The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald published an exclusive story by crime reporter John Silvester online last Friday, and in early editions of last Saturday’s newspaper, which claimed that police had found human remains near Alice Springs that may belong to Peter Falconio, a British backpacker murdered in 2001.
Based on “multiple police sources”, the story led the Nine News TV bulletin and was followed up by news.com.au, Seven News, Sky News, Daily Mail and others.
The story said the bone fragments would be “cross-checked against the Falconio case because of their age and location”.
But within hours, the police had killed the story.
“No human remains have been located by Northern Territory Police, and a search is not currently being conducted,” police said in a statement.
The Nine papers published a note saying they had retracted the story and that after the police denial, “the reporter received new information that cast doubt on the accuracy of the original story”.
“We withdraw the article and apologise for any distress its publication may have caused Falconio’s friends and family,” the note said.
News Corp and the art of cross-promotion
News Corp is not shy of cross-promotion, but a glossy four-page feature in the Weekend Australian Magazine to promote Sharri Markson’s eponymous Sky News program took the art of plugging one’s own assets to a whole new level.
Written by News Corp colleague Jenna Clarke, and edited by Markson’s bestie Elizabeth Colman, the article was a real family affair.
The most startling inclusion was a quote from former editor-in-chief of the Australian, Christopher Dore, who has not been heard of since he lost his job for alleged drunken behaviour.
Dore told the magazine Markson was an “enigma”, “utterly apolitical, open-minded and fair”.
“When it comes to pursuing a story, she is ruthless, single-minded and obsessive. In life, she is one of the most compassionate humans I’ve ever met, big-hearted and loyal. She is mislabelled, misunderstood and constantly underestimated.”
Clarke promises to reveal the Markson story, which is essentially that she is the daughter of public relations operatives Max and Ro Markson and grew up meeting famous people.
Markson: “Chubby Checker taught me to do the twist in our family’s living room.”
We hear that she “had shaken the foundations of government with a Daily Telegraph scoop” that revealed Barnaby Joyce was having a baby with his former staffer Vikki Campion, and while she was editing Cleo the magazine, “routinely led the news agenda”. Aaron Patrick, from the Australian Financial Review, also a guest on Sharri, told the magazine “there’s a mystique around Sharri”.
Former Kevin Rudd adviser Lachlan Harris even mentioned her in the same breath as the great Nine former political editor Laurie Oakes: “There were two people in Canberra I never wanted to go up against – Laurie Oakes and Sharri Markson”.
Markson has picked up a swag of awards for her work, including Walkleys, Kennedys and the in-house Sir Keith Murdoch Award in 2018, which she accepted personally from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.
Markson posted on Instagram about the article: “It’s all part of the publicity for my new Sky News show, starting Monday 5pm – a dream come true to have a nightly, prime-time platform for the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do: break and report the biggest stories that matter to people.”
Chris Smith: ‘I’m being called a monster’
Broadcaster Chris Smith, who was sacked by Sky News Australia and Nine Entertainment following alleged drunken treatment of women after a Sky News Christmas party, has come clean about what happened.
“Let’s sum up what I did,” the 60-year-old told Daily Mail Australia this week.
“I made gross remarks to one woman about her holiday snaps and I pinched another one on the backside.”
Smith believes his treatment by the media has been unfair: “I’ve got to say I got eight days of negative coverage – maybe I deserved that - but murderer Chris Dawson only got five”.
“None of [the women] lodged an official complaint and yet I’m being called a monster by people whose own track record is hardly glowing. That’s the greatest piece of hypocrisy I’ve ever witnessed in the industry.”
SBS adopts First Nations place names
SBS World News introduced the use of First Nations place names in the nightly national weather forecast this week.
The director of Indigenous content, Tanya Denning-Orman, a Birri and Guugu Yimidhirr woman, said the move would honour and strengthen a sense of belonging for First Nations peoples.
But Andrew Bolt wasn’t sold on the idea, likening it, albeit “with a touch of hyperbole”, he said, to “cultural cleansing” of our English heritage.
“We are having the English names of towns and cities, which were actually founded by the British, gradually being displaced by Aboriginal names which were plucked from the area,” he told his Sky News viewers. “And that’s gradually wiping out our joint history.”
Oh the irony.
He went on to mock SBS for holding a smoking ceremony at its Artarmon headquarters, calling it a “pagan superstition” and a waste of money.
Bolt clearly hasn’t noticed that Sky News is also beginning to recognise Indigenous place names, with an announcement about Paul Murray’s The Our Town tour saying the first stop is Orange, NSW “located in Wiradjuri country”.
Media magnet ‘outback nurse’ sentenced
“Outback nurse” Rachel Hale, who featured in multiple media outlets talking about the unrest in Alice Springs, has been sentenced to six months in prison, fully suspended for two years, for charges unrelated to her media blitz earlier this month.
On Sky News, Peta Credlin described Hale as being “on the frontline in Aboriginal communities” but she had never worked in a remote community and didn’t even live in Alice Springs.
The cosmetic nurse, who lives in Darwin, pleaded guilty this week to a seven-month campaign of harassment against a former employee of her beauty business and for making a false Covid-19 declaration.
According to the statement of facts, Hale used fake social media accounts to post “vexatious reviews” about the 26-year-old woman she used to work with, and asked a friend of hers to do the same.
The reviews falsely claimed the victim was “lying, deceiving and unskilled” and “burned bridges wherever she goes”.
Last year, Hale contacted the NT government pretending to be the victim and told them she had tested positive for Covid, forcing the victim to close her business and go into isolation.
The victim lost clients and income as a result of the reviews, and suffered “mental and emotional exhaustion”, the court heard.
