Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, May eighteen, twenty twenty six. If it walks
Speaker 1: like a death tax and quacks like a death tax, well,
Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi says any suggestion he's bringing in death duties
Speaker 1: is a right wing misinformation campaign. But after questions from
Speaker 1: The Australian on Sunday, the Prime Minister walked back his position,
Speaker 1: saying future discretionary trusts that are set up to distribute
Speaker 1: inheritances will be taxed at a higher rate. It'll be
Speaker 1: years before the King versus Ben Robert Smith gets to court,
Speaker 1: and in the meantime, what should the media do today?
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Media Diary editor Steve Jackson to look
Speaker 1: at why nine's stan is refusing to take down its
Speaker 1: BRS documentary and how seven is surprising every one in
Speaker 1: the ratings. Jack O's here in just a moment. Steve
Speaker 1: Jackson is The Australian's Media Diary editor.
Speaker 2: Steve. In the early nineteen nineties, I had at home.
Speaker 1: A videotape copy of a show called Blue Murder. It
Speaker 1: was one of the most remarkable kind of crime stories.
Speaker 2: Was so well told.
Speaker 3: See you're starting off on the wrong foot. Mate, I
Speaker 3: don't help you. You helped me, and then we see
Speaker 3: what's left over conspiracy to supply. May Jesus spare me.
Speaker 3: You know you're looking at ten years. You're cold, You're
Speaker 3: no good to anybody.
Speaker 4: Richard Rocks brass alex Dimitriartes playing Roger.
Speaker 1: Rogerson Eddie Smith of the big characters in Sydney Crime
Speaker 1: when they were all still alive and out there committing crimes.
Speaker 1: Blue Murder was amazing, wasn't it?
Speaker 4: Well amazing for people who you said, Wales, perhaps in
Speaker 4: Queensland we didn't like. For us, it may as well
Speaker 4: have been Robin Hood in shild Forest. We didn't know
Speaker 4: any of the characters. I get if you're living in
Speaker 4: Sydney and you're seeing, Hey, that's Chipindale, that's where that happened. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: if you were living in Sydney, you weren't supposed to
Speaker 4: be watching it, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whoop, sorry about that.
Speaker 1: I was at no risk of being called up to
Speaker 1: be a jurymember in any of these trials, I must say,
Speaker 1: although I did cover some of Neddie Smith's trials and
Speaker 1: it was the kind of the end of the what
Speaker 1: some cops would think of as the glory days of
Speaker 1: New South Wales, when police could do whatever they wanted,
Speaker 1: when they gave green lights to criminals all the time,
Speaker 1: and one of them allegedly was Neddie Smith, this notorious
Speaker 1: standover man.
Speaker 2: But didn't I didn't let it infect my reporting, Jacko well.
Speaker 4: But there were concerns and we saw while that two
Speaker 4: part dramatization was rolled out across the country for audiences
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety five, I think it was filmed in
Speaker 4: New South Wales.
Speaker 2: It actually was suppressed.
Speaker 4: There was an injunction against it because Neddie Smith, who
Speaker 4: was a under world figure, strong arm man, but he
Speaker 4: had appeals against his murder convictions going through the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: So the New South Wales Supreme Court said, in New
Speaker 4: South Wales, we don't want it to impact his appeal process.
Speaker 4: So in New South Wales no one's allowed to watch it.
Speaker 4: So while people are watching it into state and presumably
Speaker 4: sending your family a VHS or beat a cassette tape
Speaker 4: of it. That was the reason for it. And we
Speaker 4: see this happening again now with the ben Robert Smith case.
Speaker 4: Is his supporters or some of his supporters, at least
Speaker 4: a crying Blue Murder going, well, hang on, there's stuff
Speaker 4: out there online now, in particular a Channel nine STAN
Speaker 4: subscriber documentary Ben Robert Smith The Truth on Trial, which
Speaker 4: very much says in it Ben Robert Smith is a
Speaker 4: war criminal. Yeah. I just looked across some my mates
Speaker 4: getting ripped up, so I was going to sit there
Speaker 4: and do not think. And you've watched it as well.
Speaker 4: I've watched quite a compelling documentary about the work that
Speaker 4: McKenzie and Chris Bases did to bring all the allegations
Speaker 4: against Ben Robert Smith to light and the ensuing defamation case.
Speaker 4: But at the end of it, it's like, very much
Speaker 4: we lost a hero and we found a war criminal.
Speaker 2: He shared stages with generals, with prime ministers. This guy's
Speaker 2: Father of the Year, a demi god.
Speaker 4: Now that he's been charged with criminal offenses for war crimes,
Speaker 4: should that be taken down similar or akin to Blue Murder.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ben Robert Smith of course denies any wrongdoing and always has.
Speaker 1: He sued nine over the material that they published, including
Speaker 1: in this documentary, and lost. The judge in the federal
Speaker 1: court found on the balance of probabilities which is a
Speaker 1: very different standard of proof to the one that will
Speaker 1: be required in a criminal trial that he had committed
Speaker 1: war crimes. Now he's charged with five counts of war
Speaker 1: crime murder. Some of those are about supervising allegedly somebody
Speaker 1: else to commit a murder of an unarmed Afghan civilian
Speaker 1: when he was serving in the Afghan War. So that
Speaker 1: story of Ben Robert Smith has been incredibly well ventilated.
Speaker 1: Everybody in Australia, I think has an opinion. A lot
Speaker 1: of people are venting those opinions now on social media,
Speaker 1: and that's the difference now.
Speaker 2: Right, I could.
Speaker 1: Watch my Blue Murder video at home in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six and keep my opinions to myself.
Speaker 2: Nowadays I'd be putting them on TikTok.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean that's probably part of the argument.
Speaker 4: I know from speaking to my sources at ninth they
Speaker 4: are cognizant of this issue. They have had internal discussion
Speaker 4: should we take down the doco. They know that they'll
Speaker 4: probably be asked to or there will be some argument
Speaker 4: as to whether or not it might prejudice the trial
Speaker 4: at some point, So they're cognizant of this. They're aware
Speaker 4: it could be an issue, and they've decided no, we're
Speaker 4: going to keep it up. And they've told me officially
Speaker 4: on the record, no, it's going to remain there at
Speaker 4: least until they're forced to take it down. But I
Speaker 4: suppose it's this real question when criminal charges come in
Speaker 4: whether or not some of this material should be taken down.
Speaker 4: I personally say, there's a bit of a difference, right,
Speaker 4: And we saw it again, so it's not just Blue Murder.
Speaker 4: We saw and that was injunctive for six years while
Speaker 4: the appeal process was rolled out. But then in two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight we saw again Underbelly, which was great,
Speaker 4: probably one of the best Australian true crime series of
Speaker 4: all time. Melbourne Gang Lame was injunction in the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court of Victoria in two thousand and eight against it
Speaker 4: being shown in Victoria because there were still criminal charges
Speaker 4: being heard. As a genre lar year in that case
Speaker 4: didn't last six years. The injunction lasted a matter of months.
Speaker 4: Warded down episodes went to where they just they're already
Speaker 4: dealing with the Internet, realizing that if someone wants to
Speaker 4: go in search of this material, they will find it.
Speaker 4: With the Underbelly, of course, the judge hearing it, just
Speaker 4: as Betty King. I think it was said that one
Speaker 4: of her concerns was also the further mix of factor
Speaker 4: and fiction when stuff gets dramatized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course Bloom Murder and Underbelly were fictionalized
Speaker 1: stories of real crimes. The Truth on Trial documentary is
Speaker 1: a documentary. It's real interviews with real people, including these
Speaker 1: two journals Chris Masters and Nick Mackenzie, who are in
Speaker 1: this documentary really explaining how they came to do this
Speaker 1: story and defending their journalism. It's almost as if they're
Speaker 1: not really trying to establish whether or not Ben Robert
Speaker 1: Smith is guilty of anything in the documentary.
Speaker 4: He's often said that this was about a couple of
Speaker 4: scandal mongering journalists digging up stuff that tortured the nation.
Speaker 4: That wasn't the truth of it at all.
Speaker 3: It actually came from other essays soldiers Comrade Ben Robert Smith.
Speaker 1: Their main purpose to me seems to be defending their journalism,
Speaker 1: saying that they came into this with an open mind.
Speaker 1: That Chris Masters was embedded with the sas in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: the only journalist to be embedded with special forses, which is.
Speaker 4: Where we first, he first got the inkling that there
Speaker 4: was something doing here, so he.
Speaker 1: Wrote a book, but had heard all these rumors, brought
Speaker 1: in Nick mackenzie to help him stand them up or
Speaker 1: disprove them. And that's the point of it for them.
Speaker 1: It's that we weren't looking to conduct a trial of
Speaker 1: Ben Robert Smith by media. We were trying to establish
Speaker 1: the truth. The difficulty, if I think, for media organizations now,
Speaker 1: is that we are being held to a different standard
Speaker 1: than people on social media. So you see, judges can't
Speaker 1: try to suppress social media posting about their trials.
Speaker 2: While they're live with no luck whatsoever. Everybody ignores them.
Speaker 1: The judges sit in the court and say, just as
Speaker 1: a reminder everybody, you're not allowed to say anything about
Speaker 1: this trial.
Speaker 2: Well it's not happened in the mushroom trial.
Speaker 1: But the only people who actually get pinged are mainstream
Speaker 1: media operators who are saying something that the judges associates
Speaker 1: are able to take down and transcribe.
Speaker 2: It's the courts are hopelessly.
Speaker 1: Out of date in policing social media, and maybe it's
Speaker 1: actually they can't hold back that.
Speaker 2: Tight at all.
Speaker 4: Well, what surprised me about the Mushroom trial was because
Speaker 4: it was so omnipresent, captivated so many PEO people that
Speaker 4: we saw a lot of people even in mainstream media
Speaker 4: who usually didn't report on court stories, had tipped to
Speaker 4: Kyle Sandalands and Jackie o' henderson who all of a
Speaker 4: sudden were like, hey, let's talk about this case and
Speaker 4: Ethne giving debriefs on I did you believe what she
Speaker 4: was saying? I thought that she didn't quite And all
Speaker 4: of a sudden they're getting sort of like slaps on
Speaker 4: the risk and you can't do that. What are you
Speaker 4: talking about? That's our honest opinion. You go, yeah, but
Speaker 4: it's before the courts, and so it's surprising that we
Speaker 4: think and obviously a lot of people who watch this
Speaker 4: podcast or listen to this podcast, being readers of The Australian,
Speaker 4: will be across sub judacy, but we often forget there's
Speaker 4: a whole heap of people out there who use social
Speaker 4: media who who don't really get the difference of what
Speaker 4: you can and can't say.
Speaker 1: Nine has spent an absolutely vast amount of money on
Speaker 1: this case, defending this defamation case from bed and Robert Smith.
Speaker 1: They could have paid him to go away and taken
Speaker 1: down the stories even though they believed in them, because
Speaker 1: it was cheaper and easier.
Speaker 2: Media organizations do that all the time.
Speaker 4: They could have paid him a pittance of what they
Speaker 4: and then just gone all right, we won't We'll just
Speaker 4: leave that to the authorities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't do that.
Speaker 1: They feel obviously very strongly that they've been vindicated. But
Speaker 1: you know, this is at a time of shrinking media
Speaker 1: budgets in newsrooms.
Speaker 2: Nine is still.
Speaker 1: Trying to produce a news bulletin unbelievably high quality every night.
Speaker 2: It's a huge hit they've taken, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you know, obviously there's a question mark as
Speaker 4: to whether or not they will ever get all that
Speaker 4: money back, and that's always a concern, and you know,
Speaker 4: moving forward, will media organizations always be up for that fight?
Speaker 4: And sometimes you think it's a very nineteen nineties naughty
Speaker 4: thing where you know, we've got editorial independence and where
Speaker 4: and we're going to do this. And you see places
Speaker 4: like the Australian Firm believers in you know, aggressively pursuing
Speaker 4: stories news corps. It's quite at the heart of their DNA.
Speaker 4: You see, nine historically has done that. Seven ten probably
Speaker 4: hasn't dipped their toe into that pool as much because
Speaker 4: they've traditionally chased a different audience. But ABC once again,
Speaker 4: and you just go in this day and age, do
Speaker 4: you you know, so you want to.
Speaker 2: Can you afford it?
Speaker 1: I mean it's all about ratings, which in the commercial
Speaker 1: media organizations is what gives you the revenue. Coming up
Speaker 1: a big surprise in the news ratings. So are nine
Speaker 1: going to be able to continue paying for this kind
Speaker 1: of thing? How are their ratings going? Oh?
Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting right because both free to air networks
Speaker 4: are saying our viewership is up, like, you know, more
Speaker 4: people watching free to air news than ever before. And
Speaker 4: I've got friends that make sure when they get home
Speaker 4: they turn on free to air.
Speaker 2: Yeah I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well I'm a loyal watcher of news bulletins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: watch it probably two to.
Speaker 2: Night two a night, yeah, which ones nine and seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love television journalism. I think it is the apex
Speaker 2: of our craft.
Speaker 4: Actually it's weird because when I moved from print at
Speaker 4: tabloids into television journalism, and you think I know how
Speaker 4: to write really tight, concise pars or lines of sentences,
Speaker 4: I know had to write really tight and concisely, and
Speaker 4: you get to television you go, oh, I had no idea,
Speaker 4: Like I thought I was being very short and thrifty
Speaker 4: with my words, and then you get there and some
Speaker 4: of the times they're not even full sentences. They have
Speaker 4: time to say.
Speaker 2: So it is lean.
Speaker 1: And economical and often quite beautiful writing in television, and
Speaker 1: you know, if they're doing it right, you don't notice
Speaker 1: that because you just have this sort of multimedia, fully
Speaker 1: sensory onslought of information. I think both nine and seven
Speaker 1: do a great job.
Speaker 4: And what we're seeing now, of course, is that it's
Speaker 4: probably in its most heated battle that it's been for years.
Speaker 4: Has been a lot of change at both seven and nine.
Speaker 4: So at seven we had a news director, a national
Speaker 4: news director by the name of Craig McPherson. Ten years unbeaten,
Speaker 4: he leaves. A newspaper editor comes in who thinks he
Speaker 4: knows television. There's a lot to learn, tells everyone, Hey,
Speaker 4: you know what, ratings don't matter anymore. They do matter.
Speaker 1: Met Lizza's just explaining that they matter because if you
Speaker 1: can tell an advertiser that their ad is going to
Speaker 1: be seen by a million people instead of nine hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people.
Speaker 2: You can charge them all for that.
Speaker 4: Ad well to be the number one news bullets and
Speaker 4: at six pm nationally. I think it's worth forty million
Speaker 4: dollars in premium advertising cross the years. So it matters
Speaker 4: in terms of revenue, but it also matters in terms
Speaker 4: of are you engaging with your audience. And at the
Speaker 4: moment we've got a new news director again, a lot
Speaker 4: of change. At seven, the newspaper guy's out and the
Speaker 4: TV guys come back in a guy who's loved television,
Speaker 4: Ray Kooka. They call him the Wolf.
Speaker 2: Because why do they call him the Wolf? Well, it's
Speaker 2: a character.
Speaker 4: From pulp fiction who they send in the clean up
Speaker 4: messes and he's the guy that cleans up all the messes,
Speaker 4: and this time he's cleaning up the mess of the ratings.
Speaker 2: Jimmy wrote, this is your ass sure is?
Speaker 4: I went to Wolf, I solve problems and look, everyone
Speaker 4: said it couldn't be done, and I will be the
Speaker 4: first to admit I wrote repeatedly it can't be done.
Speaker 4: They've lost too much ground. Nine is on the ascendency.
Speaker 4: They're going to be the arsenal of the Australian television
Speaker 4: News Premier League can't be beaten, and he's coming and
Speaker 4: war and behold. All of a sudden, everyone at nine's
Speaker 4: getting nervous, going, hey, we're losing weeks in Sydney, which
Speaker 4: is a rugby league town and where the rugby league network,
Speaker 4: Why seven beating us? And they're losing weeks in Melbourne
Speaker 4: and in Brisbane where they are almost unbeatable. Absolutely nine's
Speaker 4: got one of the best news directors in the country
Speaker 4: up there, Brendan Hawking. He's phenomenal, but he's starting to
Speaker 4: seed ground and all of a sudden, alarm bells are
Speaker 4: going off and going what's happening? And what it comes
Speaker 4: down to is speaking to a lot of news directors.
Speaker 4: I'd like to pass it off as my own genius knowledge,
Speaker 4: but I've been told is what they're really hitting is
Speaker 4: naming the locales. So when you're watching Channel nine News
Speaker 4: or Channel seven News and you're talking about say Sydney,
Speaker 4: don't say south West Sydney, tell on the suburb, tell
Speaker 4: on the street. So you feel like you're part of there,
Speaker 4: because no one in Southwest Sydney says I come from
Speaker 4: south West Sydney, as same in Brisbane, no one goes,
Speaker 4: I come from Brisbane's in a west like they talk
Speaker 4: in suburbs. I'm from Tuwong, I'm not from the Inner West.
Speaker 4: And so it's all about getting down to a local
Speaker 4: level and actually being part of your audience and not
Speaker 4: some crowd that's sitting in the city or North Sydney
Speaker 4: or up Mount Couther or you know, wherever you are
Speaker 4: talking to people about their suburb. Be part of that community.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's all about hitting those little beats.
Speaker 4: So we're seeing seven doing that a lot better on
Speaker 4: the ascendency, and what we're going to see is a
Speaker 4: lot of pain at nine as they try to revolutionize
Speaker 4: and get back to where they were by you know,
Speaker 4: going how are we missing? How are we stuffing this up?
Speaker 4: A year ago, Seven weren't even in the game. Now
Speaker 4: they're not only in the game, they're winning. So there's
Speaker 4: going to be a lot of concerns going on over
Speaker 4: there and a lot of soul searching.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to read all about it in the diary.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jacko, thank you so much for having me. Unclaire.
Speaker 1: Steve Jackson's Diary is live right now and every Monday
Speaker 1: at The Australian dot com, dot au,