Nine Entertainment’s managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire, has defended chief executive Mike Sneesby’s decision to fly out to Greece after announcing 200 job cuts at the media company last week.
“I think it’s a big call to expect someone to not attend a family wedding,” Maguire told staff at the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Australian Financial Review and digital mastheads the Brisbane Times and WA Today who are facing up to 90 job losses.
Asked at a town hall meeting on Monday whether Sneesby had failed to “face the music”, Maguire said it was her job to address staff of the publishing division and not his.
Presumably Sneesby will return the favour if staff complain about Maguire flying out to Fiji after attending the Midwinter Ball in Canberra on Wednesday night.
In the lengthy town hall, Maguire said it was a “very challenging time” at Nine due to “the cultural issues that erupted like a volcano two months ago” and the union negotiating a new enterprise agreement.
Nine has commissioned an independent review after acknowledging “alleged inappropriate behaviour and broader cultural issues” in its television newsrooms after allegations of inappropriate behaviour by former television news boss Darren Wick.
Maguire told staff there was no “secret plan” to stop publishing the newspapers and that subscription revenue was strong. However, the advertising downturn had “completely offset our growth in subscription revenue” and Meta was not renewing its deals with publishers.
She assured staff the cuts to editorial were proportional. In answering a staff question about whether the cuts were “payback for our coverage of the cultural issues at Nine” she said no, adding that no one on the board had complained when the newspapers reported on the Wick allegations.
Midwinter merriment
About 600 journalists, politicians, staffers and business leaders joined Maguire in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday night for the annual Midwinter Ball.
The black-tie event is also the occasion to award the federal press gallery journalist of the year and the inaugural visual story teller of the year.
Nine News’ national affairs editor, Andrew Probyn, took home the gong for his 60 Minutes story on the Taipan helicopter crash, among other work. It was the third time Probyn had won.
The press gallery also recognised Guardian Australia’s chief political correspondent, Paul Karp, who was highly commended for his “string of exclusive stories” about indefinite immigration detention.
Probyn has only been with Nine for seven months, having joined after the ABC made his role, and 40 others in news, redundant.
He told Weekly Beast at the time he was “pretty flabbergasted” to be told by the national broadcaster that they no longer needed a political editor for TV news.
Accepting his award, Probyn made it clear he was still unhappy with his treatment, detailing how his sacking had capped off what was an annus horribilis for his family, which included the death of a parent and knee surgery.
The reporter said after he was made redundant he received a call from the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who said words to the effect of “what the fuck is going on at the ABC?” and that someone from Nine rang him the same day and said “What the fuck is going on with the ABC? Do you want to come and work for us?”
Audience members told Weekly Beast the ABC table, which included the ABC chair, Kim Williams, the director of news, Justin Stevens, Annabel Crabb and David Speers, sat in stunned silence during the speech.
Picture perfect
AAP staff photographer Lukas Coch won the inaugural federal press gallery visual story teller of the year award for a body of work about the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, which included a shot of First Nations elders at the National Press Club before an address by voice opponent Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, below.
Sad day for New Zealand news
Friday is the day when New Zealand’s news media will see two of its primary news outlets close and 300 media jobs disappear.
After Warner Bros Discovery decided to close its Newshub news operations, including the news website, the morning television show and the 6pm television bulletin, NZ will be left with just one state-owned news television service.
NewsHub reported on its own demise this week, telling readers “After 7:30pm this Friday, there will be no new news updates on Newshub.co.nz, the Newshub app and our social media accounts … Our newsroom has been operating as the Newshub brand since 2016 and has been delivering the 6pm news on TV3 since 1989.”
Journalist Patrick Gower wrote his own obituary: “So just to get it on the record: 3 News and Newshub were definitely amazing.
“So that’s the way I will deal with my personal pain when they flick the switch on Friday at 7pm.
“I’ll just remember the amazing people I worked with, and the amazing people who watched.”
Australian journalist Hal Crawford, who ran the Newshub newsroom for several years, wrote his own tribute.
“My heart is with the presenters, reporters, producers, editors, directors, camera operators, graphic artists, makeup artists, administrators and managers leaving Newshub for the last time this Friday,” Crawford said.
ABC veterans head for the exit
The ABC has a few roles to fill in coming months as veterans have been stepping down in droves: Phillip Adams (replaced until the end of the year by David Marr), Paul Barry, Media Watch executive producer Tim Latham and now Lisa Millar.
With Millar retiring from the ABC News Breakfast couch, there are two leading contenders for her role.
The 55-year-old is walking away from news reporting after 31 years to concentrate on making TV programs Back Roads and Muster Dogs, as well as new projects.
Former Indigenous affairs editor Bridget Brennan, a co-host on Breakfast, has been filling in for Millar, as has South Australian reporter Emma Rebellato.
Media Watch has to replace the entire leadership team as Latham, who has clocked up a decade in the hot seat, will also join Barry out the door at the end of the year.
News Corp celebrates its own
While News Corp Australia goes about quietly making middle managers across the media company redundant as part of a significant restructure, the Australian is gearing up for its 60th anniversary celebrations on 15 July.
We can’t wait for the Sky News Australia documentary on the broadsheet whose centrepiece is an interview with Rupert Murdoch about the paper he founded in 1964 at the age of 33.
“Of course I love it, I’m proud of it,” the 93-year-old told Paul Whittaker, the CEO of Sky News Australia, who has taken on the gruelling task of interviewing the boss.
“It’s taken a lot of sweat, effort and money. But it was important to do. It had a great effect on Australia. In the early days it changed the existing papers, which were so parochial.”
Hosted by Chris Kenny, the doco includes interviews with editors Michelle Gunn, Paul Kelly and Chris Mitchell and columnist Janet Albrechtsen, investigative journalist Hedley Thomas and cartoonist Johannes Leak, as well former Oz reporter Tony Abbott.
What was the best advice he had ever received, Whittaker asked Murdoch.
Murdoch replied his mother told him to “tell the truth” and his father to “be curious, always.”
Lee way
We knew federal court judge Justice Michael Lee had become a popular figure since his judgment on the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case was handed down, but we were a little surprised to see him headlining the Women in Media conference.
WIM patron Ita Buttrose, the former chair of the ABC, will hold a conversation with Lee next month about “critical issues affecting both the media and judicial landscapes”. The inaugural Women in the Media Oration honouring the late ABC journalist Caroline Jones will be delivered by Nine investigative reporter Kate McClymont.