ABC, Greens, Chisholm, Lyons and Packer
July 14, 2008
Here are Stephen Mayne's seven stories from the Crikey edition on Friday, January 20, 2006.
4. Another chance to neuter the ABC
By Stephen Mayne
The Howard Government has waged a long campaign to rein in what it regards as institutional bias at the ABC and the resignation of managing director Russell Balding provides another big opportunity to attack that culture.
The original appointment of John Howard's mate Donald McDonald as chairman in 1996 was meant to kick-start the process, but it didn't take long for him to go native and become a passionate advocate for the ABC.
However, McDonald and his board, including Crikey publisher Di Gribble, did appoint Jonathan Shier as managing director in January 1999 in what amounted to the biggest attempt to shake up the culture.
The former Young Liberal turned out to be an unmitigated disaster and was fired on the eve of the 2001 Federal election. After that, McDonald and his board went for the safe option of Russell Balding despite the Howard Government preferring another outsider, like disgraced Swiss bank account customer Trevor Kennedy.
Since then the stacking of the ABC board with conservatives has continued, most notably with the appointment of former IPA ideologue Ron Brunton in May 2003 and The Australian's conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen in February 2005.
The other members of the board at the moment include respected Melbourne lawyer Stephen Skala, John Gallagher QC and the staff-elected director Ramona Koval, whose on-going presence demonstrates how hard it is to control what many still regard as a staff-captured organisation.
Some critics regard the presence of Gough Whitlam's press secretary Kerry O'Brien presenting The 7.30 Report as the ultimate yardstick of the ABC's on-going editorial independence. The new CEO would have a good deal of difficulty moving on O'Brien because it would require John Cameron, the head of news and current affairs, to support the move.
However, that doesn't mean the government won't press for an outsider to take on this vital media position and attempt another shake-up. Importantly, Donald McDonald's second five year term as chairman expires on July 24 this year.
It some respects it is a shame that Russell Balding didn't foreshadow his departure earlier, rather than proceeding with last week's appointment of Ian Dalton as Sandra Levy's replacement as director of television.
Perhaps the government should install its new chairman before a decision is made on replacing Balding. Peter Reith would certainly make a controversial choice given he was seriously considered as a director two years ago. Or what about Sam Chisholm as the CEO? He'll soon have some time on his hands and would really shake things up.
A Reith-Chisholm combination would cause a fire-storm but the government would then discover that ABC audiences are happy with what they're getting and there simply aren't the right wing journalists or commentators prepared to work for the pittance that Aunty pays.
6. Is this the end for Sam Chisholm?
By Stephen Mayne
Television legend Sam Chisholm is today utterly humiliated and co nsidering his future after James Packer backed PBL CEO John Alexander in forcing the reinstatement of sacked Sunday executive producer John Lyons.
Chisholm was already furious about media reports that he will soon be replaced at the helm of Channel Nine by Eddie McGuire or someone else. But now his authority has been publicly undermined like never before.
Chisholm and John Alexander have been engaged in a power struggle for many months, and this week's developments have dramatically increased speculation that Sam will soon be gone from Channel Nine.
While Kerry Packer and Sam were close until the end, it should not be forgotten that Alexander was on holidays in the Maldives with James Packer when Kerry died.
Chisholm doesn't enjoy such a close rapport with James Packer. After all, Chisholm was very much involved in the undermining of former Nine CEO David Gyngell, who had James Packer as best man at his wedding and has been in touch with the younger Packer since the death of his father.
Eddie McGuire pointed to Sam's weakened position when he told the Herald Sun this week: "Any comment on these things (a new CEO for Nine) must come from James Packer or John Alexander." What about poor old Sam?
And why does Sam need to put up with grief from an old newspaper man like John Alexander? Having made more than $30 million from his stint running BSkyB for Rupert Murdoch in London, he supposedly returned to Australia for a quieter life.
The passing of Kerry Packer has clearly undermined his authority to run Channel Nine, so why doesn't he just walk? At this point, it's all about ego and reputation. Sam has egg all over his face this morning and has also lost enormous face internally for making Mark Llewellyn do his dirty work for him when firing Lyons on Wednesday afternoon.
Not in all his years as a television boss has Sam had his authority so thoroughly undermined as when Alexander ordered him to reinstate Lyons.
Sam ran Nine for 14 years until 1990 and then spent seven years as CEO of BSkyB. This is not how he would have hoped to end a stellar career in television but 38-year-old James Packer and 54-year-old John Alexander have signalled that time's up for the 66-year-old legend.
The sharemarket is the major factor working in favour of Chisholm as investors would be concerned if Sam severed all ties and resigned from the PBL board and as chairman of Foxtel. James Packer would certainly not want to see Sam returning to the Murdoch camp or, heaven forbid, joining his former understudy David Leckie at Seven, which he could well do as revenge against Alexander and James Packer.
This week's drama has clearly ended the myth of a smooth and peaceful Packer succession.
19. How the Greens are preselecting their first Victorian MPs
By Stephen Mayne
There is almost no doubt that the Greens will win at least two seats and possibly as many as eight in the reconstituted Victorian upper house at the November 25 state election given the new proportional representation voting system. So, after years of coming so close in Templestowe Province at the 1999 election, Melbourne in 2002 and the 2004 Senate contest, how is the party preselecting its candidates? This little summary fell off the back of a solar-powered bicycle outside the old Crikey bunker yesterday:
1. An applicant must be nominated by four financial Greens party members. Each nominator provides a two-part statement, firstly listing their own party history and secondly explaining why they are nominating the applicant.That's pretty democratic and comprehensive, although it would be open to the corrosion of branch stacking. It would be interesting to know if the party has seen an increase in membership since winning seats became a serious prospect.
2. Each applicant provides a comprehensive statement in support of their application.
3. A series of "meet-the-candidates meetings" are held around the eight upper house Region, which each includes 11 lower house seats. This is an opportunity for party members to meet the applicants, ask questions of them and – perhaps most importantly – observe how they perform relevant tasks such as prepared speeches, impromptu speeches, simulated press conferences, radio interviews and the like.
4. Applicants undergo in-depth probing from a panel. The panels comprise representatives from the local branches of the party located in the Region as well as two representatives of the party's State Council who are not residents of the Region. Panel members also attend and observe the meet-the-candidates meetings. Each individual panel member must then write a brief assessment of each applicant.
5. The final decision is determined by a postal ballot of Greens party members residing in the Region. It's an optional preferential voting system and a majority is required to be successful. Information provided in the postal ballot pack includes for each applicant:
* the applicant's statement
* the applicant's 4 nominators' statements
* each individual panel member's assessment of the applicant
Still, sometimes member-based preselections don't produce the most strategic candidate. Greg Barber certainly looks the goods in their best prospect of Northern Metropolitan but why would you put former union official Sue Pennicuik in their next best seat of Southern Metropolitan when this is relying on all those wealthy doctors' wives in the leafy suburbs of Kew, Hawthorn and Brighton?
The Liberal Party has generally preselected better candidates in the upper house because of the sheer size of each Region (407,000 voters on average) weakens the relative power of local stackers and factional warlords in the preselection.
It will be interesting to see what Labor produces later in the year when 25 incumbent Legislative Councillors will have to be preselected into 18 winnable spots across the state. Standby by for an almighty bunfight in a state that is already riven by factional warfare.
20. Inside the failed plot to axe John Lyons
By Stephen Mayne
After giving John Lyons the bullet at 1pm on Wednesday, Channel Nine's news and current affairs head Mark Llewellyn found himself having a one-hour meeting with him this morning, along with Peter Hiscock, the man who was supposed to become the new executive producer of Sunday and Business Sunday.
Today's meeting was to thrash out titles and roles and Lyons and Hiscock, who are old friends, later retreated to a Crows Nest coffee shop to smooth over their differences ahead of a bigger staff meeting later today. The resolution sees Lyons retain his position but yield some responsibilities to Hiscock who assumes the title of director of Sunday.
Lyons had one year to go on his three-year contract and hadn't even contacted a lawyer when Chisholm, who has been monstering the former SMH editor for months, rang yesterday morning and called him to a meeting that saw him reinstated. But Lyons did make one all-important call – to PBL CEO John Alexander on Wednesday afternoon – before retreating to the nearby Bridgeview Hotel to say goodbye to colleagues.
But although Lyons hadn't spoken to a lawyer before being reinstated, he had called in prominent QC Liz Fullerton late last year to provide advice on his position as the dark clouds formed on the horizon.
John Lehmann reported in The Australian today that John Alexander used his influence with James Packer to force Chisholm to reinstate Lyons and that the sacking was botched:
At the meeting, attended by Nine chief operating officer Ian Audsley, Mr Llewellyn read from a prepared script, criticising several decisions made by Mr Lyons. But Mr Lyons gained the upper hand by pointing out that Mr Llewellyn signed off on some of the disputed decisions, including the recent hiring of a freelance journalist despite budget cutbacks.
Llewellyn had indeed approved the hiring of freelance journalist Christopher Zinn to prepare a report on the Cronulla riots when Sunday returns on February 12. When watching the story, viewers will have no idea of the unprecedented riots it has caused inside Nine.
The axing of Lyons was apparently supported by the majority of people who work on the two programs and is being viewed as another example of Park Street medalling in the affairs of Nine. Sunday presenter Jana Wendt, senior reporter Graham Davis and four other staff are said to have agitated for Lyons' axing.
The loose gang of six formed after the much-revered supervising producer of Sunday, Tom Kraus, took a voluntary redundancy late last year after many months of frustration at the way Lyons was managing the program on a day-to-day basis.
Chisholm is close to Jana and finally decided to move on Lyons this week but he got Llewellyn to do his dirty work and now all those involved are both bitter and damaged.
21. What now for the Packer documentary?
By Stephen Mayne
Most of the people involved in the preparation of a one hour Channel Nine documentary celebrating the life of Kerry Packer have this week found themselves completely shafted by PBL CEO John Alexander, presumably supported by James Packer. In fact, Crikey understands commissioning of the documentary has been a source of some of the tension on the program.
The idea originally came from Nine's new head of news and current affairs, Mark Llewellyn, who was backed by Sam Chisholm, presumably after clearance from James and Ros Packer. However, Chisholm then went behind the back of Sunday executive producer John Lyons in assigning some of his staff to work on the documentary. It was typical undermining stuff from Chisholm, suggesting the writing was on the wall for Lyons who would be out on the street today but for the fact that PBL CEO John Alexander overruled Wednesday's sacking.
The team Chisholm and Llewellyn put together for the Packer documentary included Peter Hiscock, the man who was meant to replace Lyons, reporter Graham Davis and producer Ben Hawke.
Chisholm, early in his stint back at Nine and under pressure from negative publicity, was the beneficiary of one of the most sycophantic pieces in television history. In fact it was television history – Nine's ode to fifty years of it – reported by Graham Davis.
Channel Nine old hands were nauseated at Davis' self-serving questions to Chisholm – and glowing script lines describing the little man as the greatest television executive in history, as the transcript shows. Sunday's credibility was severely damaged – and Lyons and other senior people were unimpressed.
Not surprisingly, Chisholm then selected Davis to be the reporter on the Kerry Packer documentary. Having done such a brown-nosing for him, Davis was considered more than capable of shining a rose-coloured lens on Kerry's life and times.
However, Davis was officially warned by Lyons after a Sunday story on the Tasmanian forests caused Premier Paul Lennon to call Kerry Packer directly and threaten to walk away from the Betfair negotiations. Davis has been a major critic previously of Tasmania's forest practices as you can see here and here and the warning from Lyons poisoned their relationship.
How Davis, producers Peter Hiscock and Ben Hawke, Davis admirer Jana Wendt, Mark Llewellyn and Sam Chisholm feel about the Kerry Packer documentary this morning is open to speculation as all have been shafted by his son James.
24. Unprecedented media management upheaval
By Stephen Mayne
Has the Australian media scene ever encountered such huge turnover in its management ranks? The resignation of ABC managing director Russell Balding today is just the latest development. Consider the following:
- Fairfax appointed Ron Walker chairman and David Kirk CEO last September
- David Gyngell quit as Nine CEO last May and the hunt is now on in earnest for a replacement
- Network Ten appointed Grant Blackley to replace John McAlpine as CEO in May 2005
- Lachlan Murdoch quit as chairman of News Ltd last August, so John Hartigan became executive chairman
- Ian Law quit as WA News CEO to become PBL's new boss of ACP
- Kerry Packer died
The only one of the big five media companies with stable management at the moment is Seven, which for years had a procession of CEOs, not unlike Fairfax in the early 1990s.
25. Where is The Australian's legal section?
By Stephen Mayne
It was hard to forget The Australian's aggressive campaign against the summer closure of the NSW justice system in 2004-05, especially given the subsequent detailed complaint lodged with the Press Council by NSW Attorney General Bob Debus. The paper followed up with some similar coverage this summer, claiming credit for the improved work rate of NSW judges.
Then you have the paper's attacks on The AFR for taking too many days off over the Christmas-New Year period and this even extended to a dig at Crikey in Strewth on Wednesday when the following appeared:
Give 'em a breakWell it's "Gotcha" for The Australian as well today which failed to produce its usual Friday legal section. The AFR published a three page Legal Affairs section. What must all those NSW judges think of such hypocrisy from the Murdoch flagship? It's January 20 for goodness sake, where are those lazy legal hacks?
Over the past couple of years journalistic gadfly Crikey has waged a campaign against The Australian Financial Review for not publishing during the week over Christmas. This year there was no such campaign, possibly because Crikey itself, for the first time in its history, took two weeks off (although it did publish a special the day that Kerry Packer died). Stephen Mayne, who set up Crikey before selling it last year to Text Media, admitted "gotcha'' when challenged by Strewth. New owner, former Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Herald editor Eric Beecher, explained staff "`took the opportunity to stretch our legs and stretch our brains.'' It's called a holiday.
We asked The Australian to explain their actions and managing editor Martin Beesley replied as follows: "The Australian's legal section returns next Friday, January 27. Since when did The Fin set the agenda on anything?"
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