Nine execs grilled by staff
Nine executives were grilled in an all-staff meeting on Wednesday after staff were given the opportunity to submit anonymous questions. Media Briefs has seen some of the submissions which highlight a degree of staff unrest.
One submission complained that feedback provided in an ostensibly anonymous employee survey was “recited back to [them]”, making them “nervous” about completing another.
Another asked: “How can Nine expect to retain employees when they pay well under minimum wage?”
One complainant working on the upcoming Paris Olympics, for which Nine holds the broadcast rights, grumbled: “We are told the work we are doing is the most important in the business for the Olympics, but [we] aren’t even provided with Macs that can handle the development!”. It received 19 likes from other staff — as did another question asking that “employment opportunities be made more transparent”.
“There is very little room for growth and I feel like I have no choice but to leave and I don’t want to,” the employee wrote.
There were a number of career-related questions, with another questioner saying: “Nine needs to value their young staff and provide more support. Are there any plans to nurture young talent and provide cross-disciplinary mentoring?”
Another complained of a “broken system” at Nine, asking whether “to move up in the business … we have to leave and come back”.
The Australian’s report of delayed Easter payslips also got a mention, with one employee asking: “After failing to pay us on time, how does the company intend to show its employees that it cares about us? We feel betrayed and need to be shown care, not told.”
Nine declined to comment.
Seven’s vested interests
One of the biggest stories in the media this week has been the alleged revelations made by Taylor Auerbach, the former Seven staffer charged with wooing Bruce Lehrmann ahead of Lehrmann’s Spotlight interview with the network in June last year. Lehrmann, a former Liberal staffer, was accused in 2021 of having raped colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019. In return for the interview, Lehrmann was revealed in court documents to have been put up in beachside apartments by the network, but he denied further reporting that he had Thai massages courtesy of the network, calling it “an untrue and bizarre story from a disgruntled ex-Network Seven producer”.
Auerbach has since sent a concerns notice over the statement, and filed an explosive 2,300-page affidavit with the Federal Court in relation to Lehrmann’s ongoing defamation proceedings against Network Ten, over an interview with Higgins aired on The Project in 2021. He’s set to give evidence in court today as the case reopens and will undergo cross-examination, with the eyes of the nation’s media on him…
…except the eyes at Seven, Auerbach’s old employer. At the time of writing on Wednesday, while The Sydney Morning Herald’s top story was on “Higgins’ distress at leaked texts”, none of the top headlines on 7News’ homepage were. While legacy outlets such as the Seven West-owned West Australian ran the story on its front page, and the Tuesday evening television bulletin in Sydney was interrupted to bring news of the case, an ex-Seven journalist told Media Briefs “you would have no idea reading their website”. Neither the 7News Australia or Sydney Instagram accounts covered the story either.
Auerbach’s affidavit alleges that Lehrmann (in breach of the implied “Harman undertaking”, a legal rule against using documents obtained in the course of one proceeding for unrelated purposes) gave Seven confidential information from his discontinued 2023 rape trial, having previously told the court that he didn’t. The information allegedly included hundreds of texts between Higgins and her former partner Ben Dillaway. Auerbach also claimed Seven paid out thousands of dollars of expenses to Lehrmann in the course of securing the interview, including over $10,000 worth of Thai massages, multiple rounds of golf at the prestigious Barnbougle Lost Farm course in northern Tasmania, and a number of expensive meals in Sydney.
“Beware the man with nothing to lose” was how Lehrmann concluded the Spotlight interview. Indeed.
Australian media equivocal over aid worker’s death
The death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom in an Israeli air strike this week has reverberated around the political landscape, forcing the prime minister to make his strongest remarks yet in rebuking Israel’s bombardment of the region.
Anthony Albanese described the 43-year-old’s death as “completely unacceptable”, and her work as “extraordinarily important”.
The coverage of Frankcom’s death by the nation’s press, however, was more equivocal.
The ABC ran the headline “Australian World Central Kitchen aid worker killed in Israeli air strike in central Gaza”. Four hours later, having been edited to identify Frankcom, the headline was changed to read “apparent Israeli air strike”. At the time of writing, this is still the case, despite the ABC reporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted responsibility for the strikes early on Wednesday morning.
An ABC spokesperson told Briefs the broadcaster “led coverage” of the story.
“The first story was published before eyewitness accounts of the strikes or images of the vehicles were available, and hours before Israel took responsibility,” the spokesperson said. “While the text of the story appropriately attributed statements about Israeli responsibility to local officials in Gaza, the headline was edited to indicate that responsibility for the strike had not yet been confirmed.”
Asked why the headline had not been edited to reflect Israeli responsibility for the strike, the spokesperson said it had been “superseded by others on the main news page”.
Elsewhere, nine.com.au’s coverage of the strike didn’t mention the word “Israel” until the fourth paragraph. Despite the article utilising Associated Press copy which referred to an Israeli airstrike in the headline, the Nine article only referred to Israel in the context of statements made by World Central Kitchen.
Nine declined to comment.
Moves
- Former chief cricket writer at The Australian, Peter Lalor, has started as a columnist for The Nightly.
- James Morrow is now The Daily Telegraph’s opinion editor. He will remain the paper’s national affairs editor, and host of The US Report and Outsiders on Sky News Australia.
