The Walkley's, Laurie Oakes

12. Why Tim Palmer deserved his Gold Walkley



By Stephen Mayne

The ABC's Indonesia correspondent Tim Palmer was a thoroughly deserving winner of the Gold Walkley last night and Crikey tipped it within 15 hours of this magnificent story going to air on January 5 when we wrote:

Last night's fabulous 10 minute 7.30 Report story on Tim Palmer's world exclusive journey from Jakarta to ground zero, the flattened town of Lapung on Sumatra's west coast, was what we predict will be the Gold Walkley winning effort for 2005.

Tim was apparently a bit upset with the suggestion he'd framed the story to win a Walkley. It wasn't meant to be a criticism. The harrowing journey that had him three days ahead of any other television journalist to the worst affected areas after the tsunami had to be told.

A couple of News Ltd journalists were muttering later that they thought The Courier Mail's Hedley Thomas should have won the Gold Walkley for his Dr Death coverage, but there really is no comparison.

Thomas started looking at Dr Death after he was named in the Queensland Parliament and then he discovered his earlier "gross negligence" conviction through Google. Sure, he took the yarn a long way and helped force a Royal Commission, but it doesn't compare with Palmer's gut instinct decision to head straight to Aceh to tell the world what happened at ground zero.

Stories that throw up technical, physical and cultural challenges in foreign disaster zones are that much harder than the classic telephone and internet office investigation back in Australia. That's why Four Corners, led by reporter Sally Neighbour, deserved to win the international journalism Walkley for The Kilwa Incident, an expose on Anvil Mining's complicity in a massacre in the Democratic Republish of Congo.

Thomas was a deserving winner of the Walkley for best news report but it was always going to be Palmer's Gold. Don't wait for Piers Akerman to congratulate the ABC's best performing foreign correspondent. Palmer cleaned up Akerman in the press council last year as you can see here.





14. Laurie Oakes: in defence of television journalism



By Stephen Mayne

A quarter of a century on, Laurie Oakes is still said to be miffed that his Channel Ten scoop in getting a leak of the 1980 Federal budget didn't win a Walkley. The Sphere of Influence may not enter his yarns but he is firmly back in the tent and last night delivered a brief but powerful lecture on the merits of television journalism.

Oakes said he was annoyed that newspaper journalists still say their electronic counterparts are constrained in what they can do, a comment he heard regularly on leaving The Sun News Pictorial in the late 1970s and still hears to this day.

"Television has greatly expanded journalism," Oakes said, citing several incidents, including Mark Latham's power hand-shake with the PM on election eve last year, where the small screen captured something that "print journalists can only envy."

He also pointed out that a crisp 15 paragraph newspaper story is exactly what can be fitted into a 90-second television story – plus all the vision, and then finished with a proverbial two-fingered salute telling the print hacks to "eat your heart out."

Network Ten sponsored the television news reporting category, so we had Paul Bongiorno on stage handing out the prize, Laurie at the microphone and their Channel Seven rival, Mark Riley, in the running for his scoop on Tony Abbott's son that wasn't. When Tim Palmer's name was read out, Bongiorno was heard to say "thank god for that".

Oakes also came up with one of the better gags of the night. An earlier technical hitch saw Seven's Chris Bath and SBS co-host Anton Enus do the cha cha up and down the stage to fill-in some time when the sound went down. When Oakes introduced Bongiorno he said, "If there's a technical hitch I am not going to dance with him."

As Oakes left the stage, another big man seated near the front rose to his feet and they warmly embraced. Who knows what the connection is with Fairfax chairman and former Liberal Party bagman Ron Walker, but they greeted like long lost friends. Maybe Laurie remembered that James Packer declared Ron was "an inspired choice" to lead Fairfax.

Then again, Ron was in a friendly mood last night and appeared to have forgotten everything I said at the Fairfax AGM as he came up and shook hands, even introducing me to his wife Barbara who said "so you're the one" when I jokingly apologised for attacking her husband.

Barbara's hair must have taken hours as it just went straight up. As one Fairfax hack observed later, "They really are some couple and Ron is starting to think he's the next Lord Beaverbrook."

Indeed, leaking that story to The Australian's Steve Lewis yesterday about James Packer calling to complain about a picture The SMH ran of him in his togs was classic Beaverbrook.

Barbara Walker sat next to new Fairfax CEO David Kirk as Fairfax flew the flag at journalism's "night of nights."





16. All the Walkleys gossip



By Stephen Mayne

The 50th Walkley Awards at Luna Park last night was arguably the biggest and best gathering of Australian media heavyweights to have ever assembled under the one roof. It's easiest to simply say who wasn't among the 1,000 guests: Murdochs, Packers, Alan Jones, John Laws, Kerry O'Brien, John Hartigan, Piers Akerman, Peter Blunden, Terry McCrann, Michael Gill, Richard Carleton.

Despite Rupert Murdoch's sledging of The Walkleys for being too "politically correct" there was no News Ltd boycott as Hartigan's wife Gerry Sutton was in attendance, as were numerous other heavies including Mark Day, Dave Pemberthy, Walkley's Advisory Board chair Malcolm Farr, The Australian's editor Michael Stutchbury and even Brett McCarthy, editor of Rupert's Sunday Times in Perth who was over to see his chief reporter John Flint collect the first gong of the evening.

In fact, News Ltd had a strong night, coming second overall with eight Walkleys against just five for Fairfax. But no-one got near Aunty which picked up 11 regular gongs, plus Tim Palmer's Gold and Deb Fleming's much-deserved "journalistic leadership" Walkley for ten great years running Australian Story.

The ABC heavies were also out in force with chairman Donald McDonald holding court on the top Aunty table, sitting next to the highest paid public sector journalist in the country, Sydney newsreader Juanita Phillips. Managing director Russell Balding was looking ever the accountant and newscaff boss John Cameron was seated next to ABC radio's Lyndal Curtis, an elevation which is perhaps explained by Amanda Meade's story about radio feeling left out in The Diary yesterday.

Even ABC Melbourne's breakfast host Red Symons managed to interrupt his holidays to take Jon Faine's place. Ironically, Faine's entry was all about euthanasia and someone's right to die, while the ABC Victoria Morning host couldn't make it last night because he's in Singapore for this morning's execution of Van Nguyen.

Red didn't get to make speech but at least got to hear his Living in the 70s played and he managed a couple of chats with fellow rocker Peter Garrett, an MEAA member who had to put up with sitting opposite Crikey for the evening.

The MEAA kindly seated me next to Stephen Gan, the Crikey of Malaysia who has 5,000 subscribers to his malaysiakini.com paying about $80 a year. The Malaysian Government even confiscated 19 of his computers a couple of years ago, but he's now built it up to having ten paid journalists competing with the staid and constricted mainstream press.

Alan Jones and John Laws didn't show up, which is probably explained by Media Watch winning the Gold Walkley in 1999 for its cash for comment exclusive, so they missed Mike Carlton's booming call to arms for all those attending to gather forth and march on Kirribilli House to rip that slimy rodent from his bed. It was a demonstration of what will constitute sedition, of course, and a point well made.

The nostalgia reels looking back over the past 50 years were excellent. Mark Day clearly enjoyed his November 11, 1975 splash in The Daily Mirror, Kerrs Sacks Gough, getting a run as did the man sitting next to him, Max Uechtritz, as we enjoyed the footage of Max muttering, "it's a hard way to earn a living" as he made his way onto Crikey's attacked hacks list while trying to cover the 1987 funeral of crime boss Robert Trimbole.

Tony Squires probably had the best gags for the evening so it was a bit rough that he and Vega's Drive co-host Rebecca Wilson were seated way back on table 81. George Negus struggled a bit with his attempted gags and when his famous "Maggie you're pig-headed" interview ran on the history reel, George declared "I am rather glad that I am still around and Maggie's not." She's not dead, George.

The drunkest man I encountered for the evening was The Australian's Melbourne editor Chris Dore, but it was all harmless stuff. ABC Sydney Drive host Richard Glover might be a bit slow to fire up this morning too. Virginia Trioli seems to be settling in to Sydney life and she sat on a Fairfax table with new SMH editor Alan Oakley. Virginia's partner is Russell Skelton, a Fairfax feature writer who was a finalist in the Indigenous Affairs category.

There were still about 300 people chatting in the Crystal Palace when the grog was turned off at 1am and there weren't any fights up until that point so it presumably remained an incident free Walkleys, although I bailed at 1.05am and forgot to steal the guest list.

Unlike previous years, there was no bile for Crikey. There was even a wave from Tim Blair, who is obviously doing OK at The Bulletin as he was seated next to editor Gary Linnell. Even The Chaser boys failed to produce the usual Crikey sledge in their comedy routine, which was OK given what a tough audience they faced.

All we've got to do now to complete the mainstreaming of our venture is to actually win a Walkley for Crikey. Sadly, they dropped the internet category with the dotcom boom in 2002 when we were finalists for Christian Kerr's Democrats scoops. With a new internet boom emerging, surely it's time we got our category back. Hereby starts the campaign. After all, the News Awards have an internet category, but we can't enter that one.





18. Michael West's sweet revenge



By Stephen Mayne

The Australian's Michael West has been on the wagon for three years and has a young baby, so he wasn't up for one of his vintage big celebrations last night. But revenge against Macquarie Bank was still sweet after he won the 2005 Walkley for business journalism.

Former Bob Carr and News Ltd spinner Kris Neil was on hand to see West's triumph and will no doubt be briefing her current bosses at Macquarie this morning about the evening as they press on with their hard-hitting defamation battle against The Australian in the NSW Supreme Court.

In a lovely twist, the business Walkley was sponsored by Macquarie's great rival JP Morgan, which had a large ad in the Walkley Magazine congratulating "Michael West and The Australian business team."

"As one of the world's leading investment banks and proud sponsor of the Walkley Awards, we appreciate outstanding performance," said JP Morgan's ad.

And how funny that Macquarie sponsored Crikey's business Walkley way back in 1999 – which was the beginning of a big run for News Ltd as it has taken the business gong in 4 of the last 6 years.

Macquarie Bank certainly hasn't appreciated West's effort to exposure its questionable dealings in Allstate Exploration's Beaconsfield goldmine in Tasmania. This is what the judges said:

"The story focused on a deal agreed to by the mine's creditors for Macquarie Bank to pay $300,000 for $77.5 million of the miner's intercompany debts – giving it first rights to Allstate's profits from its share of the Beaconsfield gold mine near Launceston. The investigation was critical of the extent of information said to have been made available to unsecured creditors, on the mines prospects and on the circumstances that lead to the choice of administrator. Macquarie denies any wrongdoing and it has brought a defamation suit against The Australian for one of the stories, The Mine Shaft."

Has there been another Walkley award winning story which you can't view in the News Ltd archive due to a defamation suit? The big question is whether the judges actually took a look at Macquarie's complaint and whether the writ worked in favour or against West. It seems the substance of West's campaign is right and Macquarie is only contesting some of the detail.

One judge told Crikey that it worked in the paper's favour, particularly because of the courage shown by editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell to keep pushing with the story after Macquarie has issued what it hoped would be a classic stopper writ.

So there you have it. The effect of Macquarie's heavy-handed response was to generate more stories in The Australian and a Walkley award to boot. Maybe they should learn to occasionally take a backward step.

Copyright © 2022 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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