Was Milne a captain’s pick?
Was the choice of Justin Milne as ABC chairman a captain’s pick by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull?
The mess surrounding governance at the ABC (interventionist chairman, sacked managing director, departed chairman, staff uproar, government running for the hills) deepens with a row over whether departed ABC chairman Justin Milne was yet another captain’s pick. That is, an ABC board member favoured by the government more than the nomination panel. The panel forwards shortlists of potential board members to the government or, in the case of the chairman, the prime minister. “He wasn’t even in the top three,” one source told Diary of the list of potential chairmen forwarded to Malcolm Turnbull last year. But other sources insist that he was on the list.
The most talked-about name in the frame was Danny Gilbert, co-founder of law firm Gilbert + Tobin and co-chairman of Cape York Partnership Group, who seemed to have the chairmanship in the bag up until the last minute. The nomination panel is chaired by former treasury secretary Ted Evans. Members are former Coalition government communications minister Neil Brown, company director and lawyer Sally Pitkin, and wait for it, someone with media experience: Anne Fulwood, once a Ten Network newsreader but now media director for Ogilvy Public Relations.
The panel is in the news after the board sacked ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie last week, and we were reminded how frequently Communications Minister Mitch Fifield overrode the panel’s recommendations in almost every case. ABC interim chair Kirstin Ferguson was favourably assessed by the panel, withdrew her nomination, but was chosen anyway. The question needs to be asked: as it searches for a new chairman to steady the ABC ship, will the government ignore the panel again?
Yes is the short answer, with the government initiating the legislated independent nomination panel process.
“The panel’s role is to make recommendations. The government’s role is to make decisions,” a government spokesman said. It is just that everything is going to be much more scrutinised this time.
Markson mystery
The mystery of The Daily Telegraph political editor Sharri Markson’s lost entry for the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery journalist of the year award remains unsolved. Markson sent in two emails and one package as part of her award entry for breaking the story of former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s secret love child. The National Press Club, which administers the award, has conducted an IT investigation, including a trace log of the email server and a spam audit, in case the system had intercepted and diverted the entry. Markson’s two emails were not found.
“Neither audit sheds any light on what happened,” National Press Club chief executive Maurice Reilly wrote to Markson. “I have advised David Crowe of the audit outcome and my opinion that you did lodge your entry in good faith despite us not receiving it. I am genuinely sorry about all this.”
Crowe, press gallery president and chief political correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, will make changes for next year but this year’s award, to Fairfax photographer Alex Ellinghausen, stands and he gets to keep the $5000 cheque.
“Next year we’ll add to the process so that every applicant gets a confirmation email. I personally thought Sharri’s stories on Barnaby were great contenders this year. I also think we have a very worthy winner in Alex Ellinghausen,” Crowe told Diary.
Maybe it was the Russians.
Amicable exit at SBS
SBS managing director Michael Ebeid left the multicultural broadcaster last week and nobody noticed — except the massed SBS staff who packed the network’s atrium in Sydney to the rafters last Thursday evening as Ebeid said his farewells. Jenny Brockie was MC, light refreshments were served, and many people made a night of it and nursed hangovers the next day. “Massive thank you to all my awesome SBS colleagues for such a special and emotional send-off last night that I’ll never forget. It’s truly been a privilege to lead SBS and I now get to be your ambassador and watch the network go from strength to strength,” Ebeid said on Twitter afterwards.
Chairman Bulent Hass Dellal paid tribute, as did acting managing director and internal candidate most likely to succeed, SBS finance boss James Taylor. Ebeid leaves just before SBS’s biggest hit of the year launches tomorrow night, Go Back to Where You Came From Live. The refugee reality program will feature former senator Jacqui Lambie, radio host Meshel Laurie, comedian Gretel Killeen and former footballer Spida Everitt. In neat symmetry, the first season of Go Back was a huge hit for SBS just after Ebeid arrived from the ABC. When Ebeid announced he was off to an executive role at Telstra, Communications Minister Mitch Fifieldthanked him for his “exceptional leadership of the Special Broadcasting Service over the past seven years”, saying he had been a “great steward of the organisation during a time of tremendous change in the media” and a “strong leader with a clear vision for SBS”. He didn’t say that about Michelle Guthrie last week.
Open your eyes now
The ABC is supposedly a bastion of independent journalism, but ABC news coverage of the week the public broadcaster imploded has been woeful. The corporation has 850 journalists who seemed unaware or incurious that the managing director and the chairman hated each other, and that executives were at war. “Covering these ABC stories is so difficult,” one ABC journo startled Diary by confiding last week. So it’s good to hear that Four Corners is coming to the rescue and executive producer Sally Neighbour is turning her laser sights on Aunty’s management meltdown. Stay tuned.
Comeback 1
ABC-free item. Former Seven director of network production Brad Lyons, is getting back into the industry in a low-key way. His many successes across 20 years included Dancing with the Stars, Deal or No Deal and My Kitchen Rules. Lyons has been spotted meeting various networks. One source said he was in talks to form an alliance with Richard Finlayson, the ABC director of television who left in January. But that would turn this into an ABC item, and Diary isn’t having it.
Comeback 2
Also, Andrew Backwell, Nine’s former managing director, programming and production, is joining Seven as a consultant working on programming projects. He left Nine at the end of 2016 and has been consulting to MediaWorks in New Zealand and the Playmaker production house, which was bought by Sony in 2015 and makes Love Child, House Husbands, The Code and The Wrong Girl. Backwell last worked for Seven in 2003. He told Diary he was delighted to be rejoining. “Seven has been number one for 12 consecutive years, so after spending 14 years at Nine, it’s a matter of … if you can’t beat them, join them.” Up yours, Nine!
McDonald’s recipe
There is another way to be ABC chairman when the prime minister is your mate. The chief executive of Australian Opera, Donald McDonald, was appointed by his best friend prime minister John Howard as chairman of the ABC in 1996. McDonald was chairman during the tenures of four managing directors: Brian Johns, Jonathan Shier, Russell Balding and Mark Scott. “From the outset John Howard said to me on the day my appointment was confirmed that he would never raise the question of the ABC with me,” McDonald tells Diary. “He said: ‘If you need to talk to me about the ABC, ring my office and make an appointment and come and see me.’ He was scrupulous in observing that.” The pair met formally about four times, mainly triennial funding and board appointments.
McDonald said a rigorous written complaints system was a good defence against political complaints. “You have got to use the public as a monitoring system. Their complaints matter. The politicians’ complaints were not more important than complaints made by any other members of the public. They were treated in the same way. The management hated answering complaints, but the discipline of that was that it made people more careful — not cautious but careful.”
And if Malcolm Turnbull rang up in a rage? “I would remain calm. I would like to think I would.”
Guthrie’s Senate win
It was barely noticed, but just before Michelle Guthrie got her marching orders ABC management had a major victory in the Senate the other week over three bills that were part of a deal between the government and One Nation. As part of the price of getting its media reforms through, the government agreed to pass three bills that would force the ABC to reveal salaries of senior staff, write fair and balanced provisions into governing legislation, and similarly rural and regional measures.
But independent senators Derryn Hinch and Tim Storer and senators Rex Patrick and Stirling Griff from Centre Alliance said they would oppose the bills, as Labor and the Greens had already vowed to do.
“The three bills are currently before the Senate and will be considered in due course,” a spokeswoman said. “While they were listed on the draft program for the last sitting week, the Senate’s daily program is always subject to change as other priorities emerge such as the food contamination bill.” The food contamination bill was a result of the strawberry contamination scare, a scare which vanished without trace once the ABC firestorm got under way. Funny that.
Google switch
Google comms man Nic Hopkins has a new gig with the tech giant. He’s becoming Google News Lab lead in Australia & New Zealand, whatever that means.
The News Lab is expanding to Australia and New Zealand as part of the Google News Initiative, a global program dedicated to creating a “sustainable long-term future for the news industry”. Diary is certain newsrooms shall welcome him with open arms. Hopkins is a former digital editor and business journalist at The Australian and did a cadetship on Adelaide’s The Advertiser, and is thus part of the Adelaide journalistic mafia. The move means Hopkins’s role as Sydney-based Google communications and public affairs manager is now vacant. Michelle Guthrie could always go back?
Father versus son
Forget Kramer versus Kramer. Tonight it’s Kohler versus Kohler, as Alan Kohler presents his usual finance report on ABC News at 7.20pm, while son Chris Kohler makes his debut on Your Money, the revamped Sky News Business, on both Foxtel and Nine from 6pm to 8.30pm. Kohler juniorwill be co-presenting Your Money Live with Brooke Corte. Diary knows which one he’d rather be watching.
Bauer wields axe
Last month Bauer announced that Justine Cullen was leaving Elle magazine as editor-in-chief after five years as part of what appeared to be downsizing at the publisher. Days later, Bauer said it would axe 13 positions across Harper’s Bazaar and Elle as the print and digital teams merged. It hasn’t taken long for Cullen to bounce back. Diary hears Cullen, who edited Shop ‘Til You Drop before launching Elle, is joining Medium Rare Content Agency as editor-in-chief of its David Jones content portfolio, developing its Jones and Mr Jones magazines, digital and social media content. Medium Rare, the content publisher headed by former ACP boss Gerry Reynolds, publishes branded magazines for Qantas, Jetstar, Foxtel and Coles Magazine, the most read magazine title in Australia.
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.