in three months?
Remember, Nine, 2GB’s majority owner, ditched Karl Stefanovic from Today in December. And as we all know, ratings-wise, that hasn’t gone great so far.
That experience has created caution at Nine.
Front of mind are two key Australian examples of the ratings impact when big radio names have switched networks.
The first is the famous turnaround of 2GB when Jones and morning king Ray Hadley moved from then top-rating 2UE to 2GB in the early noughties. The two defections saw 2GB quickly go from ratings feather-duster to rooster. By contrast, 2UE went so poorly it doesn’t even exist any more.
The second involves the departure of Kyle and Jackie O from 2DAY FM to KIIS FM exactly five years ago. This saw 2DAY’s breakfast ratings immediately dive from 10.4 points to a paltry 3.8, and KIIS’s soar from 3.3 to 9.3.
In the money-conscious world of electronic media, those ratings differences add up to big bucks.
Chemistry lesson
Still on breakfast broadcasting, there have been awkward exchanges aplenty on Nine’s Today show this year, as the show’s hosts valiantly strive to build badly needed chemistry.
The latest involved Today newbies, Melbourne-based sports presenter Tony “TJ” Jones and newsreader and rising Nine star Tom Steinfort last week.
TJ’s ingenious idea for building team rapport was first to draw a stick figure of Steinfort, and then use his artwork to critique the newsreader’s head of hair.
Steinfort seemed taken aback by TJ’s suggestion he was getting, shall we say, “help” to ensure his hair appeared abundant: “You reckon I’ve got plugs, Tone?” a bemused Steinfort asked.
It was forced smiles all round as the exchange meandered on, with Today weatherman Steve Jacobs helpfully adding: “Apparently getting licked by a cow on a bald head stimulates hair growth.”
The last word went to a deadpan Georgie Gardner, who told Steinfort: “Well, there’s a double whammy. You didn’t realise you were bald, and you need to get licked by a cow.”
Blended families
Hugh Marks is fast-tracking plans for Nine’s Melbourne TV operations and ex-Fairfax newspapers to be one big happy family at Nine’s Docklands HQ.
Publishing boss Chris Janz late Friday told staff he is hoping the papers will finalise a move to Nine’s Melbourne TV studios by June.
But Nine’s revered reporters at The Age and AFR need not fear the contaminating influence of those wretched TV types. Janz was eager to stress the two camps will be separated in the new premises: “Nine’s Melbourne studios are in the same building,” he conceded. “However, The Age and the AFR would operate on a separate floor with a purpose-built fit-out.”
Courting scandal
The country’s most powerful newshounds, and TV and radio hosts, have been left wondering whether they need to pack their toothbrushes, in the wake of the guilty verdict in the high-profile George Pell case.
Their fears follow a series of ominous letters sent last month by Victoria’s newish Director of Public Prosecutions, Kerri Judd, copies of which have been obtained by Diary.
Judd’s letters imply man face possible prosecution for contempt of court: “At present, I intend to issue proceedings for contempt against (insert news organisation/journalist here).”
Judd’s distribution list was extraordinary, with letters sent, among others, to Herald Sun editor Damon Johnston, The Daily Telegraph’s Ben English, The Courier Mail’s Sam Weir, AFR editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury, SMH editor Lisa Davies, The Age editor Alex Lavelle, Today show co-host Deb Knight, 2GB hosts Ray Hadley and Chris Smith, 3AW’s Ross Stevenson and John Burns, and ex-Nine morning TV boss Mark Calvert. The ABC also received letters.
The letters concerned the media’s reporting in December in relation to the jury’s guilty finding against Pell, which at that point was suppressed, on sex abuse charges. A series of cryptic reports across the media did not identify Pell or reference the charges against him, but mentioned a story of “widespread relevance”. As one example, the Herald Sun’s front page, “Censored”, simply referred to a “very important story that is relevant to Victorians”.
But despite the stories’ vagueness, Judd set out four different alleged breaches against media organisations, including “scandalising the court”.
A letter sent back to the DPP on behalf of 53 media clients was doing the rounds last week. In the correspondence, top media lawyer Justin Quill formally responded on February 22, describing the letters as a “ ‘scattergun’ and formulaic volley of correspondence”. He also questioned whether the DPP’s letters justified “making serious accusations of contempt and related offences”.
The Victorian DPP’s office has declined to comment to Diary.
Secret source
Clicking “copy” and “paste” does wonders for a reporter’s story count.
That’s the lesson of a list of Australia’s most prolific print and online journalists leaked to Diary by media monitoring agency Streem.
The full list, to be published on Streem’s site today, shows the five most prolific reporters in Australia in the last year all hail from the Daily Mail. Now that’s one story the Mail won’t be ripping off.
And the prize for Australia’s most prolific journalist?
Take a bow, Caleb Taylor, Daily Mail reporter-at-large on minor celebrities.
Over the last year, Taylor has published 1083 stories, or 4.5 a day.
A scan of Taylor’s yarns shows his favourite source was The Daily Telegraph. Of his last 10 articles, five were recycled Tele yarns.
But Taylor did have to do some hard work. Three searing investigative pieces were dug up from the Instagram feeds of various B-listers.
And in two pap photo pieces, he really earned his keep.
One, involving ex-Married at First Sight “star” Elizabeth Sobinoff, was a Daily Mail writing masterclass, lauding Sobinoff’s “toned tummy in a skimpy black top and flowing skirt”.
Soft run for premier?
Palaszczuk granted rare TV interviews last week; so why wasn’t she asked about Jackie Trad?
2GB’s own goal over Alan Jones
How 2GB’s online team kicked Alan Jones’ “shove a sock down her throat” comment into the outrage stratosphere.