A review that criticised the format of Channel Nine’s leaders’ debate was spiked by Tory Maguire, the executive editor of Nine Entertainment’s newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age.
Maguire has editorial control of the national content in the two mastheads, and she has confirmed she spiked the piece by senior culture writer Karl Quinn, but not for the reasons some staff feared.
“The original brief for Karl’s piece, about how the shoutyness of the debate might alienate young viewers, ended up being very similar to a separately commissioned piece by Jess Irvine,” Maguire told Weekly Beast.
“We ended up with too many takes on one topic, which is something we try to avoid. We also covered commentary on the tone of the debate in our news coverage. Spiking stories is not that unusual, especially on a fast-moving news day when there are lots of people commissioning.”
While Irvine’s article did mention the debate’s “generally ill-tempered tone”, it was largely an analysis of what was said from an economic perspective. After all, Irvine is an economics correspondent.
Quinn’s review tackled the debate as a piece of television, arguing it failed on several fronts as the men talked over each other. Sources say he filed it around midday on Monday and it never appeared.
The two venerable newspapers, whose motto is “independent always”, teamed up with Nine News, 60 Minutes and 2GB for Sunday night’s television spectacle in what was a very public display of a sometimes uneasy media alliance formed in 2018, when Fairfax merged with Nine.
“For all the post-event pearl clutching from some commentators who disliked Sunday night’s heat-and-fury leaders’ debate, Channel Nine’s viewers seemed to find it compelling enough to stay the course.” https://t.co/Z2BVLkXOH6
— Chris Uhlmann (@CUhlmann) May 10, 2022
“This was the first time ever we have combined the power of Nine as the biggest media group in the country with the experience of Nine’s journalists across our broadcast television, publishing, radio and digital platforms for this 60 Minutes special event,” Nine’s news director Darren Wick told staff on Monday.
“Sarah Abo, from 60 Minutes, Chris Uhlmann from Nine News, Deborah Knight representing Nine Radio (3AW; 4BC, 2GB, 6PR) and David Crowe, from The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald made a formidable combination.”
‘The complaint about the paltry “60-second slivers” featured in what ranks as the performance art piece of outrage thundered at Nine’s debate by The Guardian.’ https://t.co/0P8lD1aKiZ
— Chris Uhlmann (@CUhlmann) May 10, 2022
Among the many critical voices was Nine’s own 2GB broadcaster Ben Fordham: “It wasn’t great. It was a shambles. It was messy, disjointed, awkward. All over the shop.”
He didn’t go as far as the Guardian’s Katharine Murphy, who was critical of the format, not the host, and wrote on Sunday night: “It’s hard to find words for how terrible that second leaders’ debate was. A genuine shit blizzard. It was the Jerry Springer of leaders’ debates.”
Nine's Great Debate audience peaked at 1.178 million and averaged 904,000. Another 70,000 on 9Now. Youtube accounts hit 814,000 engagements, Facebook, 1.2 million views and 250,000 views on Twitter. That does not include SMH and Age streaming or audiences on 3AW, 4BC, 2GB and 6PR
— Chris Uhlmann (@CUhlmann) May 9, 2022
While Quinn’s take never appeared, the SMH and the Age did publish an extraordinary piece by Nine’s political editor Chris Uhlmann the next day. Uhlmann was one on a panel of three questioners with David Crowe and Deborah Knight for the debate, which may explain this swipe at Guardian Australia:
“It is odd that an organ [Guardian Australia] so angrily post-Christian behaves so much like the medieval church, because it has appointed itself the guardian of the constantly shifting sands of modern virtue, and routinely conducts witch-hunts,” Uhlmann wrote.
“It is also so disconnected from Australia’s sources of wealth, food and power that it spends most of its time campaigning to shut them down.”
It’s good to know the cartoonists are still free to express their views at the SMH and Age.
Trying to follow the leaders pic.twitter.com/qnFzHjKsWW
— john shakespeare (@johnshakespeare) May 9, 2022
Seven’s civil debate praised
After all the criticism of Nine’s debate, Seven had a roadmap for what not to do. Seven political editor Mark Riley stood close to the two leaders and kept a tight rein on them, resulting in a respectful and sober affair.
The debate’s numbers were slightly below Nine’s, which is not surprising given the later time slot and a very poor lead-in from Big Brother, but Seven and Riley were widely praised for their efforts by gallery veterans Barrie Cassidy, Laura Tingle, David Speers and Paul Bongiorno.
Divisive Deves makes waves
On the back of her views about trans women in sport, the Liberal party’s Warringah candidate Katherine Deves has become a major player in the media’s coverage of the election campaign.
Deves is the eighth-most mentioned candidate, according to media monitoring, ahead of Labor frontbenchers Penny Wong and Jason Clare and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, and that is despite refusing most media requests for interviews.
Deves did appear on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday after sitting down with normally London-based reporter Latika Bourke for a chat, in which she “repeatedly burst into tears” and spoke of “dark moments”.
"Polling has shown that the overwhelming majority of Australians agree with my position on women’s sport. I would say to those other candidates they’re not reading the room."
— Latika M Bourke (@latikambourke) May 12, 2022
My interview with this election's most controversial candidate, Katherine Deves:https://t.co/WOKRLQJJkp
The Age ran the story not on page one but inside, over two pages, under the headline “Tears and ‘dark moments’ but Deves fights on”. The Liberal candidate spelled out all the pain she has suffered since her divisive tweets were uncovered.
“It’s really debased the electoral process — people should be able to speak their minds and engage and put their hands up for public office without their safety or their children’s safety put at risk,” Deves told the SMH.
Among the criticism of Bourke’s piece is that Deves does not identify what polling she is relying on to back up her claim that the majority of Australians agree with her position on trans women in sport.
“I would highly doubt” https://t.co/102m0twaa9
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) May 12, 2022
In the same newspaper a day earlier, political commentator Niki Savva said senior Liberals accused Morrison of “abandoning progressive Liberals and using Deves to chase conservative Christians or people of other faiths”. The Nine papers may have helped that cause, giving Deves such sympathetic exposure a week before the polls.
The Sydney Morning Herald declined to comment when approached about the story.
Murray fronts up after tirade
Not long after we published our piece about Sky News presenter Paul Murray unleashing a foul-mouthed tirade against Labor at Eatons Hill Hotel in Brisbane, Murray’s 8pm show came on Sky News on Thursday evening.
While Murray did not dignify us with a mention, his regular Labor party guest Nicholas Reece did.
Reece, the deputy lord mayor of Melbourne city council, was aware of what Murray had said about him on Tuesday night in the leaked audio but he was happy to roll with the punches.
In the audio, after Murray’s audience said they didn’t like the Labor guests Reece or Stephen Conroy, Murray laughed and said Reece was like a “blow-up clown doll”, meaning he gets knocked down and always comes back for more, adding: “He thinks he’s doing God’s work”.
After saying hello to Murray on Thursday’s program, Reece smiled and said he was happy to be on the show “doing God’s work”. Murray did not bite.
Crikey, that’s cold
The Liberal party has not responded to multiple attempts by Crikey journalists to secure an invitation to its campaign launch in Brisbane on Sunday. The managing editor of Crikey’s owner Private Media, Peter Fray, is unimpressed by the cold shoulder.
Crikey were fierce critics of Tony Abbott before the 2010 and 2013 campaigns, but his team had no problem with us attending events (or returning our calls). @TurnbullMalcolm's team went out of their way to ensure we had access. But persona non grata now.
— Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) May 12, 2022
“Like all journalists, Crikey has a vested interest in seeing democracy at work,” Fray told Weekly Beast. “Sure, we’ve published some robust things about the PM and senior ministers. We are not alone in that. That’s our job and that’s no reason to ban us from the Liberal launch. There is no justification for stopping us from doing our job. The PM’s media team needs to remember that journalism isn’t propaganda. Unless Australia has slipped from democracy to autocracy.”
ABC alumni ruffle feathers
Former ABC staff have been mobilising this election, under the banner ABC Alumni, producing a series of videos encouraging people to consider the ABC’s future when they vote.
Former ABC chief Foreign Correspondent Phil Williams highlights the importance of having an Australian perspective for an Australian audience when reporting from overseas. #vote1ABC pic.twitter.com/sqyvPspO9v
— abcalumni (@abcalumni) May 10, 2022
In his video on the threat to democracy, Kerry O’Brien warns that public broadcasting is vital to a healthy democracy, as footage of the US Capitol riots played behind him. But it was a video from former chief foreign correspondent Philip Williams, filmed at his rural retreat, which attracted the ire of the ABC.
The ABC asked the alumni to remove several screenshots of ABC correspondents from the video as they breached rules on the use of ABC content in election advertising. We understand the original complaint came from the Liberal party, but the ABC declined to confirm.
