Kazal to stage legal battle with Fairfax

Sydney businessman Tony Kazal is taking legal action against Fairfax Media.

Sydney businessman Tony Kazal is taking legal action against Fairfax Media after being linked to a major investigation by the publisher into oil company Unaoil in a Facebook advertisement, Diary can reveal. Lawyers are expected to file proceedings in the Supreme Court of NSW this week.

It comes after The Australian revealed an extortionist who demanded $US5 million from an oil company — exposed as allegedly corrupt by Fairfax — was playing a double-game as both source and criminal, in the opinion of a former prosecutor close to the case.

It is understood the defamation case concerns a sponsored link on Facebook under the headline: ‘The Bribe Factory’. Articles in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age do not allege Kazal was involved in bribery, however the ad implies he did, lawyers acting for Kazal will argue. It comes just days after lawyer and businessman Nick Di Giro­lamo dropped his high-­profile defamation case against Fairfax in the NSW Supreme Court having reached a settlement with the publisher. It is understood Fairfax has paid Di Girolamo a hefty six-figure sum.

Kennett queries probe

Former Victorian premier and Seven director Jeff Kennett has questioned the integrity of Nine’s internal month-long investigation into a botched 60 Minutes child kidnapping attempt as the industry awaits the findings, saying it should have been carried out by an external auditor. “I’m not holding my breath for it to be a bestseller,” Kennett told Diary. “If you were serious, you wouldn’t have had your own people doing the investigation. To have any credibility it had to be an outsider and probably could have been a retired judge.”

Stage one of the review process into the kidnapping attempt is complete. A report has been handed in by former 60 Minutes executive producer Gerald Stone, former boss of A Current AffairDavid Hurley, and the network’s general counsel Rachel Launders. “I would have handled it differently, but everyone’s different,” Kennett said.

Adam Whittington, the former Australian soldier facing kidnapping charges over the operation, was last week denied bail in Lebanon. “I feel terribly sorry for those who are still languishing in jail in Lebanon who are part of the Nine food chain that they’ve just turned their back on,” Kennett said. The report was being circulated among Nine directors this weekend.

Kennett said he asked Seven about its standards and they said a similar operation would need to be approved by chief executive Tim Worner. “I asked at Seven and I was gratified there,” Kennett said. “If that had happened in our country do you think we would have been as lenient? Even though someone’s palm has been greased with some dollars … It’s just double standards.”

While 60 Minutes producer ­Rebecca Le Tourneau is expected to get away with a minor ticking off after getting naked on board Qantas flight QF11 recently, the Nine staffer hasn’t done so well with the airline. Diary understands the flying kangaroo’s top brass have banned her from flying with the airline again. Qantas declined to comment. Nine’s HR team showed a sympathetic side after it emerged Le Tourneau may have mixed sleeping pills with booze after being upgraded from business to first class. She was accompanied by veteran investigative reporter Ross Coulthart, who was not involved in the incident.

ABC loses fact checker

The closure of the ABC’s controversial Fact Check service will see well-liked production desk editor Sue Stephenson leave the public broadcaster in a round of job cuts. Stephenson helped establish ABC News 24 as its first executive producer after 15 years at Seven. Fact Check editor Russell Skelton is said to be staying put at the ABC.

As Stephenson walks out the door, new managing director ­Michelle Guthrie — only a few weeks into the job — headed off to Hayman Island for the annual Australian Leadership Retreat. Attendees at the weekend included federal Trade Minister Steve Ciobo, former trade minister Andrew Robb, federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt, former governor-general Michael Jeffery and Mirvac chief executive Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz and husband Stuart, who runs Social Ventures Australia. The conference is run under Chatham House rules and journalists attending cannot quote speakers and have to ask attendees if they will agree to make on-the-record comments later.

The Australian approached Guthrie for an on-the-record comment at the end of the conference yesterday but she politely declined. “I am just here as an observer,” she said. Lest anyone think Guthrie spent the weekend sitting by the pool the weather was wet and Guthrie dutifully attended many sessions. Guthrie, whose husband is a chef in Singapore, attended sans spouse and mingled with the guests. She was spotted reading The Killing Season on the boat from Hamilton Island to Hayman on Friday.

Times tough in TV land

To say times have changed in free-to-air television is an understatement. The industry once seen as Australia’s answer to Hollywood was known for pampering its stars and executives with big salaries, parties, helicopter rides and expensive birthday presents (leg­endary former Nine Network chief Sam Chisholm’s employees bought him a Harley-Davidson for his 50th and had it winched into the boardroom for the celebrations). But the interweb and Netflix and such has put an end to a lot of the fun, with newspapers serving as a leading indicator for other traditional mediums.

One embodiment of this change was seen on a recent trip to New York by Nine chief executive Hugh Marks and investor relations head Nola Hodgson. Diary understands the pair used the subway to move between investor briefings and presentations from US networks about their upcoming content.

House adviser UBS provided a car for some meetings, but otherwise Hollywood Hugh and Hodgson were crunching MetroCard credits quicker than you can say “disrupted”. It’s a far cry from even six months ago when former chief operating officer Simon Kelly had the Nine chopper fly him from Sydney to Wollongong for a chinwag with WIN proprietor Bruce Gordon and chief executive Andrew Lancaster. Diary is having trouble envisioning Chisholm or David Leckie catching the bus from Nine’s Willoughby bunker in Sydney to Park Street.

Settled out of court

News Corp political journalist Samantha Maiden was relieved only two journalists were sent to Goulburn Local Court to cover her conviction for drink driving. After being disqualified from driving for seven months and fined $1000, Maiden exited past an ABC TV camera outside the court before the young ABC journalist ran up to her with a request. Would she mind walking out again? He’d been filming from a prohibited area of the court. Er, no thanks, Maiden responded.

Cheap email trick

It is not easy to mistake the iden­tity of your media editor and diarist, Darren Davidson, who at the very least, is rather tall. Yet a ­number of prominent media ­executives have been responding to a charlatan who created the dummyemail address darren.­[e-mail] and paid enough to protect its IP address. Some odd conversations and responses to emailed questions came Davidson’s way before he realised something was awry. News Corp initiated an IT investigation, which then escalated to a Victoria Police investigation.

Then, by a strange coincidence weeks later, as Davidson and the Nine network were trying to work out why a particular email with an op-ed by Tracy Grimshaw had gone missing, TV ­blogger Kevin Perry rang Nine to say he had been given the piece by a “source”. Perry told Nine he was preparing to run it on his blog, DeciderTV. Clearly, the relevant email had gone to the “source” or Perry. Of course, the legal profession doesn’t react kindly to deceptive, fraudulent behaviour and handling stolen property. Lawyers acting for News Corp told Perry a serious criminal offence had taken place, and he quickly revised his decision to publish the aforementioned material. Perry issued a prompt couple of “no comments” or two when asked to confirm or deny he was behind the illegal conduct.

Decision on Ricketson

Members from the journalists union will meet today to decide the fate of academic Matthew Ricketson as the journalist union’s representative on the Australian Press Council. The editor of the Geelong Advertiser, Liam Houlihan, resigned from the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance in protest at the appointment of a key architect of the discredited Finkelstein report. A meeting was set for May 16, but got bumped by one week due to redundancies at Fairfax. Members will ask Ricketson whether he still supports a proposal to create a Stalinesque watchdog.