Weekly Beast understands the publishing division of Nine, which is set to lose up to 90 staff, has been oversubscribed with voluntary redundancy applications. Staff have been told they will be informed next week if their application for a payout has been accepted. There will be no forced redundancies.
Meanwhile, at the AFR on Monday, editor Fiona Buffini was blindsided by a sideways move which was not of the voluntary kind.
On his first day as the editor-in-chief of the Australian Financial Review, James Chessell removed Buffini, who was deputy to former editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury, and replaced her with managing editor Cosima Marriner.
Buffini is a much-loved editor who led the team to last year’s Gold Walkley when Neil Chenoweth and Edmund Tadros won for their coverage of the PwC tax leaks scandal.
She worked hard to put the paper out during the five-day strike while the Nine chief executive, Mike Sneesby, was carrying the Olympic torch through the streets of Paris.
Buffini has been promised a new job next year but in the meantime will manage the digital transition and oversee newsletters, podcasts and explanatory journalism.
As one wag said: “Very Game of Thrones.”
Flame out
Sneesby had to address the elephant in the room when he was asked to reflect on the apparent success of the Paris Games by his own mastheads.
Nine’s initial outlay of $305m last year for the rights to all Olympic events through to the 2032 Brisbane Games was well worth it, he said, citing $160m in advertising revenue and a national total TV reach (broadcast and streaming) of 5.74 million.
And what about his decision to carry the Olympic torch in Paris? Sneesby was adamant it “was certainly the right thing to do”.
The Olympic frolic coincided with a mass walkout of staff at the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, the Australian Financial Review and WAtoday.
Sneesby said he had a longstanding commitment to the International Olympic Committee and he wanted “to represent the thousands of people across Nine who had put in so much hard work”.
“I certainly did not know that that would coincide with the industrial action that was taking place,” he told the Nine papers.
Arrest development
The Australian’s outgoing Washington correspondent, Adam Creighton, penned an opinion piece this week about the violent disorder after the Southport stabbing attack, arguing that “ordinary Britons’” were being locked up by an overzealous judiciary for their “opinions and social media posts”. He says this was a dangerous attack on free speech: “the West is becoming more censorious than even traditional authoritarian regimes”.
Spate of British social media arrests suggest "we're a free country" is no longer true. https://t.co/o9rrmdrL58
— Adam Creighton (@Adam_Creighton) August 14, 2024
Under the headline “UK crackdown on language turns free speech on its head”, Creighton cited the case of 61-year-old David Spring, who was jailed for 18 months for his part in a far right-led riot.
The Australian’s readers were told that Spring was locked up for “yelling ‘who the f..k is Allah’ and calling police officers the C-word at an anti-immigration protest near Downing Street in July”.
But the record shows that Spring pleaded guilty to violent disorder after footage showed him at the front of a crowd threatening and chanting at police officers.
Judge Benedict Kelleher told Spring: “What you did could and it seems did encourage others to engage in disorder.”
The article then uses a viral video from an anonymous X account, Radio Genoa, as evidence that another elderly man was arrested merely for posting offensive comments online. Although Radio Genoa is well known for posting racist, anti-immigrant content, the Australian embedded the video.
The Australian has been approached for comment.
Back to basics
Sky News Australia host Paul Murray was emotional when he spoke about the latest results on Naplan, saying his own two girls were in the public education system.
“This is the only thing that really matters, because this is our country, and it’s the future of our country,” Murray told his viewers on After Dark.
The report found that one in three children are not proficient in numeracy or literacy, leaving Australia “well behind” their international peers.
Unfortunately the editorial was undermined by the super on the screen while he was decrying standards which read “LABOR HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO FIX EDUCTION”.
Cut and paste
News Corp Australia has spent much of the year pitching for the regulation of social media and arguing that the Murdoch newspapers present carefully curated information which is real journalism while the tech companies spew disinformation and division.
The executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, gave a speech at the press club which was a rallying cry for the government to designate Meta under the media bargaining code.
How, then, do they justify posting press releases under a reporter’s byline?
The Courier-Mail published a news story on a new gas project that is almost a straight cut and paste from the media release put out by Arrow Energy.
The Courier-Mail: “Known as SGP North, the development will bring more than 130 terajoules of additional gas to market per day for long-term contract and domestic customers, enough energy to power almost one million homes daily.”
Press release: “Known as SGP North, the development will bring more than 130 terajoules of additional gas to market per day for long-term contract and domestic customers.”
CM: “Arrow chief executive Zhengxin Peng said he was pleased to receive sanction by its shareholders for SGP North, with first gas targeted for 2026.”
Press release: “Arrow CEO Zhengxin Peng said he was pleased to receive sanction by its shareholders for SGP North, with first gas targeted for 2026.”
When asked for an explanation, the Courier’s editor, Chris Jones, said: “Editorial standards were not met and the reporter involved has been reminded of his responsibilities, and has apologised.”
Back in tune
On Monday the ABC will unveil a refreshed ABC News website and on-air design, but there is one element that viewers are certain to notice.
The old ABC TV news theme, composed by Peter Wall and Tony Ansell, which accompanied the TV bulletins from 1986 to 2005, is back.
Ansell has sadly died but the 76-year-old Wall, a Sydney composer and former manager of ABC radio, told Weekly Beast he was delighted to be asked to bring back an updated arrangement.
Wall, and many viewers, were devastated when the then ABC news chief, John Cameron, decided to ditch the theme after 19 years.
It was replaced by a theme by composer Martin Armiger, which was performed by members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and retained references to the original ABC news theme, the Majestic Fanfare, which can still be heard on ABC Radio.
Wall says he suspects the popular revival of his theme by Western Australian electronic act Pendulum in 2010 may have played a part in the revival as it underlined just how iconic the music is.
Pendulum told Triple J the remix is a fan favourite for Australian audiences.
“Half of it is the nostalgia thing,” Pendulum’s Rob Swire said. “That was the whole thing for us: growing up hearing that when you’re 10 years old in the living room. If you haven’t had that I’m not sure you’ll get it.”
ABC web refresh
Still no word on whether the ABC chair, Kim Williams, will approve of the new ABC website after making it clear in the past few weeks he has strong opinions.
In an interview with the Guardian before the website refresh was revealed, Williams said: “The ABC’s primary obligations are obviously to what might be regarded as serious news and commentary.”
Speaking to ABC News radio presenter Thomas Oriti this week, Williams doubled down.
“I’m a hard news traditionalist Tom,” he said. “I think the world is run by decision makers, and decision makers need to have their views exposed to the community, and the community needs to be able to go to the ABC as its reliable partner in making judgments about what’s happening in Australian society. I have, let’s say, a diminished tolerance for lifestyle as compared with hard news.”
