Steven Miles gave his first address to the Queensland Media Club as premier on Tuesday, announcing the government’s housing policy in front of the state’s business and government leaders.
With the fatal stabbing of 70-year-old Vyleen White dominating the news cycle Miles, understandably, got a lot of questions about youth crime, which he answered.
Sky News’s Brisbane bureau chief, Adam Walters, asked the premier why “there wasn’t a single reference to youth crime” in his housing speech.
The new Labor leader, who succeeded Annastacia Palaszczuk in December, answered “it was a speech about housing” and “I figured I’d get a question”, which prompted laughter from the room. The premier had, after all, just answered several questions about crime – and none about housing from the media.
When Walters asked again about the “absence of any reference to youth crime in your speech” Miles smiled wryly and then giggled, seemingly amused at the tone and the persistence of the questioner.
This exchange with Walters, who has a habit of asking long-winded questions, was fashioned into a story about how the premier laughed when he was asked questions about crime.
Sky News also ran part of the earlier exchange but not the laughter of the audience.
Cue the negative stories which rolled out across News Corp, the Daily Mail and social media.
The Nationals senator Matt Canavan told Andrew Bolt that Miles “needs to explain himself”. Sky host Chris Kenny said “I’ve always said this bloke is a clown and this only confirms my view”.
“Mr Miles is under heavy fire after he was filmed giggling at a press conference after being asked about whether the state needed more police to respond to youth crime,” reported news.com.au.
An attempt by Miles to deny the “sensational headlines” didn’t stop the narrative.
No one in Queensland, myself included, is laughing at this tragedy and for any news outlet to suggest so is disrespectful.
— Steven Miles (@StevenJMiles) February 7, 2024
A family and a community is grieving. Sensational headlines and misrepresentations have no part to play in Queensland this week.
Peter Dutton told Ray Hadley that Miles was “not fit for the job” after he was seen laughing at “one of the most emotional and serious issues” in Queensland. Sky News said the federal opposition leader had “savaged” Miles after he “laughed off a question about the state’s crippling youth crime crisis”. A more experienced leader would have avoided reacting to Walters but the claim he laughed at youth crime was disingenuous.
Bum rap
A single letter to the editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin has provided acres of content for media outlets this week and there is one tiny reason: shots of women in bikinis.
When community activist Ian Grace pleaded with the mayor, Tom Tate, for women to cover up and not wear the thong which went “up the bum”, editors could not hide their glee.
Almost every network and tabloid covered the story with lines including “Australians have been divided over a call to ban G-string bikinis on Australian beaches”.
The West disconnects
The West Australian newspaper has been campaigning hard all week against the government’s right to disconnect bill with front page treatment of the issue on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Friday’s front page, after the senate passed the bill on Thursday, quoted a business leader saying the disconnect laws were “a load of shit”, except the paper was coy, printing only “s…” on page one.
Thursday’s editorial argued “the whole thing smacks of a solution in need of a problem” and claimed militant unions would seek to exploit the new provisions.
“Many employers are choosing to formalise that right, through workplace policies, or through clauses in EBAs giving workers the ‘right to disconnect’,” the editorial said.
But what the paper is yet to point out is that Kerry Stokes’s West Australian newspaper has the same clause in its own EBA. Apart from the inclusion of a quote from Burke saying he was “particularly impressed by the right to disconnect model which is specifically contained within The West Australian newspaper’s own enterprise agreement” The West has not addressed the elephant in the room.
The West’s enterprise agreement says an employee is under no obligation to engage in work-related communication outside work.
The editor-in-chief of the West Australian, Anthony De Ceglie, did not reply to a request for comment.
Farewell to Holt Street
The Australian’s chief cricket writer, Peter Lalor, a 30-year veteran of the paper, has taken a redundancy from News Corp. Friday is his last day.
The award-winning journalist and author has covered Test cricket in all parts of the world for the newspaper and has written a history of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a biography of Ron Barassi, a bestselling true crime book and co-authored a biography of Phillip Hughes.
Lalor, who is facing some health challenges, asked for a redundancy and was granted one, sources told Weekly Beast. Lalor will continue to work with Seven’s cricket coverage and on radio.
Lalor’s departure comes on the heels of Gideon Haigh’s exit from the Oz. Haigh told The Age he left because he had been siloed as a cricket writer.
When Haigh left the masthead’s popular podcast Cricket, Et Cetera, which he co-hosted with Lalor, it was dropped.
His departure means The Australian’s once-healthy sports department now has just two reporters: Will Swanton and Jess Halloran.
The Australian’s associate editor based in Melbourne, Ellen Whinnett, has also taken a redundancy.
Editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn has been approached for comment.
A beautiful set of numbers
Ross Gittins is the longest continuous columnist in the 192-year history of the Sydney Morning Herald so when he reached the milestone of 50 years of service the newspaper unleashed the festival of Gittins.
The economics editor has been writing three columns a week since the early 1980s and has made a name for himself by filing copy which has “uniquely explained economics in understandable everyday language”.
“But Gittins is more than a journalist,” the Herald editorial said. “He is an Australian institution and we are proud, privileged and lucky to have him.”
The effusive coverage included a video of school teachers and students talking about Gittins’ impact on education and a slide show featuring 32 photographs of the journalist over the years.
Gittins deserves all the praise for his remarkable career and his unmatched dedication to serving the readers of the SMH, but the amount of editorial space the editors dedicated to the topic did not go unremarked.
‘The GOAT’: Ross Gittins chalks up 50 years in economics journalismhttps://t.co/4kTltitS92
— The Sydney Morning Herald (@smh) February 6, 2024
In total the SMH lavished praise on its writer over 10 pages: the front page (really two front pages because of a big ad), a news “anniversary special” which ran from pages eight to 13 with no advertising, an editorial, two pages of letters from readers and a cartoon.
But wait, there is more. The SMH editor, Bevan Shields, had the glass news conference room inscribed with the words The Ross Gittins Conference Room.
The key to this devotion to Gittins may lie in his popularity with readers: his columns are usually very well read.
“The most-read opinion piece for 2023 was a Gittins column on the sneaky removal of the Low and Middle Income Tax Offset, known to tax aficionados as the LAMIngTOn’,” an email from Billy Cantwell, deputy opinion editor, told readers.
ABC targeted over drag event
A segment of the ABC’s Mardi Gras coverage has had to be hastily rearranged after Christian groups, the Liberal senator Alex Antic and the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) campaigned against it.
The ABC cancelled the plans to film Drag Queen Story Time with preschoolers at Sydney’s Rockdale Library after what it said was a “hateful and offensive response”.
“The ABC is the official host broadcaster for the 2024 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras,” the broadcaster said. “As part of this partnership the ABC showcases the diversity of the LGBTQIA+ community, aligning with its Charter obligation to reflect all Australians.”
Weekly Beast understands the segment will go ahead but will be filmed in a safe, undisclosed location.
Flag stoush
Victoria police released an unusually lengthy, and pithy, statement this week after reports in some media that a couple had been arrested for “inciting a riot” by wearing the Australian flag near an Invasion Day protest in Melbourne.
A Melbourne couple told Sky News last week that they were threatened with arrest because they were wearing flags on their hats on Australia Day.
The couple’s story was gold for the culture warriors who claim Australia Day has been cancelled.
But police labelled the stories “nonsensical” and “fanciful”.
“Victoria Police is disappointed that some media outlets think it is acceptable to criticise our hardworking police officers without first fact checking and giving us the right of reply,” the police said. “Particularly when we staff a 24-hour media unit.
“The actions of police are routinely scrutinised by the media and rightly so. We own our mistakes if and when we make them. We don’t shy away from them. But we will not tolerate our police officers being subject to fanciful stories that have not been fact checked. We will not cop that.”
But the stoush is not over yet. Bolt has called for the release of the bodycam footage.
