By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
The ABC finally appears to be getting serious about its youth problem. The solution: TikTok. On Monday, the public broadcaster put up an advertisement for four six-month positions as part of its “creator program”, hoping to bring social media stars into Aunty’s stable.
Competitive candidates will have more than 10,000 followers on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, or have created a vertical video with more than 100,000 views. A TikTok ad for the job even features a bloke with a mullet. As the kids would say, slay.
And even more slay is the salary – between $93,000 and $114,000 pro rata for the six-month period. Meanwhile, the budding young journalists who land one of the ABC’s highly coveted cadetships for 2024 will earn $61,327.
Remember, the broadcaster claimed it axed political editor Andrew Probyn this year partly because his salary would be better spent on TikTok content.
Credit: John Shakespeare
Probyn, of course, has since been hired by Nine Entertainment, owner of this masthead.
An ABC spokesman told us the jobs were “for experienced, skilled professionals with particular digital expertise”, rather than entry-level positions.
“A huge number of Australians access their news and information on social media,” he said.
“The ABC is committed to serving all Australians.”
PARTY LINE
We brought news yesterday that right-wing broadcaster Sky News had cancelled Christmas parties because it didn’t want anybody loading up on festive spirit and ruining Christmas, like someone over there did last year.
One outfit that didn’t have that problem at the end of 2022 was Optus, perhaps because it pulled right back on its once legendary soirees – the 2018 edition featured a male stripper gyrating in front of employees at Sydney’s The Star – toning them down to “small-scale get-togethers” as the company struggled with the fallout of the disastrous data hack. Well, this year, Optus faces another nightmare before Christmas – the big outage this month that on Monday claimed the scalp of the telco’s “citizen of the world” CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, or KBR to her friends.
In fairness, the departure of Bayer Rosmarin – with her slightly kooky online presence, CEO’s podcasts, interviews with global sporting stars and moves such as hiring tennis legend Ash Barty as “chief of inspiration” – leaves corporate Australia a little duller.
But there remains the question of Christmas drinks. And OK, maybe Monday wasn’t the best day to ask Optus about party plans, but we did. It didn’t answer.
WHITE RIBBON SILENCE
It’s been a while since anti-domestic violence charity White Ribbon was known for anything other than public relations disasters.
Four years ago, White Ribbon was on the brink of financial collapse and tainted by a string of controversies – accepting money from Sydney pokie den the Fairfield Hotel, before being forced to decline it; briefly claiming it was “agnostic” on abortion access; and the whole business with a few of its ambassadors getting in trouble for violent offences.
A 2019 rebirth, backed by WA charity Communicare, hasn’t stopped the missteps. A campaign last year seeking donations to help men understand violence prevention was scotched after critics dubbed it “sponsor an abuser”. Somebody also thought a flotilla of jet skis revving their engines in Sydney Harbour might be a good strategy to raise awareness about violence against women.
No wonder then that faced with another public relations issue, White Ribbon has gone silent. We’re talking about the abrupt, quiet departure of national director Allan Ball, who quit some time late last month.
No reasons were given, and no statement has been put up by White Ribbon.
Ball declined to discuss it when contacted by CBD, directing us to Communicare’s chief executive Melissa Perry.
She didn’t answer her phone, and hasn’t replied to several earlier emails. Communicare’s comms people didn’t respond by deadline either.
Ball and White Ribbon had recently been looking into a partnership with GiveTree, a cryptocurrency start-up founded by Sam Joel, who quit as chief executive after posting a barrage of offensive comments towards women on LinkedIn.
Sam Joel, founder of GiveTree, resigned after a series of offensive LinkedIn comments.
We asked whether perceived backlash to the GiveTree relationship contributed to Ball’s departure. They didn’t answer that one either.
BOOK CLUB
The leadership of the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria might be brought to book at the group’s AGM in Melbourne on Tuesday morning by the more literary members of its swank private members City Club.
Among the Bourke Street operation’s extensive facilities is a well-stocked library – 12,000 to 15,000 volumes we’re told – with comfy armchairs, research desks and even a section for children. Sounds lovely.
Anyway, before the pandemic, the library was staffed with two to three full-time workers, augmented by a couple of part-timers. After all, the big A-frame ladder used to reach the volumes on the highest shelves couldn’t be safely operated by just one person.
But when the club got up and running again after the lockdowns, the library was down to just one staff member and, recently, none, without a word of explanation to the regular users.
“There is disquiet,” we’re told, and complaints have been made, but without any sort of resolution to the matter, so Tuesday’s AGM may be the library lovers’ best bet to get some answers. We wish them well, having tried a couple of times now to ask RACV spinners what was happening with the library. Crickets is what we got.
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