Speaker 1: Vince is the Media Show with Jack Outen.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to the Media Show. Tonight we'll have
Speaker 2: the media's reaction to the Trump verdict and a Sydney
Speaker 2: UNI professor in hot water. But first, the ABC's star
Speaker 2: political correspondent, Laura Tingle survives another day to campaign against
Speaker 2: the Coalition, and despite calling the country racist and claiming
Speaker 2: that Peter Duttan's budget speech was dangerous, there have been
Speaker 2: no real penalties. Now, if you need a refresh, this
Speaker 2: was Tingle last week at a writer's festival with her
Speaker 2: insightful analysis we are a.
Speaker 3: Racist capulate's face if we always have been a stray
Speaker 3: pressin To give a license like that I find profoundly
Speaker 3: depressin and a terrible prospect for.
Speaker 1: The next election.
Speaker 2: Sure, the ABC has been humiliated for anyone with a
Speaker 2: neutral eye watching along, but the response from Boss David
Speaker 2: Anderson has just been bizarre. Here he is at centered
Speaker 2: estimates saying that Tingle has simultaneously been punished but also
Speaker 2: did nothing wrong.
Speaker 4: Im mature nation, regardless of political views, should be able
Speaker 4: to discuss such issues in a respectful and intelligent way.
Speaker 4: The ABC's role and the work of our journalists like
Speaker 4: miss Tingle is to help facilitate those debates on our platforms. Finally,
Speaker 4: Miss Tingle does not deserve the ferocity and frankly vicious
Speaker 4: attacks that we've seen this week.
Speaker 2: So what was it? Was Laura Tingle cautioned because what
Speaker 2: she did was wrong? Or do you defend her? Now?
Speaker 2: Anderson seems to want it both ways, and that incompatible
Speaker 2: logic is what hurts the ABC the most. There was
Speaker 2: also a bunch of excuses the ABC made for Tingle
Speaker 2: that don't add up. They claimed she made the comments
Speaker 2: in her personal capacity when the event was advertised by
Speaker 2: the ABC on its own website, Join us at the Writers' Festival,
Speaker 2: the ABC Roade and it's taxpayer funded website in April.
Speaker 2: They even had ABC shows at the event. But more
Speaker 2: to the point, as we reported last week, some of
Speaker 2: the worst comments Tingle made were broadcast by the ABC itself.
Speaker 2: Heresue was an Insiders one week prior to the Writers' Festival.
Speaker 5: But I think what was concerning is for a political
Speaker 5: leader to come out and say, not only is housing
Speaker 5: the fault of migrants, but you can't get a childcare space,
Speaker 5: you can't get through the traffic on the roads, you
Speaker 5: can't get in to see the doctor because of migration.
Speaker 5: That is lighting this thing up in a really disturbing way,
Speaker 5: regardless of the arguments about whether there's you know, there
Speaker 5: should be more or less migration, regardless of whether his
Speaker 5: policies make sense. And I would say that they don't
Speaker 5: make coherent sense in what he's put out in his
Speaker 5: budget reply. You know, the hot buttons he's pressing there,
Speaker 5: I think are very dangerous for our community.
Speaker 2: Well, Anderson was asked about this by Sarah Henderson because
Speaker 2: it meant the ABC actually did publish bias comments. His
Speaker 2: core argument, which save Tingle, is completely dismantled by this fact.
Speaker 6: She said, the hot buttons he's pressing that they are
Speaker 6: very dangerous for our community. She again, she again was
Speaker 6: very yeah. She again was very disparaging of mister Dutton
Speaker 6: and whistling, thank you, we will have order.
Speaker 2: Don't you love those interjections? When we have radicals from
Speaker 2: the Greens Party siding with the ABC on the issue,
Speaker 2: doesn't that just prove the point Tingle is their person.
Speaker 2: They love her because she campaigns for them and their policies,
Speaker 2: and you pick up the bill amazingly Anderson still backs
Speaker 2: Tingle's right to say absurd things like a major election
Speaker 2: policy is dangerous.
Speaker 4: If you look at miss Tingle's reporting, she has laid
Speaker 4: out what was mister Dutton's budget reply speech and laid
Speaker 4: out caution with regard to that, and I think by
Speaker 4: summarizing it in that fashion in those comments at the
Speaker 4: Sydney Writers Festival was a mistake.
Speaker 2: Well, let's bring in the panel. I'm joined by media
Speaker 2: writer at The Australian, Sophie Elsworth and PR Council's Christy McSweeney. Now, Sophie,
Speaker 2: I want to start with you, well done. This has
Speaker 2: been your story. You broke it, you got the audio
Speaker 2: and you published it and what a firestorm did it
Speaker 2: set off?
Speaker 3: Well, Jack, I think it's important with this story to
Speaker 3: show Australians what ABC taxpayer funded journalists are putting out
Speaker 3: in the public domain, whether it's on platform or off platform. Now,
Speaker 3: Laura Tingle attended the Sydney Writer Festival as an ABC journalist.
Speaker 3: She can't just divorce herself of her duties from the
Speaker 3: ABC and as a board director the staff elected board director.
Speaker 3: But look, this is a real headache for ABC. It's
Speaker 3: caused problems this week. Clearly among management. I suspect Kim
Speaker 3: Williams is very unhappy with this because for once they
Speaker 3: came out and actually said she was cautioned over this
Speaker 3: commentary criticizing Peter Dutton. Mister Anderson also said jacket sented
Speaker 3: estimates it was a misstep, a mistake, and that he
Speaker 3: regretted that it had happened. But as always the ABC,
Speaker 3: high profile, particularly female high profile stars protected at the
Speaker 3: ABC no matter what they do. All that's really happened
Speaker 3: here is Laura Tingle has apparently been told off. She's
Speaker 3: issued an essay about why she could make the statements,
Speaker 3: and the caravan rolls on. But they now have a
Speaker 3: problem on their hands because she's the most senior political
Speaker 3: correspondent and I think she's damaged her credibility to show
Speaker 3: that she can be objective and impartial in that role.
Speaker 2: Well, I completely agree. I think her job's untenable. Peter
Speaker 2: Dutton has criticized her, She's shown her true colors, and
Speaker 2: we're going to be getting into an election period soon
Speaker 2: and she is presumably going to be playing a very
Speaker 2: front and center role. Now. Christy picking up on what
Speaker 2: Sophie is saying about David Anderson's performance. I noticed that, yes,
Speaker 2: he was criticizing her to a degree in a very
Speaker 2: measured and controlled way, saying that she'd made mistakes, but
Speaker 2: then in other conversations completely backing her, explaining it away,
Speaker 2: attempting to minimize. What did you make of his performance?
Speaker 7: Well, First of all, Jack, I'd like to say I
Speaker 7: attended the Opposition leader's budgeting replys spoach and packed out
Speaker 7: sold out ballroom of people in Canberra, gave it a
Speaker 7: very very good reception and didn't think it was incoherent,
Speaker 7: and I certainly didn't as an interested observer and someone
Speaker 7: who listens to a lot of speeches, I certainly wasn't
Speaker 7: on the Joe Biden train of incoherence. Secondly, I will
Speaker 7: say that it's very clear that ABC management is not
Speaker 7: cautious of how this is presented to the public, though
Speaker 7: cautious of how this is presented to the government, and
Speaker 7: cautious of how it's presented internally to the staff. We
Speaker 7: know that particularly here in Melbourne and also in Sydney,
Speaker 7: the ABC City newsrooms and the senior staff. Essentially it
Speaker 7: is the tail wagging the dog. The similar problems at
Speaker 7: Channel nine, so it is an internal knot and that
Speaker 7: is how the ABC considers it in the hierarchy of
Speaker 7: priorities to protect their messaging on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very strange stuff. Let's move on, though, because
Speaker 2: the Australian Jewish Association has also weighed into the Laura
Speaker 2: Tingle saga because she made a strange excuse for her
Speaker 2: Australia as racist comment in a statement she said, we
Speaker 2: clearly have an issue with racism. For some months now,
Speaker 2: for example, the Australian newspaper has been devoting considerable space
Speaker 2: to its alarm about a rise in anti Semitism in Australia. Wait,
Speaker 2: so Laura is pretending that she was talking about Jewish populations. Now,
Speaker 2: what an absurd attempt to pivot And what did the
Speaker 2: Jewish Association think of this?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 2: CEO Robert Gregory labeled it ridiculous. Laura Tingle should not
Speaker 2: drag in the Jewish community to defend her ridiculous statement.
Speaker 2: Australia is perhaps the least racist country in the world. Ironically,
Speaker 2: the ABC, where Miss Tingle works, has significantly contributed to
Speaker 2: anti Jewish sentiment with its inaccurate and biased reporting, including
Speaker 2: recently describing hermus terrorist rocket attack on the Jewish state
Speaker 2: as a show of resilience. Now let's bring the panel
Speaker 2: back in to discuss Sophie. Laura Tingle put this statement
Speaker 2: out to explain her comments in greater context. As soon
Speaker 2: as I saw her talking about anti semitism, I thought,
Speaker 2: it's just completely bizarre because that's clearly not what her
Speaker 2: comments were targeted at. Her comments were in response to
Speaker 2: the budget reply speech, which was about immigration. Well, Jack, she.
Speaker 3: Did publish or the ABC published her thirteen hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty word explanation about why she made these remarks at
Speaker 3: the Sydney Writers Festival. Now that strikes me as almost
Speaker 3: essay like and an awful lot of backpeddling after what
Speaker 3: has been a disaster for her this week. It's damaged
Speaker 3: her professionally. And this is the thing, Jack, These journalists
Speaker 3: get on these platforms at these leftist activist writers' festivals.
Speaker 3: You can hear in the audio she's applauded by the crowd.
Speaker 3: Probably everyone there thought none the wiser and thought it
Speaker 3: was quite normal.
Speaker 6: But when you put.
Speaker 3: These remarks out into the public forum, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of people that disagree with what she's saying. So I
Speaker 3: think it's a little bit disingenuous to try and wrap
Speaker 3: this in with coverage of what's happening in Israel. But again,
Speaker 3: she's trying to get herself out of this giant hole
Speaker 3: that has damaged her professionally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point. And there was also reference
Speaker 2: Christy by the Jewish Association to the fact that the
Speaker 2: ABC has had this issue with this show of resilience
Speaker 2: post that they did on Instagram, and he's saying, well,
Speaker 2: it's a bit ironic that you're saying you're standing up
Speaker 2: for anti Semitism when your organization is calling terrorist attacks
Speaker 2: targeted rocket firing onto Israeli citizenry, you're calling that a
Speaker 2: show of resilience. It's absurd.
Speaker 7: Look, it's clearly a tactic for the ABC to clutch
Speaker 7: at straws to demonstrate they do not have a conscious
Speaker 7: bias towards this. And if I was part of the
Speaker 7: Jewish community, I'd be absolutely horrified at the ABC using
Speaker 7: their coverage of the Israel atrocities to prove a point
Speaker 7: about them being unconscious about them being unbiased. I'm not
Speaker 7: surprised that Jewish identities have decided to make public statements
Speaker 7: relating to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, strange stuff. Let's move on all night. All
Speaker 2: eyes are on Nine as speculation mounts that CEO Mike
Speaker 2: Sneezeby will leave the network over his handling of the
Speaker 2: Darren Wick allegations. Now, Sneasbury has survived thus far despite
Speaker 2: the pressure, but the headlines are getting more brute by
Speaker 2: the day. Nine Boss Mike Sneezbe a dead man walking.
Speaker 2: Nine Entertainment chair Peter Costello has refused to publicly back
Speaker 2: in battle Chief Executive Mike Sneezeby as the Media Group
Speaker 2: seven person board prepares to meet for the first time
Speaker 2: since sexual harassment allegations against former News boss Darren Wick
Speaker 2: were revealed. Now, Sneezeby's main vulnerability is the fact he
Speaker 2: handed Wick a near one million dollar payout despite knowing
Speaker 2: the serious allegations were hanging over his head. So will
Speaker 2: Sneezebe whether the storm or will he soon find himself
Speaker 2: out of the job. Let's bring the paddle back into
Speaker 2: discuss Sophie, You've been doing some brilliant reporting on this,
Speaker 2: really leading the pack. What do you make of Sneezebe,
Speaker 2: specifically putting aside the Darren Wick allegations. Does he hang
Speaker 2: on to this job.
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 3: At the moment. The answer is yes. There's been meetings
Speaker 3: are at nine, you know, with staff all around the
Speaker 3: country all week, even today there was meetings with staff
Speaker 3: about what's going on. This is something that has giant
Speaker 3: opened a giant can of worms and shown that there
Speaker 3: is a problem within the organization of how they deal
Speaker 3: with harassment allegations, you know, claims of inappropriate conduct. I
Speaker 3: think Nine thought this story would go away. We are
Speaker 3: now nearly two weeks on from when we broke that
Speaker 3: story first at The Australian, and this story is far
Speaker 3: from over. There's a lot of people within the nine
Speaker 3: organization incredibly displeased with how this has been handled. It's
Speaker 3: damaged their brand, it's damaged their reputation. And I think
Speaker 3: Mike sneeze Mey is hanging on to his job with
Speaker 3: dear life. But he is safe for now. But Jack,
Speaker 3: you and I know in this industry you can be
Speaker 3: gone quickly. You think you're safe one minute and you
Speaker 3: go on the next. So I think he'll be trying
Speaker 3: to work in overdrive to make sure he can hold
Speaker 3: onto that CEO position. But interestingly Chairman Peter Costello has
Speaker 3: not spoken out publicly to date supporting Mike Sneezebee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really interesting that the silence from Costello and Christy.
Speaker 2: What do you make of the situation?
Speaker 7: I think Sophy is entirely correct and well done Sophie
Speaker 7: on bringing issues to the store on this story to light.
Speaker 7: From a brand and reputation standpoint, it's only going to
Speaker 7: get worse. So you and I know that the one
Speaker 7: thing media survives on is advertising dollars, and nine now
Speaker 7: wrapping all of their print and broadcast and news radio
Speaker 7: publications under the one banner and seeking to spread advertising
Speaker 7: dollars out across all of them. This is going to
Speaker 7: start really impacting in a drastic way. If this start
Speaker 7: continues to.
Speaker 2: Roll on and be unresolved, we'll see how it all
Speaker 2: plays out. But we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 2: When we're back. Meet the Sydney University professor who tried
Speaker 2: to minimize the October seven attacks. Welcome back. Now on
Speaker 2: to yet another case of radical leftist morons using phrases
Speaker 2: such as misinformation and fake news to spread actual fake news.
Speaker 2: But this one is worse than normal. The latest conspiratorial
Speaker 2: rant came from a university lecturer. Meet Sujatha Fernandez who
Speaker 2: gave a lecture to students claiming that mass rapes and
Speaker 2: sexual violence committed by Hermas terrorists was all just a hoax.
Speaker 2: The Australian reports a University of Sydney professor has told
Speaker 2: first year students that Hermasa's mass rapes and sexual violence
Speaker 2: in October seven were fake news and a hoax peddled
Speaker 2: by the media, and that Israel had engaged in ethnic
Speaker 2: cleansing propped up by Western governments had repressed domestic dissent.
Speaker 2: Now even the compromised ICC has stated that it has
Speaker 2: evidence to prove that these rapes occurred. The BBC has
Speaker 2: published the full charges against the Harmask commanders and it
Speaker 2: includes rape and other acts of sexual violence, including rape
Speaker 2: in captivity. The un has also cited evidence for the
Speaker 2: mass rape claim. Now all of this information is public,
Speaker 2: but this professor thinks it is all rubbish. Her direct
Speaker 2: quote was Western media has played the role of an
Speaker 2: ideological state apparatus by suppressing coverage of the atrocities, peddling
Speaker 2: fake news, promoted the hoaxes that her Musk beheaded babies
Speaker 2: and carried out mass rape in order to shore up
Speaker 2: support for Israel, and distorting events but we contacted the university,
Speaker 2: which told us she remains in her position and that
Speaker 2: they are investigating. They also wanted us to know on
Speaker 2: background that they respected her freedom of speech and academic freedoms.
Speaker 2: Truly crazy stuff, especially when protesters are taking over campuses
Speaker 2: across the country, intimidating Jewish students and in one case
Speaker 2: even storm the lecture hall of a Jewish professor spreading
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories that minimize October seven should be a line
Speaker 2: that no one crosses. Well, Sophie, let's go to you.
Speaker 2: This was an exclusive by The Australian, So well done
Speaker 2: on your masthead for breaking this. These academics, they've completely
Speaker 2: lost the plot and I thought it was very bizarre
Speaker 2: for the media team to try and talk about her
Speaker 2: freedoms from an academic point of view. What about that
Speaker 2: could possibly be academic?
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting when you get the media and communications
Speaker 3: team at universities involved.
Speaker 2: This is a.
Speaker 3: Pr problem for them and they need to try and
Speaker 3: squash it very quickly. Jack. And also for the university
Speaker 3: lecture our professor to be criticizing the media, I think
Speaker 3: is a pretty poor thing to do. But she sounds
Speaker 3: like she could be in a bit of hot water,
Speaker 3: and it is under investigation, but problematic when you have
Speaker 3: these academics on very good salaries educating the up and
Speaker 3: coming students of this country. So I think they have
Speaker 3: to address this pretty promptly before she continues on her
Speaker 3: way and who knows what else she will be telling people,
Speaker 3: including studentsh.
Speaker 2: It's such a good point, I mean, Christy, this is
Speaker 2: someone who is shaping the minds of the future leaders
Speaker 2: of the country. Universities get billions of dollars from the
Speaker 2: taxpayer every year. Shouldn't there be some accountability rather than
Speaker 2: these highly paid pr teams essentially covering up these scandals.
Speaker 7: Well, Jack, we've tried that before, universities having to justify
Speaker 7: their research, and more to the point, we did it
Speaker 7: with foreign influence too, with China. To submit to the
Speaker 7: government what research institutions you're partnering with overseas, and then
Speaker 7: we would evaluate your research funding. Julian Lisa is calling
Speaker 7: for a judicial inquiry into universities, particularly around the promotion
Speaker 7: of the right of these encampments to exist, and I
Speaker 7: dare say that idea could be extended to include content
Speaker 7: that's being provided to young people in classes certainly around this.
Speaker 7: The other thing we know is that to attain the
Speaker 7: tenure or to attain the title of being a professor,
Speaker 7: you only attain that if your research is peer reviewed.
Speaker 7: That means it has to be true. And this doesn't
Speaker 7: seem to be extending into the classroom. I'm as horrified
Speaker 7: as any other Australian who has heard those comments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, what do we expect the students
Speaker 2: to do if you have some teacher who's supposed to
Speaker 2: be in that position of trust and privilege telling them
Speaker 2: that October seven was a hoax. Of course they're going
Speaker 2: to be going to these encampments and protesting and everything
Speaker 2: because they're trusting someone who is telling them something that's
Speaker 2: patently false. But anyway, let's move on now to the
Speaker 2: Donald Trump hush money trial and how the media has
Speaker 2: reacted to a jury finding that the former president is
Speaker 2: guilty of thirty four counts of falsifying business records.
Speaker 1: A historic day in America. A former president of the
Speaker 1: United States now a convicted felon. We've been holding our
Speaker 1: breath as a country for a long time, waiting for
Speaker 1: the cavalry to arrive in the form of the rule
Speaker 1: of law, and it did arrive today, and it's a
Speaker 1: majestic day. The test for US now as a country
Speaker 1: is whether or not this former president and his allies
Speaker 1: will have succeeded in trying to undermine the rule of
Speaker 1: law so that people reject this as a legitimate function
Speaker 1: of the rule of law in our country. A wide
Speaker 1: range of options. He could get up to four years.
Speaker 5: He could also do weekends in jail.
Speaker 2: Let's bring the panel back in Sophie. A few of
Speaker 2: the typical media outlets doing a bit of a victory lab.
Speaker 2: What do you make of the reaction? Look, I think.
Speaker 3: It's very interesting to see the reaction today from the
Speaker 3: US media. There certainly seemed to be appear that some
Speaker 3: media presenters and media personalities were quite thrilled with the
Speaker 3: result with Donald Trump, but I don't know that this
Speaker 3: will really do him the immense harm that many would hope,
Speaker 3: and including in Australia, it seemed that some of the
Speaker 3: reporting seemed to be a little bit gleeful that this
Speaker 3: was a guilty verdict. So it'd be really interesting to
Speaker 3: see how this plays out, particularly in the run up
Speaker 3: to the presidential election. But President Trump has a huge
Speaker 3: social media platform.
Speaker 2: He can put a.
Speaker 3: Spin on this that suits his agenda. He's already come
Speaker 3: out doing and I think we'll see more of this
Speaker 3: in the coming weeks and days as the fallout from
Speaker 3: this continues.
Speaker 2: And Christy, how does this play out from a pr
Speaker 2: point of view? Does this help Trump? Does this play
Speaker 2: into the narrative that the state is attempting to shut
Speaker 2: him down? Or do you think that this will impact
Speaker 2: him negatively?
Speaker 7: This is like the halftime at the Super Bowl ad
Speaker 7: spot this verdict today. Everyone in America has watched it,
Speaker 7: and it's only going to increase the encourage his base.
Speaker 7: And you know, from what I have listened to of
Speaker 7: legal experts across many of the networks, Democrat based and
Speaker 7: Republican based networks, some of them have been prudent enough
Speaker 7: to gain coverage from legal experts who have put forward
Speaker 7: a view that this was a really confected argument. And
Speaker 7: there are many people CenTra see the legal profession, who
Speaker 7: are thinking this doesn't really sit well with me. How
Speaker 7: the justice system has been manipulated by this very very
Speaker 7: strange legal argument that only has one or two precedents.
Speaker 7: So it might pull people from the center who just think,
Speaker 7: oh my God, our democracy is being so confected at
Speaker 7: either end of this scale. But if you're even slightly
Speaker 7: inclined to like Trump, I think you're going to like
Speaker 7: him a whole lot more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to be interesting to watch. Christy, Sophie,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me. That's all the
Speaker 2: time we have for tonight, But up next is lefties
Speaker 2: losing it.