Guthrie now works at the ABC. Today marks incoming ABC boss Michelle Guthrie’s first day as an ABC employee, and the start of her four-week handover period with outgoing managing director Mark Scott. Scott will officially leave the building on April 29, with Guthrie in charge from May 2.
Scott has, in recent weeks, been on something of a farewell tour around the country, visiting regional ABC bureaux for the final time as managing director. Last week he posed for a group photo in Hobart, and Adelaide, he hand-delivered a complaints file to breakfast duo Matthew Abraham and David Bevan as a parting gesture.
Hyperbolic Greg. Greg Sheridan below the fold on the front page of today’s Oz:
It is sometimes said that Sheridan is prone to hyperbole. There’s a blog devoted to the issue, though sadly, these days it is somewhat neglected.
From the fire to the frying pan? Nick Chan — a former senior executive at the Seven Network and a 10-year leader of Seven’s Pacific Magazines business — has been named head of the larger rival, Bauer.
Chan’s appointment was announced this morning. He was previously chief operating officer at Seven but left after an internal management squeeze in late 2014. He started his publishing career at ACP Magazines, which Bauer Media acquired in 2012, where he worked for 18 years rising to become CEO.
In addition to Bauer Media, Chan will oversee digital division Bauer Xcel Media, content business BauerWorks, Bauer Trader Media and Bauer Books. He will start mid-year after “finishing” his current commitments, one of which is chairing an online betting company called TopBetta. — Glenn Dyer
CFMEU gets Press Council win. In August 2015, the Herald Sun reported that the CFMEU’s offices had been raided by police. CFMEU officials publicly denied any such raid had taken place, and the newspaper quickly acknowledged it had gotten it wrong.
But the issue progressed to the Press Council, which, in an adjudication published today, concluded that while the publication had taken reasonable steps to correct the information (dismissing the complaint on this ground). But, the council concluded, given the lack of confirmation from the CFMEU or police that a raid had occurred, the publication “ought … to have taken further steps before publishing. Accordingly, the Council concludes that reasonable steps to ensure accuracy were not taken”.
In the adjudication, CFMEU media officer Clancy Dobbyn said he’d been contacted by the Herald Sun’s reporter at 10.20 that morning, and had said he didn’t have any knowledge of a raid. Shortly afterward CFMEU Victorian Branch secretary John Setka tweeted that the Herald Sun had tipped off the branch that a raid was about to occur.
Dobbyn argued that, given this, it should have been clear to the Herald Sun that the raid had not taken place. But he says the article went up anyway, only being corrected after he emailed the publication to say it hadn’t occurred.
The Herald Sun argued its report was based on “three well-placed and credible sources”, and that neither the union nor police, with whom it checked the story, provided information that contradicted its sources. It also said Setka’s tweet was unclear, and that Dobbyn hadn’t denied a raid had occurred. — Myriam Robin
New gigs for Dempster, Sinclair. Speaking of new appointments, we missed former ABC/Fairfax journo Quentin Dempster’s announcement on Monday that he’d joined The New Daily as political editor.
Dempster left the ABC — where he’d won multiple Walkleys and been a staff-elected board member — as part of the cost-cutting at the end of 2014. Since then, he’s worked for The Sydney Morning Herald as a contributing editor. He marks the most high-profile appointment for the super-industry funded New Daily since it launched in late 2013, apart from that of editorial director Bruce Guthrie (a former editor of both The Age and the Herald Sun).
LGBTI issues magazine Star Observer also has a new editor, Corey Sinclair, after former editor Elias Jahshan stepped down. Corey Sinclair used to work at the NT News.
Video of the day. That’s what political advertising needs — more kids in suits!
Crikey is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while we review, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.