Speaker 1: It's in the news today, but it was actually on
Speaker 1: TV Reload, the podcast Past Deep Aline.
Speaker 2: Welcome back guys to TV Reload. As you may know,
Speaker 2: my name is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast
Speaker 2: to get all the inside goss on the popular TV
Speaker 2: shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably,
Speaker 2: our TV sets are a major part of our home entertainment,
Speaker 2: and yet very little is known about how our favorite
Speaker 2: shows get made. So each episode, I've been finding guests
Speaker 2: that want to dive just that little bit deeper into
Speaker 2: the shows they're currently making, so that you can hear
Speaker 2: all their exclusive stories and gain access to the biggest
Speaker 2: names in Australian television. I want to thank you for
Speaker 2: downloading or subscribing to this podcast. I love hearing your feedback,
Speaker 2: so make sure you leave a review or a comment
Speaker 2: on your chosen podcast platform. This chat, I'm joined by
Speaker 2: entertainment reporter Peter Ford, who many of you would know
Speaker 2: from decades of reporting the entertainment news on television and radio.
Speaker 2: Peter Ford is someone who has managed to navigate many
Speaker 2: changes to the landscape of Australian media. He has a
Speaker 2: keen interest in the Royals, covers the old from the
Speaker 2: Oscars and has a lot of our biggest celebrities on
Speaker 2: speed dial. I personally have followed his career since I
Speaker 2: was a teenager, and over the years we have forged
Speaker 2: a friendship. Peter is always a phone call away with
Speaker 2: plenty of support and encouragement, and it's fair to say
Speaker 2: that he's a pretty good friend. Forty, as he is
Speaker 2: affectionately called, is currently on Sunrise in the Morning show
Speaker 2: five days a week, both on Channel seven, and he
Speaker 2: also has a big contract with Channel nine across a
Speaker 2: number of their biggest radio programs. I will ask why
Speaker 2: he has been so private with his personal life, considering
Speaker 2: as a job publicly discussing the private lives of many celebrities.
Speaker 2: I will find out how he prepares these news stories
Speaker 2: and if there is a process to getting these stories
Speaker 2: one hundred percent accurate. We will also talk about some
Speaker 2: of those public clashes that he's had with many a celebrity,
Speaker 2: from the state Premier of Victoria to Lisa Wilkinson and
Speaker 2: recently comedian Dan Illick. Plus, we will get plenty of
Speaker 2: exclusives from behind the scenes of being an entertainment journalist,
Speaker 2: and we will get a look into the life of
Speaker 2: a very young Peter Ford. Anyway, guys, let's bring forty
Speaker 2: into the podcast, and I hope you enjoy this very
Speaker 2: raw and honest episode of TV Reload.
Speaker 3: Curd A, Ben, It's nice to sit down and talk
Speaker 3: to you face to face in a well socially many times,
Speaker 3: of course, but now in a work situation.
Speaker 2: Well, after years and years of you're saying no to
Speaker 2: sitting down and doing a podcast about yourself, what's changed?
Speaker 1: Because here we are.
Speaker 3: I don't know, You've got you finally wore me down.
Speaker 3: I don't do a lot, and I don't mean that
Speaker 3: to sound grand in any kind of way, but I'm
Speaker 3: just not very publicity focused. I don't particularly like it
Speaker 3: or want it or need it. But I'm not trying
Speaker 3: to be grand when I say that. I'm actually very boring,
Speaker 3: which you probably will discover it. So I guess I'm
Speaker 3: shy as well. So I say no to almost everything.
Speaker 3: And the few things that I have done over the
Speaker 3: years is usually with people I know personally, and they've
Speaker 3: been so persistent and I've come up with so many
Speaker 3: excuses to put it off, but in the end, I think,
Speaker 3: oh God, just do it, you know, So here I am.
Speaker 2: I'm all your it is strange because for you, I mean,
Speaker 2: a large part of your life is talking about other
Speaker 2: people's personal lives, and there's very little out there for
Speaker 2: us to know about yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I only discovered last week there's a Wikipedia page.
Speaker 3: I stand on heart. I had no idea it even existed.
Speaker 3: I'm too scared to look at it because I already
Speaker 3: know there's a lot of stuff in there that's not
Speaker 3: true or is grossly exaggerated, and I wouldn't even know
Speaker 3: how to begin to go about changing it. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess it is odd in that sense. I suppose
Speaker 3: it's also odd. You know, most people who do work
Speaker 3: on television, they enjoy publicity and they see it as
Speaker 3: part of their job and all that. And I don't,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't go out socially. I don't go
Speaker 3: to opening nights. You never see me on a red carpet,
Speaker 3: all those things. I'm a little bit of a strange
Speaker 3: cat in many ways. And I certainly, I guess also
Speaker 3: compared to say, other people that do similar work to me,
Speaker 3: like Richard and Angela, you know, they are very high
Speaker 3: profile and they do publicity and stuff. So I work
Speaker 3: on a different basis. So I guess ultimately I think
Speaker 3: myself as the storyteller rather than the story And in fact,
Speaker 3: this is going, this is getting into a couch stuff,
Speaker 3: lying on the couch, talking to my shrink. But many
Speaker 3: many years ago, when I was very young, when I
Speaker 3: got a job producing Burt Newton Show, actually I was
Speaker 3: very young, and a local newspaper that used to exist
Speaker 3: call TV Scene did a story about me, about this
Speaker 3: young kid has got this amazing job and whatever. And
Speaker 3: I proudly showed this to my mum and she said, oh,
Speaker 3: do you really think it's very appropriate to be talking
Speaker 3: about yourself in a newspaper? And I thought, oh, maybe
Speaker 3: it's not. That kind of soured me for the last
Speaker 3: or thirty five forty years.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that you say that. I often write
Speaker 2: personal things on my Facebook, or I'll do interviews and
Speaker 2: my mum will also listen to them, and she'll say,
Speaker 2: you share too much information about yourself, you know, And
Speaker 2: I think that's maybe generational.
Speaker 3: Well, you're younger, so you kind of of that mentality
Speaker 3: where you put it out there. I'm a much more
Speaker 3: private person in all sorts of ways, although oddly enough
Speaker 3: to tag to that story about my mum, who's no
Speaker 3: longer with us, is that when I was clearing up
Speaker 3: all her stuff in the nursing home, which was horrible,
Speaker 3: you know, very traumatic thing to have to do, but
Speaker 3: most of at some point have to do it. And
Speaker 3: I found these boxes of various clippings and things that
Speaker 3: she had kept through the years. So although she always
Speaker 3: didn't want me to be in this profession, she right
Speaker 3: up until the end she was still saying. I read
Speaker 3: an article about old age university students. I said on
Speaker 3: m I think the ship has sailed. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's going to be happening now, but thank you for
Speaker 3: your constant criticism and advice.
Speaker 2: It's interesting with parents because you're always trying to impress them.
Speaker 2: I guess what was it that your mum wanted you
Speaker 2: to do instead?
Speaker 3: Oh anything, The priesthood would probably be number one, followed
Speaker 3: by law, followed by medicine, anything. They kind of didn't
Speaker 3: mind the concept. In the end. I think they were
Speaker 3: okay with it all, but it wasn't certainly not how
Speaker 3: they saw playing. And I guess because there was no
Speaker 3: guarantee that I was ever going to get anywhere, it
Speaker 3: wasn't and still is a business full of rejection, and
Speaker 3: in the early days I took more than my share
Speaker 3: of that. So yeah, I guess there was probably fears
Speaker 3: for me rather than anything else where.
Speaker 2: Did you start out because did you always have entertainment
Speaker 2: in your blood? Did you always see yourself working in
Speaker 2: this industry in some way?
Speaker 3: Well? Yes and no. I mean I'd always had an
Speaker 3: interest in the celebrity stuff and the show business stuff,
Speaker 3: and I also always had an interest in journalism because
Speaker 3: I was literally the kid at the news agency waiting
Speaker 3: for TV week copies to arrive. There used to be
Speaker 3: another thing in Melbourn years ago called TV scene, which
Speaker 3: was pre Prior to that, it was a thing called Listener.
Speaker 3: In TV there was the Truth newspaper. They had a
Speaker 3: lot of show business stories that arrived on Mondays and Thursdays.
Speaker 3: So I would literally be there waiting for the truck
Speaker 3: to arrive because I wanted to be first with the news.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about eleven and twelve year old kid. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's pretty weird.
Speaker 1: Not so weird.
Speaker 2: I started getting the TV Week delivered to my house
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: I was eleven.
Speaker 3: Was that fascination I guess was built then because I
Speaker 3: used to be able to go and see shows. I
Speaker 3: used to hang around stage doors of theaters. I used
Speaker 3: to hang outside radio stations and get autographs. I've got
Speaker 3: autographed books of I look through them actually a few
Speaker 3: years ago, and half of the people whose autographs I
Speaker 3: have no idea who they were, no idea, but at
Speaker 3: the time I obviously wanted that autograph and I got it,
Speaker 3: and it probably meant something to me at the time.
Speaker 2: So I want to ask you, how does young Peter
Speaker 2: go from being a little bit of a fanboy to
Speaker 2: getting into journalism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that fascination was always there, but then getting
Speaker 3: into journalism was hard. I've got a box full of
Speaker 3: rejection letters and from all the big obvious places, but
Speaker 3: even sort of places that are left field, like two
Speaker 3: tam Tamworth and no, we don't want you. So that's
Speaker 3: very grounding to keep those sort of letters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think that people who are a part
Speaker 2: of the insta famous family really understand the hard yards
Speaker 2: that needed to be made back in the day. I mean,
Speaker 2: even when I did Big Brother, I got a sense
Speaker 2: that you know, the people on that show and shows
Speaker 2: around me were all hoping for a golden ticket to
Speaker 2: a media career. I guess I'm a little bit guilty
Speaker 2: of that too.
Speaker 3: You obviously pursued a radio career pretty much instantly, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Or Yeah, I'd already been doing red carpet, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Exactly, so you were still the halfway in any way. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But for a lot of the people who and it's
Speaker 3: a legitimate path these days to get into the media
Speaker 3: or getting to become a celebrity is to obviously go
Speaker 3: on reality TV. That's the fast track now, and it's
Speaker 3: a whole different ballgame to what it was, for better
Speaker 3: or for worse, a different ballgame to what it was
Speaker 3: thirty forty years ago.
Speaker 2: If you look at the type of celebrity that we
Speaker 2: have now though, you think about you know, comedians and
Speaker 2: reality TV people, that's a far way away from probably
Speaker 2: the people that originally fed you to work in this industry.
Speaker 3: There's so many now, I mean, I literally can't keep
Speaker 3: up with all the celebrities, And to be honest, I'm
Speaker 3: lucky in as much as and I've just got to
Speaker 3: focus on the ones who are of interest to my audience,
Speaker 3: whether it's appearing on television every day. Obviously we have
Speaker 3: a certain audience and they have certain interests. And then
Speaker 3: on radio, so you know, thankfully I don't have to
Speaker 3: obsess too much about TikTok stars or Instagram stars or
Speaker 3: you know. I need to be conscious as best I
Speaker 3: can of who they are, but I don't have to
Speaker 3: focus on them. That's why it's almost impossible now to
Speaker 3: go and do a red carpets. Well, I really don't
Speaker 3: do them anymore. Is because they're just too many people
Speaker 3: and you just see people you think, I've got no
Speaker 3: idea who that person is, and because they are very
Speaker 3: famous in their certain sphere or their demographic or whatever,
Speaker 3: but you just can't keep up with everybody. It's too
Speaker 3: hard now. It's funny.
Speaker 2: I sometimes see, you know, your commentary of some of
Speaker 2: those people, like reality TV people, comedian and some of
Speaker 2: these new age celebrities, and you can be a little
Speaker 2: bit critical on them.
Speaker 1: Is there any kind of animosity?
Speaker 2: There?
Speaker 1: Is there? Some sort?
Speaker 3: I think so, But I mean some of them are
Speaker 3: not really talented. They're famous or infamous and there you know,
Speaker 3: they might be on our TV screens every night, you know,
Speaker 3: take maths for example, but that doesn't mean, they're talented,
Speaker 3: and I guess I probably, but you know, I accept
Speaker 3: that you don't have to have any qualifications to become
Speaker 3: a celebrity. You don't have to have any talent, you know,
Speaker 3: anyone not exactly. So yeah, I hope, I don't hope.
Speaker 3: I accept that things have changed. But if you ask me,
Speaker 3: in all honesty, do I have more interest in Dame
Speaker 3: Judy Dench or the girl from Maths? So I probably
Speaker 3: would go for Dame Judy Dench, me too, thank you.
Speaker 3: Case closed.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting to look back at the stars
Speaker 2: that were probably around when you got started. I mean,
Speaker 2: who were the people that people were interested back then?
Speaker 2: Who were you fascinated with?
Speaker 3: Well, it was the people you saw on free to
Speaker 3: air TV. I mean, we'd always had a culture of
Speaker 3: sports stars, football stars becoming stars as well, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it was the people you saw on free to air TV.
Speaker 3: It was the first you saw on the Graham Kennedy
Speaker 3: Show or the Penthouse Club or the Ernie Sigley Show,
Speaker 3: or the star of the current hot soapy. You know,
Speaker 3: it was pretty well defined, and there weren't that many
Speaker 3: of them. There might have been, I don't know. If
Speaker 3: we went back, say, thirty years, there might have been
Speaker 3: I reckon thirty maybe forty people who were household names
Speaker 3: in Australian entertainment, putting music to one side. Now you've
Speaker 3: got hundreds and you see that at the logis, And
Speaker 3: I guess that's the point I'm making, is you know something.
Speaker 3: At the logis, I look at the people arriving and
Speaker 3: I don't know who a lot of them are because
Speaker 3: you just can't keep up with it all. But so
Speaker 3: back then, it was much more defined as to how
Speaker 3: you became famous, and the bulk of those people were
Speaker 3: genuinely talented people. Talent inasmuch as they were funny, or
Speaker 3: they could sing, they could dance, or they could add.
Speaker 3: Now you don't need to necessarily have any of those
Speaker 3: things when you're.
Speaker 2: Putting together who you're going to talk about every day?
Speaker 2: How do you qualify that these days? Do you talk
Speaker 2: to a producer? Are you producing your own self? How
Speaker 2: do you work out who Australia wants to hear about?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, a lot of it's gut feel. I mean,
Speaker 3: you can do easy things like go and see what's
Speaker 3: trending on Twitter as well, and I do that, and
Speaker 3: I have to be very conscious and I do work
Speaker 3: at it to not be locked in a time zone
Speaker 3: of the past. You know, I need to be current
Speaker 3: as best I can and as much as I need
Speaker 3: to be to deliver for the audience I'm working to.
Speaker 3: You know, I do a whole bunch of different radio
Speaker 3: stations around Australia and some days there will be some
Speaker 3: stories that are kind of universal in every radio station
Speaker 3: wants to hear about it. But then there'll be other
Speaker 3: stories that come up and I look at it and think, oh, no,
Speaker 3: Triple m in Hiabat wouldn't give us stuff about that.
Speaker 3: To GiB and Sydney will care about that, three aw
Speaker 3: will like that. You know. So you've got as best
Speaker 3: you can tailor it and curate it if you like,
Speaker 3: for the audience you're working to. But there are certain
Speaker 3: topics that are universal and they're completely newsworthy and nobody
Speaker 3: would argue with that. TV is a little bit easier
Speaker 3: because we know who we're working to. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: to answer your question, basically, when I wake up in
Speaker 3: the morning early, I'm really excited by the day ahead
Speaker 3: because I'm always curious about what's happened overnight, and then
Speaker 3: I've got to look at those things and not think,
Speaker 3: well that I'm interested in that, you know, but the
Speaker 3: public may not be, the audience may not be. So
Speaker 3: I've got to pick out what will work for the audience,
Speaker 3: particularly on TV, because then you've also got to have
Speaker 3: something to show. You've got to have vision or a
Speaker 3: clip or something. So yeah, it's a bit of a
Speaker 3: job each morning trying to work out what fits where
Speaker 3: and what people will respond to. But I also do
Speaker 3: have other people who helped me, particularly with television radio,
Speaker 3: I'm largely left to my own devices. I tell them
Speaker 3: what I want to talk about and they go with it.
Speaker 2: I think I like you a little bit more in
Speaker 2: radio because I feel like you have a little bit
Speaker 2: more license to be yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a bit more of your own spin on the story.
Speaker 3: I can, I guess I can pick my own passion
Speaker 3: projects for radio and things I feel I want to.
Speaker 3: You know, I still have to be conscious of the audience. Mean,
Speaker 3: I can't just talk about stuff that interests me. We're
Speaker 3: going to talk about lizam An Alley all morning or something,
Speaker 3: but so I need to be conscious that. But I
Speaker 3: have working here on the morning show. I have now
Speaker 3: for the last eight years, I've had a whole series
Speaker 3: of young female producers who have been so good and
Speaker 3: good reality check. You know when you mentioned a name
Speaker 3: and they stare at you blankly and have no idea
Speaker 3: what you're talking about. So you think, oh, okay, well
Speaker 3: I've got to be conscious of that. And then I
Speaker 3: have a very good executive producer, Chloe Flynn. I have
Speaker 3: a director of morning television who oversees Morning Show and Sunrise,
Speaker 3: which I also do, and that Stair Since Stinson, and
Speaker 3: she's like a Spengalian And for me, when she hired
Speaker 3: me years ago, I didn't want to do any more TV,
Speaker 3: and she talked me around and because every other television
Speaker 3: show I've done they wanted me to be different. They've
Speaker 3: wanted me to what I am. They want me to
Speaker 3: be John Michael House and or they wanted me to
Speaker 3: do it. And she said, I want you to be you.
Speaker 3: If I wanted those people, I would have hired them.
Speaker 3: So that was the most beautiful thing I ever heard
Speaker 3: in terms of giving me confidence to just go on
Speaker 3: and be myself. So yeah, I've been very fortunate in
Speaker 3: that respect. My whole life is based on a lot
Speaker 3: of luck.
Speaker 1: They always say, it's luck, chance and circumstances. It'll get this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I one of my great mentors was
Speaker 3: the comedian Joan Rivers, and I had a very wonderful
Speaker 3: relationship with her, and she always said to me that
Speaker 3: luck is simply preparation meeting opportunity.
Speaker 1: It's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think what's interesting about you is that you're always
Speaker 2: paid to do the work that you do, and I
Speaker 2: think that you've maintained that. I think that's interesting because
Speaker 2: there's been so many people in your industry who would
Speaker 2: love to do your job and would do it for free.
Speaker 3: And kill me in the process and throw me into
Speaker 3: the whole Leve Doug. Yeah, look, I'm part men of
Speaker 3: the US Old to work for free, you know. I
Speaker 3: just I get calls still to this day, particularly when
Speaker 3: there's a major story breaks. You know, some radio station
Speaker 3: will ring me from Madaiser or something and so will
Speaker 3: you come on here? And I said, no, not for free,
Speaker 3: I won't. And I feel sad sometimes saying it because
Speaker 3: sometimes they're very polite, and you know, I know what
Speaker 3: it's like to be a radio producer trying to get
Speaker 3: content and you haven't got a budget and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I just am too old now to start
Speaker 3: working for free. I've got nothing to prove. I'm not
Speaker 3: auditioning for anything. I don't need any more work. So,
Speaker 3: you know, very occasionally, if someone I know rings me,
Speaker 3: I'll do it as one off favor.
Speaker 1: But you did it for me once.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, a regional radio and yeah, I rang you
Speaker 2: and you said, is there a budget? I said no,
Speaker 2: and you were pretty much like, well, this is a
Speaker 2: ones off one, so off enjoy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right. There are a lot of people out
Speaker 3: there who will do it for free, and good luck
Speaker 3: to them. But I've always had the feeling too, if
Speaker 3: you start working for free, they're not going to suddenly
Speaker 3: start paying it.
Speaker 2: Well, the's hard to jump to go from exactly you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? Why would they pay you and
Speaker 2: they know you're already doing it for you.
Speaker 3: So I always say to people when they're in that situation,
Speaker 3: and sometimes people ask for advice, and I just say, look,
Speaker 3: say to them that you know, do one or two
Speaker 3: if you have to, but that's it. And then say, look,
Speaker 3: get your sales department to go out and find a
Speaker 3: sponsor for it, and that way you can pay me.
Speaker 3: It's not costing their radio station anything.
Speaker 2: But you know what's funny to me is, you know,
Speaker 2: with all the people that would love to do what
Speaker 2: you do, they sort of come and go. You kind
Speaker 2: of hinted at it before. Do you think maybe some
Speaker 2: of the magic goes and when they realize it's not
Speaker 2: about them. Yeah, and it is about the story that
Speaker 2: people get bored with it and they then look for
Speaker 2: ways to get attention elsewhere. I mean, why hasn't anyone
Speaker 2: ever been as successful as you in this space?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I mean there are obviously people who do
Speaker 3: similar stuff, like Richard and Angela. But in terms of,
Speaker 3: you know, the way I've positioned myself, I guess I
Speaker 3: am there's no one really to compare. But I suppose
Speaker 3: I'm odd also in that, you know a lot of
Speaker 3: people who want to start doing this stuff, they really
Speaker 3: want to be on the First Night lists. They want
Speaker 3: to have celebrity friends. You know, I don't want any
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 1: I don't have one at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: No, exactly, I've got celebrity enemies. That's what I've cot
Speaker 3: through the years. You know, I guess without sending wanky
Speaker 3: about it. I guess I'm considered myself just a really
Speaker 3: hard working journalist in the same way that I would
Speaker 3: be covering if I was covering the events in Canberra,
Speaker 3: if I was covering sport here, I would give it
Speaker 3: the same due diligence and research, you know, as I
Speaker 3: do to what I currently do.
Speaker 2: People have tried to make you a celebrity sometimes. I mean,
Speaker 2: I know for a fact that you've been offered I'm
Speaker 2: a celebrity. Get me out of here before those sort
Speaker 2: of celebrity opportunities have come along and you've said no
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think it was an availability check. I
Speaker 3: don't there was nothing put in front of me this.
Speaker 3: I mean, my first question would have been how much?
Speaker 3: But actually I couldn't the availability check come back with
Speaker 3: a no anyway because both my parents were dying at
Speaker 3: the time. But I would love to do that one
Speaker 3: more weird although having seen Kerrie kind would make me
Speaker 3: think twice now I think, but although she played.
Speaker 1: That very badly, she played that very bad.
Speaker 3: And I love Kerry and she's a very good friend
Speaker 3: and she has been for decades, and I think she
Speaker 3: was treated appallingly by that uncouth woman more should have
Speaker 3: been done to reprimand her. You know, I hope that's
Speaker 3: not going to be the defining thing that people remember
Speaker 3: Kerry Anne for, because you know, she's so much better
Speaker 3: than that. But I'm sure even retrospect she probably thinks so,
Speaker 3: I don't think that was a great move.
Speaker 2: What would you say is your career highlight on a
Speaker 2: story that you've broken, Not to say that it got
Speaker 2: the most amount of traction, but something that you were
Speaker 2: particularly proud of, that it was exclusive to you and
Speaker 2: you did a good job of executing it.
Speaker 3: Well, not proud of it. Probably almost the opposite. But
Speaker 3: I guess that the one moment in my career that
Speaker 3: I thought, oh this is big and I'm about to
Speaker 3: break it was the night at Newton died, and that
Speaker 3: obviously I had a personal connection with Bert and I
Speaker 3: knew things were pretty grim, and I knew it was
Speaker 3: a matter of time. But I remember very vividly. It's
Speaker 3: one of those things, you know, when your brain almost
Speaker 3: takes a photograph. I remember sitting in a bar at
Speaker 3: up at Hepburn Springs, was about eight o'clock on a
Speaker 3: Saturday night, and my phone rang, and I just looked
Speaker 3: down and it said Patty, and I knew instantly. Instantly
Speaker 3: I knew, and I answered it, and she said, you know,
Speaker 3: Bert's gone, and I'd like you to announce it. So
Speaker 3: she gave me a few details, and she was obviously upset,
Speaker 3: and it was like he'd been gone fifteen minutes. And
Speaker 3: so I thought, well, I probably the best thing to
Speaker 3: do is put out a tweet, and so I composed
Speaker 3: the tweet. I really checked the spelling of it and
Speaker 3: grammar and all that stuff, and I thought this is
Speaker 3: going to be big, but I had no idea how big. Like,
Speaker 3: I pressed the tweet, and I guarantee, within thirty seconds,
Speaker 3: my phone was going ballistic with every journal I knew,
Speaker 3: every news room, you know, wanting more details, and I
Speaker 3: didn't really have a lot more detail, to be very honest.
Speaker 3: So I guess, in one sad way, that was a
Speaker 3: story that I won't forget because it had personal implications
Speaker 3: as well, because I felt a closeness to Bert and
Speaker 3: to Patty, and I six months earlier had broken the
Speaker 3: story that, with their permission, that he'd had his leg amputated,
Speaker 3: and that was sad enough in itself, but the reasoning
Speaker 3: behind that was that was going to buy him more time,
Speaker 3: and the hope and the belief was that he'd be
Speaker 3: able to go home and live at home and may
Speaker 3: have had another seven eight nine years of living at
Speaker 3: home quite happily, albeit without one leg. And Paddy had
Speaker 3: downstairs totally renovated the downstairs of the house and what
Speaker 3: was the garage had been made a den with a
Speaker 3: bathroom for still accommodate the fact that he wasn't fully able,
Speaker 3: So all that was taking place, and that was the
Speaker 3: hope and the belief that was going to happen. But
Speaker 3: something went terribly wrong, and at one point it looked
Speaker 3: like his other leg was going to be amputated as well,
Speaker 3: but that didn't happen, and sadly he died. So Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess pressing send on that tweet, I guess it's
Speaker 3: ironic given my whole life has been working on television
Speaker 3: and radio, that that was a story that I actually
Speaker 3: broke on Twitter.
Speaker 2: It's the modern way of breaking stories, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, there's only a small window of time before
Speaker 2: that kind of story gets out. Yeah, I think, knowing
Speaker 2: Patty as well as I do, I think that that
Speaker 2: would have been a conversation with Bert as to who
Speaker 2: was going to release that. Yeah, and that's a testament
Speaker 2: to your relationship with some celebrities. Yeah, some not all,
Speaker 2: you know the celebrities that absolutely loath here exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, obviously with Bert and Patty, that was a
Speaker 3: connection that goes back to when I was a teenager
Speaker 3: and got really my first big significant break. So and
Speaker 3: that you know that relationships has stayed through the years.
Speaker 2: It is very interesting because you have these relationships with
Speaker 2: someone as big as Burden Patty and you had their trust,
Speaker 2: You have Patty's trust, But then there's so many other
Speaker 2: celebrities that absolutely loathe you with what you do, and
Speaker 2: you yourself will even admit that you've got plenty of enemies.
Speaker 2: How can you have the trust of one but not
Speaker 2: of another, Like, what is the disconnect there?
Speaker 3: Look, I guess only they could answer that there. I know,
Speaker 3: I'm conscious that some people don't like what I do.
Speaker 3: I guess probably the belief is you report show business celebrities,
Speaker 3: you should play along with the press release, you should
Speaker 3: say everything's wonderful. You should never question what I do
Speaker 3: or and I do.
Speaker 1: Not the news.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well no, it's not how I work, And so
Speaker 3: I know there are people, and particularly during the Me
Speaker 3: Too movement when that was really at its peak a
Speaker 3: few years ago, a lot of people were coming after
Speaker 3: me because I believe and I'm not going to change
Speaker 3: that people are innocent until they've proved to be guilty.
Speaker 3: An allegation is just that it's got to be properly tested.
Speaker 3: I don't this stuff that went on about all women
Speaker 3: must be instantly believed. I just think is nonsense. It's
Speaker 3: not practical, it's cruel, and thankfully that thinking, I think
Speaker 3: has subsided. But you know, that was a hard time
Speaker 3: because a lot of well there were careers that have
Speaker 3: been permanently damaged, if not ended, as a result of that,
Speaker 3: and accusations sometimes that were never proved to be true
Speaker 3: or false. So it was an interesting time to be
Speaker 3: reporting on celebrities during that. I mean, it's those sort
Speaker 3: of stories are still ongoing, obviously, but it seems to
Speaker 3: at least past its peak, because I think there was
Speaker 3: a frenzy attached to it that made it all become
Speaker 3: mean and unfair.
Speaker 2: There is a sense because you do offer an opinion
Speaker 2: along with the news, that sometimes you leave yourself wide
Speaker 2: open for scrutiny that can only be because you don't
Speaker 2: have the full story maybe and that you have maybe
Speaker 2: hurt someone's feelings. To avoid that, how do you make
Speaker 2: sure that you've qualified your sources and that there is
Speaker 2: due diligence done to the particular story. You know, what
Speaker 2: is the Peter Ford process to avoiding getting a story
Speaker 2: wrong or being you know, on the wrong side of history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess the first thing is it's a
Speaker 3: gut reaction to think, yeah, that sounds like it might
Speaker 3: be right. The easy option for me is if and
Speaker 3: when it involves people, I know that I can ring
Speaker 3: them direct and ask. The third option is then you've
Speaker 3: got to start ringing you know, publicity people or legal firms,
Speaker 3: all that kind of hard slog. But you know, if
Speaker 3: you're doing a story that potentially can be very damaging,
Speaker 3: not to a career, not just hurtful for a day,
Speaker 3: but actually damage or destroys someone's career, you know clearly
Speaker 3: you've got to be absolutely certain of what you're doing
Speaker 3: and how you phrase it too, because we've seen that
Speaker 3: the blowback that some of those stories have had not
Speaker 3: to me. I mean, I've had people come after me
Speaker 3: because they've been unhappy with stories I've done or comments
Speaker 3: I've made, but I've never ended up in court.
Speaker 2: Which is pretty amazing considering how long you've been in
Speaker 2: the business. I mean, I just heard the other day
Speaker 2: the worst thing that you can do is accidentally report
Speaker 2: someone is dead, which we recently saw in the media.
Speaker 2: Surely that can happen and must have happened to you
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I played with my brain that whole story. That
Speaker 3: was really dark, very dark. I've only killed off someone once.
Speaker 1: Okay, well tell me about it.
Speaker 3: Be my fault, and it was a long, long time ago.
Speaker 3: Seriously it was. But it's actually it's on that Wikipedia
Speaker 3: page that I've never seen. And it's the thing. Whenever
Speaker 3: I'm in some controversy, people always got to look up
Speaker 3: Google my name and this thing comes up, and what happened.
Speaker 3: I don't even remember the name of the actress. But
Speaker 3: one morning the producer of Neil Mitscher Show three a
Speaker 3: w Rangney and said, Vera Fanakapan's died. I said, oh,
Speaker 3: that's a shock, because she actually had been here a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks or months earlier selling sheets or something,
Speaker 3: so she was sort of in people's minds and they said, oh,
Speaker 3: you come on here and talk about it. And I did.
Speaker 3: And this is how far back it is. This is
Speaker 3: even like pre googling things or going online. So it's
Speaker 3: twenty five years or more ago. And I went on
Speaker 3: air and did this off the cuff tribute to the woman.
Speaker 3: Because we then ten minutes they bring back I said, oh,
Speaker 3: she's not dead. I said, well, you told me she's dead.
Speaker 3: It's like trusted you.
Speaker 1: You're going to hate this.
Speaker 2: But you know, there was a time where you actually
Speaker 2: got in contact with me and thought that Bert Newton
Speaker 2: was dead, you know, a couple of years before it
Speaker 2: all happened, and you'd been up most of the night
Speaker 2: putting together your notes. You know, you just happened to
Speaker 2: text me in the morning privately before saying anything or
Speaker 2: you know, obviously doing some checking.
Speaker 1: Do you remember this story?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I know. Look, the death thing is a
Speaker 3: weird one, and social media allows that, and we've seen
Speaker 3: numerous examples of it publically owned up to mine. But
Speaker 3: because you know, Richard has a famous one, I think
Speaker 3: which you might have too, doesn't.
Speaker 1: Hell, I mean, we shouldn't laugh, you know.
Speaker 2: I think it's important for me to say at this
Speaker 2: point that I've been. I have been in your audience
Speaker 2: for a very long time and have revered your work,
Speaker 2: even though at times have not always agreed with your
Speaker 2: point of view. How do you cope with the criticism
Speaker 2: because I know at times it can be fairly brutal,
Speaker 2: especially on platforms like Twitter.
Speaker 3: Well it is. It's also hard to take criticism, particularly
Speaker 3: when it's not particularly when it's anonymous, obviously, and I
Speaker 3: don't have any problem with people being critical of me.
Speaker 3: I don't like it. I mean, who would, But you've
Speaker 3: got to have a reasoning why it can't just be
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't like what she said. And see
Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff does play it on Twitter,
Speaker 3: and I for the most part laugh at the Twitter stuff.
Speaker 3: I find it all quite amusing. And a thing last
Speaker 3: week did actually get to me. And that's really the
Speaker 3: only time that I've been affected by Twitter in sense
Speaker 3: of mental health.
Speaker 1: Was it a pundon? Was it just a comment on
Speaker 1: social media?
Speaker 3: That was the reason, part of the reason why it
Speaker 3: was a comedian called dan Ilick. Okay, yep, And out
Speaker 3: of the blue, I started getting all these tweets saying
Speaker 3: I've never heard of Peter Ford. I thought, oh, that's odd,
Speaker 3: and I replied a couple and I said, I'll just
Speaker 3: google his name. It's all there. And this kept coming
Speaker 3: up over like six seven hours, like hundreds of them,
Speaker 3: and eventually I took a bit more interest and I
Speaker 3: found out this Dan Illick had decided to set all
Speaker 3: his followers on to me, to tweet to me, to
Speaker 3: say I don't know who Peter Ford is or something,
Speaker 3: and it upset me in eye. Contacted Dan and I said, look,
Speaker 3: what's your problem? And he said, oh, you said that
Speaker 3: about me on a Current affair fifteen years ago. And
Speaker 3: I said, well, you know, and I think I said
Speaker 3: this publicly on Twitter, I have no recollection of that.
Speaker 3: If I hurt your feelings, I'm really sorry. But at
Speaker 3: some point you've got to move on. And anyway, this
Speaker 3: went on and on, but it almost got to eighteen hours,
Speaker 3: I think, and in the end I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: I've got to try and find out what I said.
Speaker 3: So I pulled in some strings and I actually got
Speaker 3: the script from a Current Affair, the transcript where all
Speaker 3: the editor's notes are of what grabs they use and
Speaker 3: what I said and whatever. I never said that at all.
Speaker 3: And I contacted Dan Illick and said, look, Dan, I
Speaker 3: actually posted up online. I posted up that script, and
Speaker 3: suddenly at least all his followers stopped, and he stopped
Speaker 3: to his credit. But you think, even if I had
Speaker 3: said that, are you truly hanging on to that for
Speaker 3: fifteen years? And it was about a musical he'd written.
Speaker 3: It all started to come back to me after I
Speaker 3: saw the script. It was about a musical that he'd
Speaker 3: written or maybe co written, about the death of the
Speaker 3: journalist Richard Carlton, and a current affair of doing a story,
Speaker 3: oh shock, horror and all this, and you know, I
Speaker 3: went along with it. All. I did say something about
Speaker 3: there's nothing funny about this, or it's too soon, or
Speaker 3: whatever I said, but I didn't say what he claimed
Speaker 3: i'd said.
Speaker 2: But it's so funny when you look at trolling on
Speaker 2: social media and how much negativity is on there, don't
Speaker 2: you think that it's not an accurate representation of what
Speaker 2: the general public think?
Speaker 3: Well, totally, I've come to that conclusion. But certainly, when
Speaker 3: you are on the receiving end of that sort of
Speaker 3: ti rade or that sort of pylon, you feel like
Speaker 3: the whole world is coming up. I did on that occasion,
Speaker 3: and I did a couple of weeks earlier, oddly enough,
Speaker 3: or when the premiere of Victoria criticized me. But oddly enough,
Speaker 3: they are the only two occasions in what Twitter's been
Speaker 3: around fifteen years or so.
Speaker 1: But probably you have a thick enough skin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's strange to me to think that those particular instances.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that Dan Andrews the premiere and
Speaker 2: don't want to up the premier, and there might be
Speaker 2: a bit of ego in that one.
Speaker 3: Well, I wasn't upset any of it. I was quite
Speaker 3: honored the premiere would take time to criticize me, but
Speaker 3: I knew the story I reported was right and he
Speaker 3: didn't like it. And of course, subsequently I was one
Speaker 3: of those classic dilemmas where you can't name your sources,
Speaker 3: so I had to wait it out. And sure enough
Speaker 3: the information came out about the details of Barry Humphrey's funeral,
Speaker 3: and my information was quite right. The Victorian government is
Speaker 3: not involved at all. So that and you got all
Speaker 3: these crazy tweets from angry people like crazy Dan Andrews followers. No,
Speaker 3: I'm not particularly political at all. I've got no positive
Speaker 3: or negative feelings about him. Whatsoever. But all these crazy
Speaker 3: people on his behalf were coming after me, and the
Speaker 3: Dan Illiq one was upsetting because it was a person
Speaker 3: in the industry who was deliberately choreographing this to happen,
Speaker 3: and as it turns out, based on something that didn't
Speaker 3: happen anyway. Dan, only two people who've upset me seriously
Speaker 3: on Twitter. I both called Dan, I'm going to watch out.
Speaker 2: But the Barry Humphreys State Funeral saw you at odds
Speaker 2: with the state Premier, and I worked it out that
Speaker 2: I thought that you had a source that was closer
Speaker 2: to the truth than what Daniel Ane Andrew's had. But
Speaker 2: I think both of you spoke to someone who was
Speaker 2: in that family, and I think there was probably truth
Speaker 2: on both sides of it.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, no, I mean the Premier himself had said
Speaker 3: a couple of days earlier that there are differing opinions
Speaker 3: within the family. You know, ultimately they're all greeting in
Speaker 3: their own way, sure, but they're doing it differently. I mean,
Speaker 3: Oscar didn't even go to his father's funeral, so you know, yes,
Speaker 3: he contacted the Premier Victoria, but his mindset is quite different,
Speaker 3: and the Premier didn't actually say what it was that
Speaker 3: Oscar had said to him in that lengthy text that
Speaker 3: he got. And look, my only point was I'd said
Speaker 3: that Barry Barry had left very clear instructions the Victorian
Speaker 3: government was not to be involved in his funeral or memorial,
Speaker 3: and that's the family was simply carrying out those wishes.
Speaker 3: And in fact, a couple of days after that all happened,
Speaker 3: one of his closest friends, a man called Ross Fitzgerald,
Speaker 3: wrote a letter to the editor at the Sidney Morning Herald.
Speaker 3: He's a very famous historian and author and he probably
Speaker 3: is Barry's a friend of over sixty years, and he
Speaker 3: confirmed that the Barry had left those clear instructions. So
Speaker 3: you know, that was an odd one. You don't expect
Speaker 3: to have the premiere of Victoria in a hard hat
Speaker 3: and a viz outfit attacking me.
Speaker 2: Did you think, though, that Barry was right and to
Speaker 2: say that maybe that the government should have stepped in
Speaker 2: with the Comedy Festival Melbourne Comedy Fest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's what Barry believed.
Speaker 1: What did you think.
Speaker 3: I honestly don't know what the protocol is. It may
Speaker 3: not have been an appropriate thing for the premier to do.
Speaker 3: It might have been against the etiquette or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, you, I think there was
Speaker 1: other things at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So, Yeah, I don't know the answer to that,
Speaker 3: but certainly Barry was of the belief that someone should
Speaker 3: have come to help him.
Speaker 1: What about when these things go down? Do you hold
Speaker 1: a grudge at all?
Speaker 3: I hope not. Am I going to give you a
Speaker 3: free kick after you've been mean to me?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Am I that's going to go. Am I going to
Speaker 3: go out of my way to you know, get payback? No?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. This news cycle moves too quickly.
Speaker 3: All I care about is the content for that day
Speaker 3: and the next day, you know. And if it means
Speaker 3: I've got to suddenly cozy up to someone who I
Speaker 3: was fighting with the week before, I can do that.
Speaker 3: It's not a problem, you know. And I think people,
Speaker 3: most people in the industry know you've got to take
Speaker 3: the good with the bad. It's not always going to
Speaker 3: be plain sailing. And you know, if I do criticize
Speaker 3: you one week, I'm probably going to go and praise
Speaker 3: you up for something else the week after.
Speaker 2: I was listening to one of your radio segments, and
Speaker 2: I did talk about this before, saying that I think
Speaker 2: in radio land you allow yourself to be a little
Speaker 2: bit more yourself. But when you were talking about the
Speaker 2: Stan Grant situation at ABC and the country was all
Speaker 2: talking about it, you made this parallel which I thought
Speaker 2: was interesting for you, and that was to say that
Speaker 2: the racism that Stan has faced over the years, that
Speaker 2: racism can be paralleled or compared to homophobic comments that
Speaker 2: people have made about yourself. I've never heard you confirm
Speaker 2: your sexuality publicly. And two, I've pretty sure that you
Speaker 2: would agree that racism is quite different to homophobia. So
Speaker 2: I kind of felt like that argument landed with a
Speaker 2: bit of a thud.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, firstly, I'm not trying to put myself into
Speaker 3: Stan Grant's league. I mean, whatever stuff he's been getting
Speaker 3: is a thousand times whatever I would get. And the
Speaker 3: point I guess I was trying to make is if
Speaker 3: you go after somebody because of their opinions, that's part
Speaker 3: of what we do now, that's part of the game.
Speaker 3: But if you're going after someone simply because of the
Speaker 3: way they were born, whether that's being an indigenous person,
Speaker 3: whether it's being gay, then that's just not fair, and
Speaker 3: it's also I think that is hurtful. Now, of course,
Speaker 3: in the case of Stan, you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: what every single thing that's sent to him, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sure I see ten percent of what's sent to him.
Speaker 3: And some of the criticism may be fair and maybe valid,
Speaker 3: and maybe people think he is an idiot, then that's fine.
Speaker 3: But obviously he is of the belief that some of it,
Speaker 3: if not a lot of it, is purely racist based,
Speaker 3: and I think that's disgusting. I mean, you know, just
Speaker 3: today I was reporting about the fact that he couldn't
Speaker 3: go to Cans to take up this job of being
Speaker 3: a keynote speaker because of dangers and threats to him.
Speaker 3: That's a very sad situation for Australia to be in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, you know, very sad. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: think when you basically play the man rather than the ball,
Speaker 3: then that's as low as you can go. And it's
Speaker 3: not an argument anyway that that is just abuse. But
Speaker 3: you know, I don't get that much of it. But
Speaker 3: when I do, most of the time, because it's from
Speaker 3: anonymous trolls, you just laugh it off. But as for myself,
Speaker 3: you haven't heard me talk about being gay before, because
Speaker 3: I haven't in the same way that you know, you
Speaker 3: haven't talked. You've never heard me talk about anything about
Speaker 3: myself other than my dogs. Occasionally I put up dog pictures.
Speaker 3: It's the least interesting part of my life. And I
Speaker 3: don't talk about private stuff anyway. But nor do I
Speaker 3: anyway want to go to some attempt to, you know,
Speaker 3: pretend that I'm not gay or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I get it because that isn't really the issue, and
Speaker 2: I can relate to this as well. It isn't that
Speaker 2: you have an issue with turning up to all the
Speaker 2: old GBTI events. It's just that you don't really like
Speaker 2: any event.
Speaker 3: Well, I just hate crowds, so I'm not going to
Speaker 3: go to anything where there's a crowd. But no, I've
Speaker 3: got that. I think those things are great. If people
Speaker 3: want to go to it and do it, that's fantastic,
Speaker 3: But it's just not me.
Speaker 2: I think I'm less and less social and I'm less
Speaker 2: and less inclined to go to things. I think there
Speaker 2: was a point where I said to you, are you're
Speaker 2: going to the Channel seven upfronts or you know which
Speaker 2: I thought you would you're on the network. You're like, no,
Speaker 2: I go to that, And then I would be like,
Speaker 2: are you going to anyway? The whole list of media
Speaker 2: events that I would assume that you would be out, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you are like.
Speaker 3: No, Look I went to more things when I was
Speaker 3: your age. I so like an old grandpart. But now
Speaker 3: you know if you guarantee, if you said to me,
Speaker 3: I guarantee if you go to this event tonight, you'll
Speaker 3: get two great stories that you can use tomorrow on
Speaker 3: radio and TV, I'll go. But I found increasingly the
Speaker 3: things I would go, I've got nothing out of it.
Speaker 3: I got no material to use. And I thought, if
Speaker 3: it's a choice between that or being at home watching
Speaker 3: TV with my dogs, I'd rather be at home watching TV.
Speaker 1: Anyway. I digress.
Speaker 2: So, but I want to talk to you about a
Speaker 2: particular famous showdown that I thought you managed, BOYD, and
Speaker 2: that was between Something really strange in Australia is that
Speaker 2: you can't be on two different networks. And for you,
Speaker 2: you were able to negotiate being on Channel seven for
Speaker 2: television and Channel nine for radio and then making those
Speaker 2: two gigs work would have been fairly interesting for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, Well, it's.
Speaker 3: A good question, actually, and I am as a somewhat
Speaker 3: unusual position. I agree to be contracted to both the
Speaker 3: seven and nine network, and I worried me at first
Speaker 3: when Nine took over the radio stations, the major talkstations
Speaker 3: that I'm on, I thought, oh, no, they're going to
Speaker 3: pressure me to do this and say that. And the
Speaker 3: same when I started doing seven every morning on the
Speaker 3: morning show and quite often on Sunrise, I thought the
Speaker 3: same thing. Well, I must be paranoid, because I hand
Speaker 3: on heart, neither of them have ever once said to
Speaker 3: me do that, or, more to the point, don't do that.
Speaker 3: In fact, they've given me several occasions they've given me
Speaker 3: exclusive stories because of those positions, but they've never once
Speaker 3: tried to tell me to avoid a story, not once,
Speaker 3: And that would be a difficult position for me if
Speaker 3: they did. I mean, there have been some big stories
Speaker 3: around that I've chosen not to do it because I
Speaker 3: just haven't thought they were particularly interesting to the audience,
Speaker 3: or it's a little bit in or and you know,
Speaker 3: both networks that had their share of scandals and things
Speaker 3: going on, but I've been able to avoid them because
Speaker 3: I just didn't believe they are of interest to the
Speaker 3: network or to my audience.
Speaker 2: Have you been told before though by these networks you're
Speaker 2: getting closed to the line?
Speaker 3: No, not once. No. In fact, I used to get
Speaker 3: more of that stuff when I actually wasn't contracted to
Speaker 3: either of them. It was almost like intimidation on occasion,
Speaker 3: just going back in time now, but having become con
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess I probably I might make a
Speaker 3: judgment sometimes and think, oh, you know, I maybe I'll
Speaker 3: withhold that, or maybe I don't need to do that.
Speaker 3: But I've never once ever, just I've never not done
Speaker 3: a major story out of any kind of fear of
Speaker 3: where my pay packet's coming from. And as I say,
Speaker 3: you know, more importantly to me, I've never, if I
Speaker 3: in any way been told to do or not do
Speaker 3: a story. And that's a credit to both of the networks.
Speaker 3: Only the only time once was I had a call
Speaker 3: from someone pretty high up last year in nine Radio.
Speaker 3: They didn't anyway stop me doing a story, but they said,
Speaker 3: just be really careful that everything you say you know
Speaker 3: is one hundred percent right, because I know these people
Speaker 3: want to go for you. And they said, but you know,
Speaker 3: don't not do it, but just be certain otherwise we're
Speaker 3: all going to end up in the shit.
Speaker 1: Do you have enemies though out there?
Speaker 3: Do you think?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I know I have people who've got but you know,
Speaker 3: people like Lisa Wilkinson, for example. There's people gag and
Speaker 3: they've got their own legitimate reasons for that. I've got
Speaker 3: no reason to tell them they're fools. I mean, they
Speaker 3: have their reasoning and the only thing I would like
Speaker 3: to think is with time, you kind of get over it.
Speaker 3: I've never destroyed anyone's career. I've called out certain stories.
Speaker 3: You know, I've mentioned her name now, Lisa Wilkinson. I
Speaker 3: did not buy that story about her being stalked on
Speaker 3: Chapel Street for a whole bunch of reasons, and she
Speaker 3: didn't like it that I didn't go with it. That
Speaker 3: I did say, I don't think that's possible. I don't.
Speaker 3: That doesn't ring true to me to be supposedly stuck
Speaker 3: in a bar in Chapel Street too scared to leave
Speaker 3: because of a stalker. I mean, all she had to
Speaker 3: do was Channel ten is literally across the road. She
Speaker 3: had to ring them and say, can you can't send
Speaker 3: a security guard? I want to get back. You know,
Speaker 3: it just didn't ring true, and sitting in the window
Speaker 3: of the bar, wouldn't And you're being stalked, wouldn't you
Speaker 3: ask the matre dad a movie to the back of
Speaker 3: the bab Anyway, I thought these were valid QUI Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then you know, when you've called someone out on
Speaker 2: something that's not true and they're going to put their
Speaker 2: back up.
Speaker 3: Of course they I mean, what's the in buzzword? Now?
Speaker 3: Their truth and everyone's got their truth. But sometimes you
Speaker 3: look at and you think, well, I know it's their truth,
Speaker 3: but it just doesn't stack up with any kind of
Speaker 3: facts or common sense. And that was one of those stories.
Speaker 3: I Mean, Lisa will say there are other occasions that
Speaker 3: I've gone after her, and probably there are, but you know,
Speaker 3: obviously the bigger you are one hundred percent, you know,
Speaker 3: I think if you're not talking about I noticed that.
Speaker 3: I think it was a couple of people commented about
Speaker 3: me for a while, you know, because I was more
Speaker 3: prominent in the media, and so I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is it felt uncomfortable, and then it was someone
Speaker 3: who had been in the industry for a very long
Speaker 3: time said to me.
Speaker 1: At least they're talking about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: If they're not talking about you, then there's probably a problem.
Speaker 2: And if you know the truth, then yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what other people think. Dear friends and family know
Speaker 2: the truth. And that's why I find it really strange
Speaker 2: when celebrities will come after entertainment journalists, because I think
Speaker 2: there is going to be times where things are a
Speaker 2: little bit you know, played out for television, bit of
Speaker 2: TV magic in the story. I don't necessarily need think
Speaker 2: you need to throw the you know, your toys out
Speaker 2: of the pram.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, unless something is truly malicious, and
Speaker 3: obviously if something is totally untrue, and if it's truly
Speaker 3: malicious and totally untrue, you should sue. You know, that
Speaker 3: simple as that. But yeah, look, I'm conscious there is
Speaker 3: a few other people who I'm in the bad books
Speaker 3: with as well. But that's okay, you know, it's fine.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm dishing it out. You know, I've got
Speaker 3: to take it back occasionally.
Speaker 2: I remember you saying a couple of years ago, actually,
Speaker 2: I think you've been saying this every year for about
Speaker 2: five years, that you're going to retire. I know, and
Speaker 2: you had said to me, I'm going to move up north,
Speaker 2: and I felt like there's been a few times where
Speaker 2: you've thought about walking away from all of this. I
Speaker 2: still think you've got so much more gas left in
Speaker 2: the tank.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I usually around August September I have
Speaker 3: that feeling that, But you know what the truth is,
Speaker 3: I still love it. I still love it. I wake
Speaker 3: up in the morning. First five minutes, you're not so good,
Speaker 3: not so good. But once I'm out of bed, as
Speaker 3: soon as I'm brushing my teeth, I'm thinking, oh, I
Speaker 3: wonder what's happened. You know what's Prince Harry done? You
Speaker 3: know what shows have been axed over. I still I
Speaker 3: can't wait to get online and see what's happening. I
Speaker 3: can't wait for the first phone call to come in,
Speaker 3: start my first radio report, which is usually about half
Speaker 3: as six in the morning. So yeah, I still get
Speaker 3: the buzz. I mean, there are like some days when
Speaker 3: there is nothing really happening and you've got to make
Speaker 3: boring things sound interesting. That's a challenge, But those days
Speaker 3: a few and far between, and it just I don't
Speaker 3: know why. It is a I think I'm working harder
Speaker 3: than I ever have in terms of putting more effort in,
Speaker 3: but also there seems to be so many more show
Speaker 3: business stories that are now legitimate news stories, not just
Speaker 3: something that are on the gossip column pages, but stories
Speaker 3: that are on page one or page three. Plus we
Speaker 3: seem to have this incredible slew of deaths celebrity deaths
Speaker 3: in recent years. Yeah, so every single days, there's so
Speaker 3: many great stories that I love getting my teeth into
Speaker 3: that I love to think I've still got something valid
Speaker 3: and interesting to say in reference to So whilst you
Speaker 3: probably if you see me again in August or September,
Speaker 3: I'll probably tell you again I'm moving to cans and
Speaker 3: giving it all up. But then ask me again in
Speaker 3: November and I will probably tell you I've resigned with
Speaker 3: everyone for back again.
Speaker 2: You're back back, back against what I thought, and looking
Speaker 2: at you today, you're looking well. You're looking better than
Speaker 2: you've looked in years. So you've had a few health
Speaker 2: problems along the way. Your mom passed away by which
Speaker 2: I think was very hard, and these were really big
Speaker 2: obstacles I think for you to get over.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that you've been able to put some.
Speaker 2: Of that behind you, and that's a part of the
Speaker 2: reason why you're just excited as out I think that's.
Speaker 3: Very interesting, very observant of you, and thank you. I
Speaker 3: do look great, but unfortunately, whilst God has given me
Speaker 3: that gift's given me terrible arthritis, blood pressure, insomnia. But anyway,
Speaker 3: you take the good with the bad. But yeah, look,
Speaker 3: I hopefully I still go to the gym every day,
Speaker 3: and so if you're going to be on camera, you've
Speaker 3: got to kind of you can't look like the wreck
Speaker 3: of the Hespers. But I did have this period there
Speaker 3: of about three years where you know, both my parents died,
Speaker 3: and my sister died, my partner's parents both died, two
Speaker 3: dogs die, I had some very close friends die, and yeah,
Speaker 3: that was a rough time. And work was almost like
Speaker 3: my savior. Just coming into work got me out of
Speaker 3: that for a short period of time. I sat here
Speaker 3: an hour before my mother's funeral, went to a funeral
Speaker 3: straight from here. I was here when I got a
Speaker 3: call this and my dad had died, and I stayed
Speaker 3: on and went on air because that was my escape
Speaker 3: and then you can focus on the real world after that.
Speaker 3: So then I kind of felt like I'd come out
Speaker 3: of that period of you know, being surrounded constantly by death.
Speaker 3: You know, people about to die. People have just died.
Speaker 3: And then we went into COVID, so which was an
Speaker 3: odd time for everybody. And I've got no complaints about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I lost some work, but I'm not complaining.
Speaker 3: But it was an odd time for everybody. So I
Speaker 3: just feel like this year we're kind of past COVID.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of through all the death cycle now and
Speaker 3: I can start to enjoy life again. And I am.
Speaker 3: I feel very energized by my work and also away
Speaker 3: from work as well. I'm spending more and more time
Speaker 3: up in the country.
Speaker 2: But I think there's something really beautiful and something powerful
Speaker 2: in what you're talking about there. I think it is
Speaker 2: about connecting to something as powerful as the work that
Speaker 2: you have and being able to push through. Because I
Speaker 2: can honestly say this is the podcast so people can't see.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think you are looking better than ever,
Speaker 2: and you know, I watch and absorb your work. I
Speaker 2: think it's better than ever think, you know, And I
Speaker 2: think that has a lot to do with your determination
Speaker 2: and your ability to hang on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think that's good. It makes feel like
Speaker 3: I've got claws in the carpet and hanging on. But yeah, look,
Speaker 3: I decided if I'm going to do it, I'm never
Speaker 3: going to kind of just drift through it. I don't
Speaker 3: ever phone it in. I give it one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And I want to be the best at what I
Speaker 3: do in my little sphere. And that's not knocking anybody else,
Speaker 3: but I want to be the best at the particular
Speaker 3: type of journalism that I do, you know, So yeah,
Speaker 3: thank you. If I will one day stop, obviously at
Speaker 3: some point or other there'll be a tap on the shoulder.
Speaker 3: But I think I've got another lap left in me,
Speaker 3: whether that's two years or three years. If I wasn't
Speaker 3: working with really good people, I would chuck it in.
Speaker 3: But I'm working with great people on TV behind the
Speaker 3: scenes and on air as well. You know, Larry and
Speaker 3: Kylie are a great duo, and because Sunrise is an
Speaker 3: extraordinary show to be on as well. And on radio,
Speaker 3: you know, I've got the pick of the best radio
Speaker 3: shows in the country, you know, the best shows in
Speaker 3: the country I'm on, so I've got I'm not working
Speaker 3: with any kind of you know, second rate people, and
Speaker 3: so I've got nothing to complain about.
Speaker 2: So something I ask everybody who joins the podcast is
Speaker 2: what is something from behind the scenes, something that people
Speaker 2: wouldn't know about what it is that you do, kind
Speaker 2: of like a behind the scenes secret of Peter Ford
Speaker 2: and getting your stories say on to Channel seven.
Speaker 3: In the morning. Ah, well, the biggest behind the scene
Speaker 3: secret is probably the filter on the camera, because if
Speaker 3: you've got a good filter on your camera, you can
Speaker 3: knock off a good ten years.
Speaker 1: There's a filter on this.
Speaker 3: Well, they don't do it. There's not actually a filter
Speaker 3: on it. You know. We make jokes about the vaseline
Speaker 3: of the expression and stuff, but they actually do it
Speaker 3: through master control where they can just make it look
Speaker 3: slightly foggy in the studio and yeah, so there are
Speaker 3: other people on this network who had it before me,
Speaker 3: and I said I want that, and so I now
Speaker 3: have it. So the disappointing thing is a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago, a couple of weeks ago, I was down
Speaker 3: in Hobart and I had to do the show from
Speaker 3: Hobart and I couldn't have the filter there for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: and so I looked shocking and people are ring up saying,
Speaker 3: oh my god, he's got cancer, is dying, and it's like, no,
Speaker 3: that's actually the real me, you know, it's the illusion
Speaker 3: of television. So I feel have I given you enough?
Speaker 3: I don't want you to run into Chrissy Swan and
Speaker 3: have her say, oh, I told you it was a prick,
Speaker 3: not at all.
Speaker 2: You have definitely given me. I literally had been writing
Speaker 2: this since we spoke last week. There was questions in
Speaker 2: there that I one hundred percent wanted to know the
Speaker 2: answers to, and I've I felt like you gave me everything.
Speaker 3: Well, you can have like an under the counter X
Speaker 3: rated edition for your followers, but thank you for asking me.
Speaker 3: You have so many wonderful writers and producers and directors
Speaker 3: and actors on the podcast. They feel very honored that
Speaker 3: you would want to include me. And you've put together
Speaker 3: the most extraordinary library of players in the TV game,
Speaker 3: particularly in the reality TV game. So you are you
Speaker 3: are creating something that is significant.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's think if you're genuinely passionate about something,
Speaker 2: and I think that bleeds through. And I think some
Speaker 2: people have asked to do the podcast and probably thought
Speaker 2: why would I talk to this person? But then I
Speaker 2: usually will have, like I had with you conversations for
Speaker 2: a long time. You know, you build relationships with people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I mean it's very much like you know, the
Speaker 2: stories that you would break. A large part of your
Speaker 2: success comes from the relationships that you've built behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, you know, what is an important part
Speaker 3: of the industry. And as I say, you've covered so
Speaker 3: many aspects of the industry, Ultimately you've got to have height,
Speaker 3: You've got to have excitement about the product. And I
Speaker 3: guess I'm part of that. You know, I'm part of
Speaker 3: creating that hype and that excitement and certainly reporting on it.
Speaker 3: And it's a vital part of the industry.
Speaker 2: And it took two hundred and sixty three episodes to
Speaker 2: get us here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you didn't let me down.
Speaker 3: Dreams do come true. I hope people don't think it
Speaker 3: will be so bloody grand, you know, saying but it's
Speaker 3: as I said at the very beginning, it's partly because
Speaker 3: I'm shy, it's partly because I'm pretty boring. But I'm pleased.
Speaker 1: I said, yes, amazing, Well, thank you