Kevin Rudd demands fair shake of the sauce bottle after Murdoch's 'huge whack'

Kevin Rudd, who is celebrating breaking the record for the biggest e-petition in the history of the national parliament with well over 400,000 signatures, says he knew Rupert Murdoch would take a “huge whack” at him when he called for a royal commission into News Corp’s dominance of Australian media.

The former PM’s petition, which closes on Wednesday, argues that Murdoch’s media company employs tactics that “chill free speech and undermine public debate”.

Anyone who takes on the Murdoch empire makes themselves a big target. And so it was Rudd found himself on the front page of the Daily Telegraph this week over reports from Norwegian journalists from last year that exposed financial links between Jeffrey Epstein and the International Peace Institute, which Rudd chaired.

“When I put a public petition to the Australian people to sign, calling for a royal commission into the Murdoch media monopoly, I knew at that time that Murdoch at the first opportunity would take a huge whack at me,” Rudd told Weekly Beast. “And so it has happened.

“I don’t deny that this is intrinsically an important matter, but to plant it across the front page of the newspapers as an exclusive would even be challenged by the normal ethics of the media as an institution given that it was extensively reported 12 months ago in a number of newspapers around the world.

“So what’s the bottom line here? Yes, this is a legitimate story. But plastering it with smear across the front pages of the Murdoch press at a time when my petition has just passed 400,000 angry Australians, angry with the Murdoch media monopoly. Go figure.”

Malcolm Turnbull, who like Rudd faced negative campaigns from News Corp during his time in office, has also signed the petition.

“Kevin has done well to get this petition going,” Turnbull said on Twitter. “I doubt it will result in a Royal Commission and Murdoch’s print monopoly (since 1987) is only part of the problem. But I have signed it and encourage others to do so.”

The petition was boosted by support from Hollywood actors Hugh Grant and Bette Midler after it was highlighted by the international press including the New York Times.

Pay day

Like the ABC before them, SBS staff voted on Thursday on whether to delay a scheduled pay rise in February 2021.

Both public broadcasters were asked to consider a pay freeze by the Australian Public Service commissioner during the pandemic, and ABC staff rejected the request and received their 2% pay rise this month.

ABC managing director David Anderson did his bit, declining a 2% increase in July and requesting a 5% pay cut from April until the end of September. The senior executive also agreed not to accept any bonuses.

But it’s not like Anderson will be short of cash. The ABC’s 2020 annual report shows his base salary is $938,034. The second highest paid ABC executive is Gaven Morris, the head of news, whose base is $443,974.

SBS management went a step further than the ABC, asking staff to forgo the pay rise not because of government pressure but because their advertising revenue is down, like all media companies. SBS has a hybrid funding model, receiving money from government and raising its own revenue through advertising.

According to the 2020 annual report, which was released this week, SBS managing director James Taylor has a base salary of $705,831, and outgoing news chief Jim Carroll is on $459,570, which is even higher than his counterpart at the ABC.

Taylor’s office says SBS executives are not taking a pay cut, despite asking staff to delay their pay rise, but bonuses have been phased out.

“SBS is committed to protecting jobs and minimising the impact of Covid-19 on the organisation,” a spokesman told Weekly Beast.

“As part of that, SBS continues to assess the financial impact of the pandemic and has asked staff to consider a proposed six-month deferral of the scheduled February 2021 enterprise agreement pay increase. This would be in addition to cost containment measures already implemented.”

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance says staff are “disappointed” SBS management “refused to guarantee there would be no job losses if the wage freeze was accepted, nor have they committed to cutting executive salaries”.

Remembering Murphy

SBS’s new current affairs chief, Mandi Wicks, who has replaced Carroll, represented the broadcaster at former Dateline host Paul Murphy’s private funeral on Thursday.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose represented the ABC, where Murphy worked on This Day Tonight, PM, AM and Nationwide. Former prime minister Paul Keating and former NSW premier Bob Carr joined Murphy’s wife of 46 years, Kay, and brother Justin Murphy, also a former ABC journalist, to celebrate the 77-year-old’s life and his contribution to public broadcasting.

Joining the memorial service, which was organised by best friend and journalist Allan Hogan, was a stellar line-up of past and current public service broadcasters including Fran Kelly, Barrie Cassidy, Caroline Jones, Peter Manning, Heather Ewart, Jenny Brockie, Mike Carlton, Mary Kostakidis, Mike Carey and Kerry O’Brien, who joined remotely.

Subscription drive

Times are very tough in newspapers, especially regional and local newspapers, many of which were shut down during Covid-19. News Corp Australia alone closed or stopped printing more than 100 newspapers earlier this year.

The financial pressure on the remaining newspapers to earn subscription revenue appears to have led to a breach of the invisible wall between journalism and the sales department at one Murdoch outlet.

Weekly Beast understands Gold Coast Bulletin reporters have been contacting people who appeared in stories and asking them to subscribe. Two reporters contacted a childcare centre, which was mentioned in a story about the best centres on the coast, and suggested the manager ask the children’s parents to subscribe to the Bully to read the article.

The reporters said if they shared the story the parents wouldn’t be able to read it because of the paywall, but there was an offer of just $1 a week at the moment if they subscribed. With 136 childcare centres on the Gold Coast the potential for a boost in sales is ripe.

We asked Gold Coast Bulletin editor Rachel Hancock if her journalists are expected to approach the subjects of articles and ask them to subscribe or whether they are doing it of their own volition.

Last year the Herald Sun ran a trial during which it offered journalists a financial bonus for driving digital subscriptions and traffic through their own stories.

Journalists at News Corp have already been told to think about “selling” their stories to readers and being more “proactive” across the website and social media, so perhaps this direct approach is the next step.

Hancock referred the query to a News Corp spokesman who did not answer the substance of the question.

“Our response Amanda is a question for you,” the spokesman said. “How do you feel about the fact that every story you publish, such as the one below, features a begging bowl asking your readers for money?”

Free kick

Former AFL commentator Sam Newman has blamed “cancel culture” for his departure from Channel Nine after 35 years.

The former player and host of The Footy Show was condemned by former AFL players and Channel Nine employees for saying that US man George Floyd, who was killed when a police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, was “a piece of shit”.

But Newman has told a Herald Sun podcast, Sacked Showbiz, it was a “throwaway line” and he is the “most non-discriminatory person in the business”.

Newman said the network’s sponsors were upset about his Floyd comments and he offered to resign.

“But people, those on a mission and those who have an agenda, and the activists, they round you up,” Newman said.

He also revealed that The Footy Show was destined to fail once it was rejigged and he could no longer be his outrageous unscripted self.

The AFL Footy Show was axed last year after a quarter of a century on air just eight episodes into a revamp.

“From my point of view it had got away completely from what its main aim was in the first place,’’ he said. “But they throw the baby out with the bathwater and I became marginalised [due] to the fact that I wasn’t of use to them at all because the paradigm of the show had changed dramatically and it wasn’t suited to what I used to do.”

Going postal

If it had been just one day later, the Australian newspaper’s e-commerce summit last week may have been a very different line-up. The Oz held a two-day virtual event to examine the booming e-commerce market in Australia on Wednesday.

After opening remarks by editor-in-chief Chris Dore, the keynote was given by Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate, who the very next day was telling Senate estimates how the organisation spent $20,000 on Cartier watches as a reward for four senior managers.

Following Holgate’s address at the Oz event was none other than the prime minister who the next day was saying he was “appalled and shocked” by Holgate’s purchase and she should stand down.