“Nine parties it up” was the headline on a hit piece in the Australian about rival media company Nine Entertainment. The broadcasting and publishing giant was lambasted for sending executives to an advertising industry conference in far north Queensland in the run-up to the election.
“Diary hears that current Nine CEO Mike Sneesby and a big Nine contingent put in a stellar performance at a big media industry powwow in Cairns,” the Australian reported on Monday.
Nine was allegedly being insensitive to staff working on the election and negotiating for a better pay deal when it “hired a super yacht for a big drinks session, and even put on a Nine-sponsored ferris wheel”.
Pinterest’s spectacular welcome party 🎉 What a night! #CannesinCairns pic.twitter.com/57rXh5qEQh
— Emily Foat (@EmilyFoat) May 16, 2022
What the paper’s media diarist failed to mention was that Mike Sneesby was not the only media CEO to attend. The Nine boss shared the stage with his counterpart at News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, in a cosy session titled “Mike and Michael On the Future of Media”.
But wait there’s more. Like Nine, News Corp was a gold-tier sponsor of the event, Cannes at Cairns, and its executives were among the speakers, including its managing director of client product, Pippa Leary, and its general manager of client product and strategy, Suzie Cardwell.
Not to be outdone by Nine on corporate hospitality, the Murdoch mob sponsored the “decked-out, all-inclusive finale event”.
“What better way to celebrate two days of incredible, best-of-the-best industry speakers than floating amidst the clear waters, brilliant corals, and rich sea life of tropical North Queensland!” the News Corp invitation said. “Glass-bottom and semi-sub boat tours, snorkelling with expert instructors, an underwater observatory – this is just some of the sun-lover fun you can expect. Plus a DJ and catered lunch, of course.”
Attention seeker
We told you last week about the West Australian making a bold contribution to National Reconciliation Week by publishing the first dual-language Noongar-English front page.
The editor of the paper, Anthony de Ceglie, addressed the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas on Thursday night, the second in a series of editors to step out of the daily news cycle and reveal their vision. He detailed his passion for producing arresting front pages and the importance of getting the reader’s attention. The first JNI address was given by Christopher Dore, the editor-in-chief of the Australian, in March.
De Ceglie rose fast through the ranks at News Corp before being hand-picked at a young age by Kerry Stokes to run the West’s newspaper empire which is made up of the West Australian, the Weekend West, the Sunday Times, thewest.com.au, perthnow.com.au and 19 regional publications.
He revealed he took the advice of veteran Murdoch editor Campbell Reid to “act fast” when he took the helm at the West, moving against the dead wood in the newsroom who were holding the paper back.
“I certainly tried to act fast when I joined The West Australian, I let about 65 people go in the first 12 months,” de Ceglie said.
“I would watch older reporters sit back and laugh about how they were just hanging around waiting for what they referred to as their Lotto payout. Some of these people had already been made redundant before. They didn’t care about the future of a young reporter like myself. They had long since stopped caring about the brand. Hell, they didn’t care if an entire newsroom was sleepwalking off a cliff.”
“Good editing means surrounding yourself with people who push you, will challenge you and tell you when you’re doing something stupid.” @AnthDeCeglie pic.twitter.com/6xNS24Zju3
— Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas (@JN_Institute) June 2, 2022
The year zero approach appears to have worked: the latest Roy Morgan figures show West Australian Newspapers now has a bigger total audience at 4.6m readers across print and online every month than the Daily Telegraph.
Racking up the tweets
While Streem data showed Scott Morrison won significantly more mentions in the traditional media during the six-week election campaign than his opponent, Twitter AU has revealed it was Anthony Albanese who was the most mentioned politician on the social media platform: @AlboMP was the most tweeted about politician of the election campaign followed by @ScottMorrisonMP and Greens Leader Adam Bandt @AdamBandt.
The Australian Labor party (@AustralianLabor) was the most tweeted about political party/organisation, while Climate 200 (@Climate200) was the fourth-most tweeted about.
There were 4.2m #Auspol related tweets from the day the election was called on 11 April through to 22 May. The conversation peaked on election day with 250,000 tweets. Of course the #DemocracySausage hashtag and emoji trended for 10 hours on election day, accompanying 30,000 election-related hashtags during the campaign.
True crime TikTok
The Daily Telegraph’s TikTok account has a regular true crime update featuring the hard-bitten veteran crime editor from central casting Mark “Moz” Morri and his younger counterpart Josh Hanrahan.
Morri is filmed sitting at his desk in the newsroom with a sharply dressed Hanrahan perched on the desk next to him. Their presentation is surprisingly low-energy for the platform but the content is riveting.
Obsessed with the Daily Telegraph’s TikTok account. Today: why it’s hard to get a bag right now. pic.twitter.com/iG9DbHLAw2
— Ariel Bogle (@arielbogle) June 2, 2022
The latest TikTok tells us that recent drug busts have taken a lot of cocaine off the streets of Sydney threatening “one of the city’s favourite pastimes”, according to Hanrahan.
Morri: “That’s a big dent, so whether they can replace that with the cartels and our favourite distributors around here in Sydney will be interesting to see.”
Home and Away brings home the cash
It’s only a week until Ten’s 36-year-old soapie Neighbours wraps production in Melbourne after it was cancelled by UK broadcaster Channel 5. However, its younger sibling, Home and Away, is being celebrated not only as a boost to tourism but as an economic force. According to research commissioned by Seven West Media, Home and Away has increased the real income of Australia by a total of $7.5bn since it began in 1988.
In an address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia on Wednesday, chief executive James Warburton revealed the results of the study: “Home and Away has been at the heart of Australia for the past 34 years and this report captures, for the first time, the show’s significant impact on the Australian economy, our television landscape, our society and Australia’s international reputation.”
Home and Away has employed between 1,500 and 2,000 people a year in front of and behind the camera, generating a total of 12,890 employee years.
The research revealed Home and Away generated a further $1bn in export revenue, making it one of Australia’s most successful media exports. What a pity Neighbours can’t be seen in the same way.
ABC apologises
Six months after a West Australian man was incorrectly identified by the Seven Network as allegedly being involved in the abduction of Cleo Smith, the ABC has apologised for using an incorrect image to depict Jerome McNamara in a report of his charge in relation to an alleged murder. “The person shown in the image has no connection with the case, and the image was immediately removed from all ABC platforms as soon as possible,” the ABC said in a correction. “The ABC apologises to the person depicted in the image for this error.”
Fauziah Ibrahim returns
Last week we asked ABC news director Justin Stevens what was happening with Fauziah Ibrahim, who was taken off air in April after her Twitter account labelling critics “Labor Trolls/Thugs” and “Lobotomised shitheads” was exposed.
The ABC had been silent about the incident since issuing a statement at the time: “The ABC is reviewing recent social media activity by presenter Fauziah Ibrahim, who has taken a break from on-camera duties but remains part of the Weekend Breakfast team.”
Stevens told Weekly Beast he couldn’t comment because it was an internal staff matter, but the next day Ibrahim returned to her on-air role as co-host of Weekend Breakfast without fanfare.
Now we learn the ABC did find Ibrahim’s Twitter lists were “unacceptable” and did breach the ABC’s social media policy.
“We investigated the matter and appropriate action was taken,” the ABC has told complainants who wrote to the broadcaster about Ibrahim’s account. “In this case, the social media activity was unacceptable and the ABC sincerely apologises for the offence that was caused.”
Official response from @ABCNews to the Fauziah Ibrahim shit-list incident #auspol pic.twitter.com/nQKHIu2Ldh
— FixatedPersonsUnit (@FixatedUnits) June 2, 2022
Last year the ABC managing director, David Anderson, warned staff they faced disciplinary action, including the sack, if they breached tough new social media guidelines. While the ABC is not revealing what action was taken against Ibrahim, they assured complainants that it was taken. She was off air during the election and her Twitter account has been deleted.
Anderson’s warning came after two of the ABC’s most experienced journalists, Laura Tingle and Sally Neighbour, fell foul of the rules for Twitter use which prohibit bringing the ABC into disrepute with personal views. (Neighbour has since retired from the ABC, and this week her replacement Matthew Carney and a bunch of other roles was announced.)
The new rules highlight that ABC journalists and presenters are at “high risk” in their roles and should be especially careful.
