Sardinia’s toxicity not so secret
Investigation on ABC’s Foreign Correspondent lands journalist Emma Alberici and national broadcaster in hot water.
ABC bosses seemed legitimately excited last month about a high-profile Emma Alberici investigation on Foreign Correspondent.
The episode, titled Secret Sardinia, about the poisoning of the Italian island’s people, animals and idyllic coastline by the testing of toxic military weapons, was hailed both inside and outside the ABC as a powerful investigation.
It even gave star interviewer Alberici a platform to parade her clearly impressive Italian-speaking skills.
Foreign Correspondent’s executive producer, Matthew Carney, proudly posted on Facebook on the day the show appeared: “It’s rare these days to uncover a big story … The Italian government has been trying to cover it up but tonight we crack it open.”
But now controversy is brewing over the much-hyped program. Australian/Sardinian independent filmmaker Lisa Camillo has contacted both Diary and the ABC to claim that Alberici’s Foreign Correspondent story was not groundbreaking after all.
Camillo has written comprehensive emails to Carney, arguing that Secret Sardinia bore remarkable similarities to her own 84-minute feature documentary, Balentes (The Brave Ones), a high-risk, four-year labour of love on the same subject. Balentes was released in Palace Cinemas locally last year.
She says Foreign Correspondent’s version of the story is so similar to her film that it could damage her ability to sell Balentes at international film festivals. She says these sales are critical to her recouping the $500,000 the film cost to make.
Camillo tells Diary she has now sent Carney 28 screenshots of footage comparisons where she claims the Alberici version mirrored her film.
Those similarities range from basic set-up shots to interviews with the same people and identical archival footage of deformed lambs and baby goats, as well as onscreen mapping that carries the distinctive look of Balentes’ graphics.
Diary has sighted these comparisons after watching Secret Sardinia, and agrees that several shots appear near-identical.
But Camillo says her biggest gripe is that the program ran without proper attribution to her or her film.
She was approached last year by senior ABC producers and promised an interview, a clip from Balentes and proper acknowledgment on Foreign Correspondent.
One email last November from Carney himself to Camillo stated: “I do think you are a legitimate part of the story so we could interview you and film with you, hopefully in Sardinia, and also run a clip of your documentary.”
Four days later, Carney even assured her she would be interviewed “as an Australian academic and filmmaker who returned to her homeland and discovered the story”.
Camillo says: “I was paid for three weeks of work. I organised interviews for them, logistics and gave them phone numbers for my talent.”
But the only credit she says she was given on Secret Sardinia was a small nod for “research” at the end of the program, a fleeting appearance and the brief mention in an Alberici voiceover that said she had “made a film to raise awareness” on the subject.
Camillo notes this was hardly an acknowledgment that she “discovered the story”, as Carney had promised in his emails.
Camillo says: “I feel betrayed. I don’t want other filmmakers to go through what I went through. It was taking a story from a local and claiming it was theirs.”
When Diary phoned Carney on Friday, he maintained that his Facebook boast about cracking the story “open” was meant in a local context.
“We’ve cracked it open to an Australian audience,” Carney said. “It’s been done by Italian media. It’s never been done by Australian media. And that’s the point: we’re an Australian program.”
Carney added: “No one owns this story.” He said Foreign Correspondent had developed the story further compared with Camillo’s documentary, and claimed that there had previously been other reports in Italy on the same issue.
Carney said the ABC version included extra material not featured in Balentes in a number of instances, including interviews with victims, as well as science and law enforcement subjects.
Pull up a chair
Still on the ABC, the announcement of a new chairman for the public broadcaster could not come soon enough.
We’re told that ABC viewers will be put out of their collective misery very shortly.
But Diary can now reveal a couple of juicy details.
The three final candidates recommended by the independent panel to the government were all male. And we can also reveal two of those recommendations were none other than former Foxtel and News Corp chief executive Kim Williams and ex-Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood.
The PM is apparently not obliged to accept the nominations of the panel and publishing legend Ita Buttrose is firming as a leading contender.
Outside contenders could include former communications minister Helen Coonan, ex-Channel 7 Perth boss Mario D’Orazio and media lawyer Ian Robertson.
Heat over ‘Ice Maiden’
Everyone loves a good stoush, but even by the Australian media’s knockabout standards, last Thursday’s exchange between Nine and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph was a doozy.
After a front page blurb featuring a picture of Today host Georgie Gardner next to the words “Ice Maiden”, and an inside story that said Nine’s focus groups had found she was grating with viewers, the network went the full DEFCON-1 on The Tele in its response.
As The Tele itself noted in a heavily rewritten version of the original story online that day, Nine accused the story of being “a fabrication and irresponsible reporting”.
“The claim by The Daily Telegraph reporter that Nine has conducted focus groups this year is wrong,” Nine said, among many more colourful adjectives.
Tele editor Ben English didn’t waste time in reporting on Thursday that he had “listened to Nine” and was “reviewing every aspect of the publication of this story”.
Diary hears English brought the temperature right down behind the scenes in chats with Nine executives by Friday, explaining that The Tele had been an equal-opportunity critic of TV shows on all networks, not just Nine, over the years.
Diary imagines the producers and presenters of shows like Seven News, My Kitchen Rules and The Project — all of which have been in the sights of critical Tele stories at various points — would wholeheartedly agree.
By Saturday, The Tele moved to finally shut the issue down by publishing a page three apology to Gardner personally.
Meanwhile, there were interesting theories about the origins of The Tele story late last week. There is no suggesting Karl Stefanovic is involved in any way, although there was chatter some of his supporters could still be upset by the manner of his axing.
Look for late scratchings
You have to feel sorry for Australian star Rachel Griffiths in her directorial debut on the long-awaited Michelle Payne biopic, Ride Like a Girl.
The film is due to be released in time for Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival later this year.
But the shocking and rapid fall from grace of the country’s most successful trainer, Darren Weir, a big part of the Payne legend, has the Australian production scene abuzz with speculation about the need for possible re-edits, with the feature now in post-production.
Making things more awkward is that Weir is played in the film by Animal Kingdom’s Sullivan Stapleton, now one of Australia’s biggest rising stars on the global stage.
Now, there is not even a remote suggestion that Payne knew anything about the practices that have seen Weir banned from racing for four years for the possession of electronic “jiggers”.
The banning of Weir nonetheless poses significant challenges for the project. It was the Weir-trained Prince of Penzance that Payne famously piloted to win the Melbourne Cup in 2015. Indeed, his role is now given third billing in the film by movie bible IMDb.
But if the film’s producer, Richard Keddie, is concerned, he isn’t showing it. “Ride Like A Girl is Michelle Payne’s story,” he tells Diary in a statement. “It starts when she was six months old. It’s a beautiful family film and we can’t wait to show it to audiences.”
Keddie offers no response to Diary’s queries about whether changes to the film were needed. But others close to the project are adamant there will be no substantial re-edit or delay to the film’s release, despite the dramatic events of recent weeks.
The next big thing
Diary ran into celebrity entrepreneur Mark Bouris in the wilds of Sydney’s inner-city Surry Hills last week.
Never wanting to waste an opportunity, we asked Bouris, Australia’s only host of The Apprentice (the show which put Donald Trump on the path to becoming US President) if he had any plans to return to TV screens.
The answer is quite possibly.
Bouris is now considering a fresh TV approach. No, not The Apprentice, but Bouris’s own concept, The Mentor, in which he helps to turn around the fortunes of struggling businesses.
The program could see him switch networks to Nine, the network that of course made The Apprentice with Bouris at the helm.
The Mentor ran for eight episodes on Monday nights on Seven last year, and is now a successful podcast on Austereo’s PodcastOne platform.
But Bouris was on the fence about whether he would make a fresh TV version of The Mentor with Nine — hinting he had not yet decided if it fits in with his hectic entrepreneurial schedule.
Netting the sharks
Still on entrepreneurs, Diary can finally confirm that Shark Tank, the TV star vehicle for some of our more colourful money-makers, is sleeping with the fishes after Ten quietly unhooked it from its schedule.
That means some of the sharks are moving on to new hunting grounds.
Ten’s official line has been the show is “resting”. But two very well-heeled refugees from the program (where small businesses would pitch for funding from the “sharks”) have already showed up on the Your Money channel, the TV joint venture between Nine and Sky News.
Shark Tank’s ex-cranky shark, tech entrepreneur Steve Baxter, will be a mentor on RiverPitch, Your Money’s new show helping start-up companies that kicks off tomorrow. And we also spied former Shark Tanker and Red Balloon founder Naomi Simson preparing to go on air as a panellist in Your Money’s Sydney studios last week.
But will the other ex-sharks, Boost Juice founder Janine Allis, Petbarn director Glen Richards and recruitment tycoon Andrew Banks, find new TV homes as well?
Diary suggests they talk to Nine if the Bouris deal falls over.
When Lisa’s away
It’s turning into a hectic party season at the imposing Sydney harbourside residence of Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons.
A few weeks on from their annual Australia Day barbecue, a permanent fixture on the media calendar, FitzSimons has been at it again, this time hosting a party for his great journalistic mate, The Drum host and fellow The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age columnist Julia Baird.
And if you thought the Australia Day barbie had attracted the media glitterati to Neutral Bay, that was just a taste. The couple upped the ante this time around, with the guests for Baird’s party including international celebrities as well.
If you were running the party’s guest list credits in order of fame, top billing would have gone to international culinary rock star Nigella Lawson, who has been in town for a just-completed series of sellout shows and filming of Ten’s MasterChef Australia.
Close behind Lawson on the party’s honour roll was musical comedian and composer Tim Minchin, whose global success following Matilda the Musical means he is more the property of the world than Australia these days. And the party’s supporting cast featured a who’s who of the local media’s smart-set — with 7.30’s Leigh Sales, Annabel Crabb, Mamamia founder Mia Freedman, the SMH’s Kate McClymont, former Media Watch host David Marr and Radio National’s Norman Swan all present.
But one notable member of the local media glitterati was missing: Wilkinson herself. The better half of the Sydney media power couple is enduring a heavier than usual workload on The Project in Melbourne because her fellow host, Carrie Bickmore, is on maternity leave.
Wilkinson even went on social media to post a group photo of the imposing throng just for the record, accompanied by the lament: “When hubby throws a birthday party at home for one of the best women you know (and so many of your favourites turn up) … and you’re interstate working. Hate that!”
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