ABC shuns moment in history with measly coverage of Trump shooting
ABC presenters clearly weren’t moved by the news of Trump being shot amid their skimpy coverage, encouraging listeners to go elsewhere for more on the incident while treating audiences to bird noises and the tweet of the week.
When news broke around the world about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, accompanied by shocking images of the bloodied face of the former US president, ABC presenters could barely hide their disinterest.
On Radio National’s Sunday Extra program, host Julian Morrow devoted a measly 40 seconds of coverage to the incident before encouraging listeners to go elsewhere if they wanted more information on a key moment in US history.
Morrow chose to treat RN listeners to more pressing matters.
“You can follow all those details (about Trump) via the ABC news website, ABC News 24 on the telly or ABC news radio but we will continue here on Sunday Extra – for those of you who don’t want to be engulfed with breaking news, it’s time for the tweet of the week,” he chirped.
Tweet of the week? Um, maybe not right now?
Diary contacted Morrow to politely ask him what the hell he was thinking.
He said he was alerting listeners to the “breaking news” while “off air the Sunday Extra team was trying to contact people at the scene”.
“I decided that the appropriate thing to do was to alert listeners to what was happening and to direct them to the rolling coverage of the breaking news on ABC News,” he said. “I’m comfortable with that decision.”
To fill the void of not discussing a seismic news event, Morrow played some audio of very irritating bird noises before interjecting with his own breaking news: “Rob from Canberra was able to work out that it was the Zebra Finch!”
Good on ya, Rob!
Over on ABC’s main stations, even legendary broadcaster Ian “Macca” McNamara who hosts Australia All Over, wasn’t moved by the news of Trump being shot.
Macca, who is droll at the best of times, decided it was worth 15 seconds of airtime before moving on.
“As you might have heard in the news there’s been some shots fired at a Donald Trump rally, we’re not sure how things are but you’ll get reports right across the morning and across the day on ABC radio,” Macca said before playing some tunes.
Extraordinary. Macca routinely gives more time to dead kangaroos.
Is it any wonder 2GB smashes ABC in the radio ratings? Breakfast host Ben Fordham, on his day off,phoned in to 2GB’s Sunday’s House of Wellness program, hosted by Luke Hines, to give listeners an update on the breaking news story. Wisely, Hines scrapped his discussion on health juices and the latest fitness regimes in favour of the attack on Trump.
“This is history-making,” Hines observed, correctly.
In TV land, viewers tuning into the main stations, Nine, Seven, ABC and Sky News Australia, were all provided with rolling coverage of the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, but viewers at Channel 10 wouldn’t have had a clue about what was going on.
They were treated to an episode of Taste of Australia, hosted by chef Hayden Quinn, who was busy sharing a selection of culinary delights.
A good hour and half after the shooting of Trump, Ten viewers were glued to The Drew Barrymore Show before finally the network decided to cross to the US via the CBS News channel.
A Ten spokeswoman told Diary: “10 News First was on air at 9.40am with live coverage including crosses to CBS News – our affiliate station – that had reporters at the scene.”
Hopeless.
But then, not as bad as a social media post by former radio host Mike Carlton, who is adept at posting offensive things online.
Carlton retweeted a post by Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, who said: “It is a relief to see President Trump is safe.”
Carlton shared the post and added: “Not my thoughts.”
Not my thoughts… https://t.co/PxN1xqsn6I
— Mike Carlton (@MikeCarlton01) July 14, 2024
Stay classy, Mike.
Lights, camera, sacking: TV star axed after costly promo shoot
Locking in your top two newsreaders for a lengthy photo shoot to help plug the nightly news, only to give one of them the chop just weeks later?
Welcome to the wacky world of Channel 7 under recently appointed news boss Anthony De Ceglie.
Veteran Seven newsreader Sharyn Ghidella only recently took part in shooting new “promos” to help pump up the network’s 6pm Brisbane news bulletin alongside co-presenter Max Futcher, so she understandably thought her position behind the desk was secure.
But fast-forward a few weeks and Ghidella is without a job and the promos are on the scrap heap.
Of course, shooting TV promos isn’t cheap, when you add up the cost of hair, makeup, lighting, sound, different locations, shoots, and so on.
So to junk an expensive promo seems at odds with De Ceglie’s cost-cutting mission, which has seen him take the knife to Seven newsrooms around the country. Sources told Diary that Ghidella, 58, was “hurt” by the way her sacking was handled and was completely “blindsided” by the decision to dump her midweek, after a 17-year stretch as the network’s Brisbane news anchor.
She was given her marching orders on Wednesday via an early morning phone call – not from De Ceglie but via Seven news director Michael Coombes.
At the time, Ghidella was midway through a cut and colour at the hairdresser.
Coombes, Diary is told, phoned Ghidella to try to arrange an “in-person, off-site” catch-up but she knew something was up when he called.
Why have an off-site meeting when you can be dumped via a quick phone call?
Even by the television industry’s cutthroat standards, it was a pretty brutal way for Ghidella to learn the curtain had come down on her career at Seven.
Despite being offered an on-air send-off, she declined.
To rub salt into the wounds, personal items belonging to Ghidella were quickly boxed up at Seven’s Mt Coot-Tha studios following her sacking and sources close to the newsreader have told Diary it’s highly unlikely she will return to the TV station to collect her goods.
In an internal send-off note circulated to staff on Friday, Ghidella took a parting shot at the resources wasted on the now useless promos, telling her colleagues: “Ps … Pete, Georgia … you might have already worked this out … but I think that promo we just shot, might need a little tweaking.”
Incredibly, on the day Ghidella was axed she was also scheduled to shoot another set of promos for Brisbane’s upcoming EKKA show.
Needless to say, that shoot didn’t proceed.
Ghidella has worked in the media for 38 years, enjoying long stints with both Nine and Seven.
But as she observed in a scathing Facebook post following her dumping, Seven’s news division seems to be heading in a direction that does not sit well with her.
Ghidella referenced De Ceglie’s decision to introduce Friday comedy spots with satirist Mark Humphries and nightly astrology readings by Natasha Weber (known as Astro Tash) into Seven’s news bulletins.
“I’m also not one to have my evening news served up with humour and horoscopes either, so, to be honest, it is time to go,” Ghidella wrote.
Astro Tash’s segment begins on Monday night and will air on weeknights in a 20-second slot during the 6pm bulletin. The frontrunners to replace Ghidella – should Seven opt to continue with an on-air duo – include other network female presenters Katrina Blowers and Samantha Heathwood.
Ghidella and De Ceglie both declined to comment on Sunday.
Seven’s lead balloon
Speaking of Humphries, his inaugural comedy spot during Seven’s flagship 6pm news bulletin on Friday failed to live up to expectations – that is, it was supposed to be funny but it wasn’t. Diary contacted the network’s director of news, current affairs and comedy, Anthony De Ceglie, to find out how he thought it went, given that it was apparently his idea to inject a bit of light relief into a program no one watches for light relief.
De Ceglie, who is obviously a glass-half-full kind of guy, was overwhelmingly upbeat.
“Mark has got off to a great start,” he told Diary.
“This is simply about trying to put smiles on the faces of our audiences as we wrap up the week on a Friday night.”
Mark Humphries has finally landed the most coveted timeslot on TV and social media: the 6:57 pm News. Join Mark as he uses the universal journalistic language of the piss-take to unpack the stories of the week. #politicalsatire#satire#markhumphries#biden#7NEWSpic.twitter.com/LXKAO41ZCi
— 7NEWS Melbourne (@7NewsMelbourne) July 12, 2024
Hmmm. Diary wonders if anyone at Seven sought feedback from a focus group before the decision was taken to turn the 6pm bulletin into a circus. We doubt it.
Humphries himself told reporter Dylan Caporn at Seven’s own newspaper, The West Australian, on the weekend: “Satire allows us to, I suppose, process the news in a way that is perhaps a bit more enjoyable and more gratifying.”
Monday strife
Monday nights are a problem for the ABC, and we’re not talking about Media Watch.
Q+A is on its annual, extended winter break (the reason for which remains a mystery) and taking its place over the past four weeks has been Monday’s Experts, a sports chat show hosted by Gold Logie nominee Tony Armstrong.
So far the show has failed to find its feet.
Its debut episode on June 17 drew a national audience of 299,000, before slipping to 225,000 viewers the following week. In weeks three and four, it pulled audiences of 245,000 and 240,000 respectively.
Based on those numbers, if ABC managing director David Anderson is looking for a permanent replacement for Q+A – and it seems as though he is – then Monday’s Experts ain’t it.
Anderson showed his hand at a Senate estimates hearing in late May when he was asked about the future of the political chat show.
“The world of screen production is that, generally, nothing is forever,” he said.
“You should be examining the programs you’ve got, the impact they have and whether they resonate for the audience. I don’t shy away from needing to explore new ideas for things.”
He might need to keep exploring.
Nine’s unfriendly fire
Maher Mughrabi, a senior writer at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, who was formerly the foreign editor at the Nine tabloids, has been counselled by management after publicly slapping down colleague Peter Hartcher, the mastheads’ political editor/international editor. The spat arose after Hartcher wrote a column in which he condemned ex-Labor senator Fatima Payman’s decision to quit the ALP and move to the crossbenches.
Hartcher wrote that “identity is a force for good as long as it is deployed in the quest for quality. But the moment identity is asserted as the basis for superior rights for one group over another, it is a divisive and hateful force”.
Mughrabi, a Palestinian man, wasn’t having a bar of it. Rather than sending his colleague an email, Mughrabi took to LinkedIn to label Hartcher’s argument “lazy”, “rubbish” and “nonsense”.
Oh, and he said Hartcher’s argument had disappeared up the columnist’s bum.
Unsurprisingly, Mughrabi’s online spiel didn’t please everyone in Nine’s publishing division, given last year’s controversy when a host of journos at the company signed a petition to support ethical reporting on Israel and Palestine, amid concerns over a perception of bias.
Not long after Mughrabi’s post went live, he was asked to take it down, and he did so.
Nine executive editor Luke McIlveen told Diary: “The posts were inappropriate and have been removed.
Peter Hartcher, currently on assignment in the US, is one of Australia’s most respected political commentators. His columns are always supported by hard facts and decades of experience.”
Lattouf on a break
Fill-in radio host Antoniette Lattouf’s inability to restrain herself from posting on social media – albeit often controversial content – is what got her sacked from the ABC, so it’s quite peculiar that seven months on from the whole fiasco she’s finally decided to give up on the interweb.
But rather than bow out quietly from social media, Lattouf last week took to, you guessed it, social media to say she’s taking an “extended break from work and social media”.
“This is uncomfortable for me but it’s necessary to create space and time to rest and heal,” Lattouf posted on Instagram.
“This year has been heavy. It’s been wild. My heart aches.
“I’m beginning to lose hope which is not like me.”
The self-imposed hiatus didn’t last long.
On Sunday, Lattouf posted on social media – or whoever she is employing to post on her behalf – a letter written by her legal team, led by Maurice Blackburn lawyer Josh Bornstein, to settle the matter once and for all.
My lawyer @JoshBBornstein has sent a very modest and reasonable offer to the ABC.
— Antoinette Lattouf (@antoinette_news) July 14, 2024
It’s in everyone’s interest to avoid hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars going to lawyers.
The full letter can be viewed here:https://t.co/429aWuytN4pic.twitter.com/VbjHDPD1lb
The letter states that Lattouf’s lawyers have given the ABC a week to respond to her request to hand her a job back at the ABC as “content creator”, give her radio shifts, issue a public apology and write a cheque for $85,000 to cover her claims of economic loss.
Lattouf, an activist who has been outspoken on issues relating to the Israel-Gaza war, also put out the begging bowl last week asking for more donations to help fund her court battle against the ABC.
Her GoFundMe page has so far raised more than $117,700.
Lattouf’s Federal Court fight began earlier this month, and details obtained by Diary via court documents have revealed how she claims her sacking took place.
She said the ABC’s head of capital city network, Steve Ahern, who recently quit the broadcaster, had told her back in December, after she posted a report from Human Rights Watch and added the words “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war”, to pack her bags.
She had only completed three of her five morning radio shifts for the week she was filling in for Sarah Macdonald.
Vale, Mike
One of Queensland’s legendary journalists, former Courier-Mail scribe Mike Colman, died in Brisbane on Friday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Colman, 68, known for his quick wit and brilliant columns, was described by former colleague Robert “Crash” Craddock as “one of a kind, that rare breed of piss-taking sports columnists who could make you choke on your croissant or laugh out loud”.
“If you saw – as you often did – someone giggling as they read the back half of the paper on a bus or train you never had to check the author,” Craddock said.
Colman spent 47 years as a journalist, including 23 years as a columnist for The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail. He also worked at Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph and Sun-Herald.
He is survived by wife Linda and three children.
Nick Tabakoff is on leave.
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