Media Reporting

Nine engages former John Howard spinner as consultant amid company turmoil

Nine has engaged John Howard’s former senior spin doctor as the company grapples with the fallout of a cultural review, the loss of a chair and CEO, as well as a tanking share price.


David Luff, Howard’s former press secretary, is working with Nine as a consultant through corporate advisory firm Bespoke Approach. Crikey understands he has taken over from James Chessell, who consulted for Nine on government relations and digital platform partnerships through Bespoke after leaving his role as N...

'People will swim through shit for a dollar': A list of AFL stars and journos on the gambling payroll

The extent to which gambling advertising has infiltrated sport has been well-documented in Crikey’s Punted series. It is inescapable. 


Every week, Australians are bombarded via our televisions with betting tips from former players, while clubs sign deals with the same betting agencies that hire executives from the AFL.


The AFL’s deals with gambling companies are reported (by one of the media figures on this Crikey list, no less) to be worth between $30-$40 million in product fees alone, pl...

'Borderline mental': News Corp journos slam company's AI crackdown on popular transcription service

News Corp Australia has blocked journalists from using the popular transcription service Otter.ai, notifying staff identified using the service through their work email accounts that it was blocking access by September 13. 


Otter.ai automatically transcribes recorded audio and uses AI to assist in the accuracy of its transcription. It is one of the most popular transcription apps on the market, particularly among journalists. 


In an internal email sent to affected staff on September 5, see...

A new Australian media company has just launched. But who on earth is funding it?

Gazette News is a mysterious new Australian media startup led by Anna Saulwick, a former Change.org and Unicef executive and GetUp campaign manager. 


Saulwick, who lists her title on LinkedIn as CEO of Gazette News as of June 2024, has brought on board former Vice head of editorial Brad Esposito as the company’s editorial director. Saulwick told Crikey that the startup is “aiming to provide high-quality free local news”, focusing on both regional and metropolitan areas “where disinformation i...

Top journos leave Nine newspapers in mass redundancies

Culture editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Osman Faruqi and former Private Sydney columnist Andrew Hornery have headlined the departures at Nine Publishing this week, as the company completes the process of executing major redundancies foreshadowed earlier this year. 


There were a raft of other departures from across the Nine mastheads, including senior Australian Financial Review correspondents Aaron Patrick, Ben Potter and Michael Pelly, as well as the Herald’s chief sports scr...

‘Pathetic’: Muslim journalists slam ‘rabid’, ‘disgusting’ coverage of Fatima Payman

The Fatima Payman affair has viscerally divided Australian politics. On the one hand, her supporters have branded the newly independent senator a fresh breath of conscience; on the other hand, the Labor faithful have used charming party adjectives to brand her a “rat”. But it’s the displays of ignorance and uninformed assumptions about Islam that has stood out to Muslim journalists, with some branding the industry’s coverage of Payman’s defection “disgusting”.


Crikey spoke to a number of Mus...

The viral suit guy hits the red carpet for the Midwinter Ball

Last night some of the least fashionable people on the continent (read: journalists and politicians) frocked up for Australian politics’ night of nights: the annual Midwinter Ball in Canberra, described by one staffer as “the Oscars for ugly people”. The occasion gave the rest of us the opportunity to judge whether they were (as one young reporter overheard in an inner-Sydney pub last night put it) “serving slay”. 


Earlier this year, Crikey interviewed Derek Guy, editor of online menswear out...

'Fuck Mike Sneesby': Nine staff incensed at mass job cuts

Nine Entertainment has announced major job cuts, with an internal all-staff email from CEO Mike Sneesby stating that the company will be making a series of cuts that will affect 200 jobs, representing approximately 4% of the company’s total headcount. 


In the email seen by Crikey, Sneesby said Nine was “not immune to economic headwinds which are impacting many businesses globally”. He cited “the loss of revenue from the Meta deal”, referring to the withdrawal of the American tech giant from i...

'I'm not being political': ABC chair criticises Coalition's approach to nuclear policy

ABC chair Kim Williams has criticised the Coalition’s approach to formulating its nuclear energy policy at a panel before making clear he was speaking as an “Australian citizen” not as a representative of the national broadcaster. 


In footage seen by Crikey, Williams, speaking on a panel at Sydney’s Vivid Festival on Wednesday night, said that the Coalition’s recently spruiked nuclear policy was “absent any of the normal fabric of policy formulation”. 


Williams appeared on the After The Fa...

'Wasn't intended to bully': News Corp chair Michael Miller defends coverage of prominent women

News Corp executive chairman Michael Miller fronted the National Press Club this afternoon where he denied his company is responsible for the scourge of trolling and bullying he says should be addressed by greater regulation of the nation’s media sector. 


In a question to Miller, AAP’s Kat Wong noted that “a lot” of News Corp’s reporting has “caused women to be bullied”, pointing to the examples of Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Brittany Higgins and Antoinette Lattouf. Wong asked whether it was accept...

'Outrageous and stupid': First major redundancies revealed as News Corp swings axe

News Corp has swung the axe on planned major job cuts as part of a company-wide restructure today, with a number of leadership jobs lost across the company. 


Instead of the company’s usual practice of major announcements in all-staff meetings known as “town halls”, various newsrooms around the business received simultaneous and separate briefings on Wednesday morning, all around 11am Eastern time. 


These meetings confirmed that the company’s metropolitan mastheads would move to a seven-day...

Nine refuses to deny imminent redundancies across broadcast division

Nine is remaining tight-lipped amid rumours of significant planned redundancies in its broadcast division. 


Crikey understands dozens of jobs are slated to be lost. 


A single sentence was all a Nine spokesperson would provide in response to Crikey’s questions about the plans: “As change occurs in the media industry, we are always evolving to best meet the needs of our business in order to remain the market leader.”


A Nine source told Crikey there was “huge cost cutting” on the company’s...

What's a leak? What's a drop? Australia's scoop doyenne Sam Maiden weighs in ahead of the budget

Early May in Australian politics is budget time, one of the busiest times of year for politicians, staffers and the press gallery alike. 


As the budget tree maple turns a brilliant red, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers frolics in its fallen leaves, political staffers are under pressure to push their bosses’ narrative about which pile of money is going where, while journalists chase exclusives. And sometimes these desires become mutually beneficial, with press secretaries dropping stories to certain...

'Caught the department by surprise': Emails reveal Albanese made anti-doxxing call without advice

In February, following the publication of the personal details of members of a WhatsApp group of almost 600 Jewish creatives, journalists and academics, the prime minister signalled changes to doxxing laws in a strongly worded interview with 2GB’s Chris O’Keefe. 


Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the publication of the members’ details “completely unacceptable”, and said he had asked the attorney-general to bring forward legislation in response to an existing review of the Privacy Act. A...

How one word sparked a PR wildfire for the Australian Museum

When the Australian Museum managed to secure the coffin of Ramses II on loan from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, it was lauded as a coup for Sydney, which became the second city in the world outside of Egypt to showcase the coffin of one of the most powerful pharaohs in Ancient Egypt. The exhibition began on November 18 last year and will run until May 29 this year. 


A hawkish leader who commanded armies throughout the Levant, Ramses led the Egyptian army in several battles surroundi...

ABC ends fact-check partnership with RMIT

The ABC has ended its partnership with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) FactLab, with which it has operated the ABC RMIT Fact Check project for the past seven years.


On Tuesday afternoon ABC news director Justin Stevens notified staff via email that the national broadcaster would replace the partnership with an internal fact-checking team, known as “ABC News Verify”. 


Stevens said Verify would be a “team of specialists with the ability to scale up to support our special c...

Exclusive: Guardian Australia appoints Karen Middleton as political editor

Guardian Australia has appointed The Saturday Paper’s Karen Middleton as its new political editor, replacing the outgoing Katharine Murphy. 


Middleton, who is currently the chief political correspondent at The Saturday Paper, joins after a decorated career spanning over three decades in the press gallery. 


Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor said Middleton brought “decades of experience, judgement, a significant record of news breaking and excellent analytical skills” to the publicatio...

New Nine boss once defended a man's sexual relationship with a minor

Last week, Nine appointed former Daily Mail and Fox Sports boss Luke McIlveen executive editor of its metropolitan mastheads, replacing Tory Maguire, who was promoted to be head of publishing. 


McIlveen’s appointment reportedly raised eyebrows among some staff, with concerns about the potential cultural clash considering his previous jobs with outlets such as The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. Crikey understands some of McIlveen’s tweets have been circulating in Nine’s newsrooms. 


Since M...

Schwartz Media sells The Politics to former Junkee boss

Schwartz Media has sold off The Monthly’s popular daily politics column, The Politics, to former Betoota Advocate publisher and Daily Aus investor Piers Grove for an unknown sum. It is understood the sale went through in early November 2023. 


The new spinoff website will be led by Rachel Withers as editor-in-chief; Withers currently serves as contributing editor of the column. 


Crikey understands the sale triggered two redundancies — including Withers, who accepted a move across to the new...

Which Australian journalists and politicians have gone on trips to Israel and Palestine?

The following story is a running list of journalists and politicians who have taken part in organised tours to the Middle East on the dime of lobby groups or governments, or at their own expense. It was last updated on March 21, 2024.


For decades, Israeli advocacy groups have sent journalists as well as elected and aspiring politicians to the Middle East on what the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies calls the “Journalists’ Mission to Israel”. 


“For about 25 years, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputi...