The Daily Telegraph editor, Ben English, has never addressed the newsroom about an alleged attempt by News Corp staff to provoke workers at a Middle Eastern restaurant into making prejudicial comments.
The confrontation in the Newtown restaurant was described this week by Asio’s director general, Mike Burgess, as “mind-blowingly stupid” and “unhelpful” during a Senate estimates hearing.
But English has taken some action. News Corp tracked down the source of the leak to Crikey that the operation was known internally as “undercoverjew” by investigating its internal systems.
A spokesperson for the Daily Telegraph said: “Tonight The Daily Telegraph accepted the resignation of a staff member.”
A source said that newsroom staff were appalled by the incident and are now more upset there appeared to be zero consequences for anyone involved except the leaker.
Meanwhile, English is blissfully away from the scene of the discontent as one of a contingent of Daily Telegraph staffers enjoying themselves in Las Vegas for the 2025 NRL Telstra Premiership season.
Derailed
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, headed to Melbourne on Wednesday to headline the Herald Sun and Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Future Victoria event.
His arrival was heralded by a report, in Murdoch’s Herald Sun, which flagged the PM would be announcing a $1.2bn package to repair roads across suburban Melbourne. It also hinted at a further announcement relating to Melbourne Airport Rail.
But when asked for details on the long-awaited train line at a press conference on Wednesday before the event, Albanese refused to provide any.
“I’ll have more to say about that in a short period of time, is anyone here from the Herald Sun? It’s a serious question,” he said.
“I am a guest of the Herald Sun at lunchtime and I’ll do the right thing by the Herald Sun and give a speech to them – as I would if I was invited and a guest of any of your particular outlets.”
Awkwardly, no one from the paper was at the press conference.
When the Ten reporter persisted with questions, Albo responded: “Well, if Channel 10 has a forum, what I won’t do is come and tell Channel Seven and Channel Nine before I tell Channel 10 what I’m going to do.”
But just 90 minutes later, when announcing an additional $2bn for the project on stage at the Crown Casino conference hall, Albo’s loyalty to the Herald Sun was all but forgotten.
During a Q&A with the Herald Sun editor, Sam Weir, the PM had a crack over a headline the paper ran over a year ago after the government announced changes to tax cuts.
Albanese: “I can’t remember what the Herald Sun front page was …”
Weir: “Something about a broken promise?”
Albanese: “I think it was probably more vicious than that.”
Weir: “Never vicious.”
Albanese: “It was. Every paper in the country was.”
For the record it was “War on aspiration”. Albanese said the decision to halve tax cuts for the highest earners in order to provide one for people earning up to about $145,000 took “courage” but had paid off.
Full disclosure
Weekly Beast is pleased to report The Nightly columnist Andrew Carswell, a former press secretary to Scott Morrison, is belatedly telling readers he is a lobbyist for the mining industry.
When he writes about the mining or energy sectors, Carswell now adds a disclosure: “Andrew Carswell is director at Headline Advisory and a former adviser to the Morrison government. He has clients in the mining and energy sectors.”
We’re sure it has nothing to do with our report last month that the commentator is a registered lobbyist for the Minerals Council of Australia but readers of Kerry Stokes’ new publication are unaware.
Saving civilisation
Earlier in February, the Guardian revealed that key figures from News Corp were attending a UK conference led by Jordan Peterson which aimed to “re-lay the foundations of our civilisation”.
But who paid for this civilisation building mission? A News Corp spokesperson said Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship would cover the costs of air fares and accommodation for Greg Sheridan and Paul Kelly.
Sheridan seems to have taken to the subject matter of the conference with some enthusiasm, holding forth about Nigel Farage’s words of wisdom for Peter Dutton and the entire western world and Peterson’s version of why the world ended up with Trump.
Kelly was similarly captivated, writing more than 3,000 words on “How the west can be re-won” for the Australian. But while Kelly’s piece disclosed that he had travelled to London as a guest of the ARC, the two pieces above from Sheridan didn’t – either in print or online.
The foreign editor shared, however, several photographs of himself chatting with Peterson.
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Australian pointed to another piece by Sheridan – an interview with the British Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch that did contain a disclosure. No word on why it wasn’t on all.
Maxed out
News Corp’s Binge streaming platform received some bad news this week. HBO, the US-based producer of some of the biggest TV series of the past few decades including The Sopranos, Succession and Game of Thrones, will launch its stand-alone streaming service HBO Max in Australia.
TV critic and industry analyst Dan Barrett summed it up well, saying “with the launch of Max in Australia, Binge is pretty well f**ked” and that “from a consumer standpoint, it is difficult to see what the value is left in Binge as a product”.
HBO Max enters a crowded field with Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Stan, Apple TV+ and many other streaming platforms vying for a finite share of subscription dollars from Australian consumers. Whether Binge can hold on remains to be seen.
• Benita Kolovos contributed to this column
