For Australian newspapers, Scott Morrison’s official dinner with Donald Trump was worthy of front-page treatment. Reports said the US president had “lauded” the closeness of the Australian-US alliance and “‘lavished” praise on the prime minister.
It was true of course. Trump had said Morrison “had a fantastic victory”.
But for the US press corps it was a non-event. In its official briefing note the journalists said:
“Pool was briefly led into dining room where President Trump was meeting with Australian Prime Minister (Scott) Morrison. There was no news.”
Brett Mason (@BrettMasonNews)
“There was no news” - WH press pool’s take on @ScottMorrisonMP’s meeting with @realDonaldTrump... #auspol @SBSNews pic.twitter.com/oPWh9CF10w
June 27, 2019
‘Precious’ ABC stories to disappear
The ABC’s biggest collection of digital stories from regional Australians, collated on ABC Open since 2010, will disappear from public view on Friday.
The broadcaster sent emails to the 28,000 contributors to the site, saying they should download their content before the end of the month because ABC Open was closed.
A decision by ABC management to remove the archive from public view has infuriated former ABC producers who worked on the regional project. They say the decision marks the destruction of a valuable social archive of 193,000 documentary and social history stories in text, photography, audio and video.
Suzi Taylor, one of 50 Open producers who worked in regional centres on collaborations with the public, has written to the ABC chair, Ita Buttrose, and asked her to halt the move and find a way to preserve the legacy.
“While former ABC Open producers knew that ABC Open was set to close, we never expected this would mean that these precious stories would be essentially wiped from the public record,” Taylor wrote to Buttrose.
“To give you an idea of how important and groundbreaking ABC Open projects were, the national series Aftermath has come to be Australia’s biggest collection of regional Australian stories documenting natural disasters and recovery (around 1,600 all up). This project is just one of the many vital national projects from ABC Open.”
But the ABC says the site is “aged” and simply not functional any more and is largely being used for photography now. All user-generated photography has been moved to Instagram using #abcmyphoto and appears on ABC News online.
“The ABC has identified a number of important and ground-breaking written and video projects that form part of ABC Open,” he said. “A number of these projects, such as Separated, a series on forced adoption, and Mother Tongue, have found new homes on ABC Life and ABC Australia and Indigenous YouTube channels.”
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Former ABC Radio National producer and documentary maker Gretchen Miller says the ABC owes a debt to the members of the public who told their stories for free. “And you also need to honour the fact that these are snapshots in time of the way Australians live – it is a most remarkable archive and resource for our understanding of who we are and how we live, and what we think,” Miller told Weekly Beast.
“So-called ‘ordinary Australians’ are shown to be anything but in these projects. And now the ABC is going to make that inaccessible to the public, to historians, to social commentators – it’s just going to wilfully throw it away? I think it’s shameful, and I’m sorry to have wasted the time of those who put such commitment into the projects I ran. It’s a massive waste of social capital, goodwill and content.”
Bolt cutter
There is at least one journalist at the Herald Sun who won’t be receiving any extra cash no matter how many readers he converts into paying subscribers, and his name is Andrew Bolt.
Bolt is one of the best-read columnists and bloggers in the country and his strong opinions generate a lot of traffic, as well as debate, to the News Corp tabloids.
But the editors at the Herald Sun who crafted the bonus cash scheme wanted it to benefit everyday news and sport reporters, not highly paid columnists. There is a cut-off rate of pay beyond which you are ineligible for any of the bonuses.
Weekly Beast has learned some of News Corp’s local mastheads, which operate under the banner News Local, also offer staff rewards for encouraging readers to sign up with exclusive stories but the Herald Sun is the first major metropolitan masthead to launch a trial.
Well-worn path
In the fine tradition of ABC communications heads quitting to work for the government, the ABC’s head of public affairs, Emma McDonald, has resigned to join new communications minister Paul Fletcher as an adviser.
Malcolm Turnbull’s former principal private secretary Sally Cray occupied the same job at Aunty between 2011 and 2013 before resigning to rejoin the former member for Wentworth in Canberra.
McDonald has been at the broadcaster for just one year but has seen a lot of action in that time, including the sacking of one managing director and the resignation of a chairman shortly after that. McDonald, the daughter of former ABC chairman Donald McDonald, is a former lawyer with extensive experience in the media industry.
Last shot
Also signing off at Aunty, but after a considerably longer period of time, is legendary ABC Melbourne cameraman Vince Tucci, who retires this week.
Tucci joined ABC News in 1978 at the age of 21 and has worked for 7.30 since 1992.
Andy Park (@andy_park)Much treasured Melbourne @abc730 cameraman, Vince Tucci, retires this week, he's been at the ABC for 40 years. Well played sir, thank you and check out this very ABC 80s mood: pic.twitter.com/xmCTXjZxaW
June 27, 2019
7.30 executive producer Justin Stevens said Tucci had been a great ambassador for the program “in addition to his brilliant camera work and collegiality”.
Four Corners reporter Louise Milligan was among the staff to pay tribute to Tucci: “Vince Tucci is an utter gentleman and a consummate professional. Nothing is ever too much trouble. He never makes a fuss and just gets on with doing what he does best – beautiful pictures. Vince always makes the talent feel at ease – even in situations where we are filming very traumatic interviews.”
The business editor, Peter Ryan, said: “Overwhelmingly Vince has nurtured and encouraged a generation of reporters to lift their game, and despite regular temptation he’s made them look better than they are with skilled lighting, framing and the odd bit of hairspray for certain male reporters who used to have a lot of hair.”
A love letter to newspapers past
The News Corp veteran Terry Sweetman has written his last column for the Courier Mail after an even longer innings of 55 years, 25 of which have seen him writing opinion for the Mail and the Sunday Mail.
Sweetman, who has worked across nine mastheads and edited three of them, wrote movingly of the great change in the craft of journalism over the half a century he has had a byline.
“They introduced me to a boozing, brawling, fecund, rambunctious, furiously competitive yet oddly fraternal and tribal world inhabited by saints and sinners and by men and women of enormous talent, courage and principle,” Sweetman wrote in his farewell column.
“Now, I find it a more homogenous world, the proud nails hammered flat by the conformity of diplomas and degrees, the spontaneity ground down by modern management theories, and the craziness subdued by the demands of multitasking and the appetite for 24-hour news.”
Gleeson’s gleeful Logies campaign
It’s not an uncommon view to regard the TV Week Logie awards as “preposterous” and “absurd”.
Tom Gleeson (@nonstoptom)To win the Gold Logie you have to fight dirty. Going negative works. Here's my Waleed Aly attack ad. #tvweeklogies #Gleeson4Gold Vote here now: https://t.co/oIgKOmkYGZ pic.twitter.com/DJ26Md2A2Q
June 26, 2019
But when a nominee for the Logies top gong – the coveted Gold Logie for most popular TV star – disparages TV’s night of nights it gets a tad awkward.
The comedian Tom Gleeson, himself a Gold Logie nominee this year, has been mercilessly mocking the Logies and his fellow nominees in a series of faux attack ads posted on social media posts and in interviews. Because of the popular vote for Gold, each nominee is expected to campaign for public votes ahead of the live event on Sunday.
But now Gleeson’s obviously tongue-in-cheek statements appear to have provoked the 2018 Gold Logie winner, Grant Denyer, and Gold Logie nominee and comedian Amanda Keller.
Gleeson and Keller are competing with ABC gardener Costa Georgiadis, actress Eve Morey, Sunrise weather man Sam Mac, actor Rodger Corser and The Project’s Waleed Aly to take out the top prize.
“It’s become a joke this year,” Denyer said on radio.
“Two of the loudest Gold nominees are just effectively taking the piss.”
As well as Gleeson, Denyer is referring to Sam Mac who is driving across the country in a Sunrise bus emblazoned with logos like a politician touting for votes.
“Tom Gleeson is just taking all the headlines,” Denyer said. “I’m worried if he wins, that’s it for the Logies forever.”
Surprisingly, Keller has also weighed in.
“It’s hard because Tom is playing a different game, and that’s what I’m finding I’m struggling with to be honest,” Keller told news.com.au.
“It’s always been that the nominees are a happy soup, and I still want us to be a happy soup, there’s no need to make it personal and pick us all off. I know Tom’s playing a comedic game, but really, I’m just happy to be in the soup.”
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