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New SBS chair to mull what white men can and can’t do | Australian media


The incoming SBS chair, George Savvides, appointed by the Morrison government on Thursday, will no doubt have workplace diversity at the multicultural broadcaster front of mind as he takes up his new role.

Last week the screenwriter Kodie Bedford said when she got a cadetship at SBS in 2008, she was often introduced as “the Indigenous cadet journalist”, sparking a wave of criticism of the public broadcaster’s record.

On Monday SBS’s managing director, James Taylor, sent staff a lengthy email about all the plans he has to improve the workplace for people of colour and Indigenous staff.

Central to his plan is the appointment of two Indigenous elders in residence “to provide support and cultural empowerment to staff” and the training of a number of “SBS inclusion champions”.

SBS managing director James Taylor
SBS managing director James Taylor sent staff a lengthy email about plans he has to improve the workplace for people of colour and Indigenous staff. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

“I see this as our moment in time to enhance those attributes that make SBS an extraordinary place, with an extraordinary team, and implement some positive changes to make us a leading inclusive workplace – not just in the media sector, but across all industries,” Taylor told staff.

Savvides has been at SBS since 2017 as deputy chair, working first with Michael Ebeid as managing director, and now Taylor.

Ebeid hit the news himself this week, seemingly wanting to defend his record on diversity, but we’re not sure it was the best defence to mount.

Ebeid said the critics of the fact that most SBS executives were white were missing the point and that it was more important to have diversity in programming than in management.

“A white man can do that,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “People think just because you’ve got white skin somehow you don’t get multiculturalism or diversity.”

With exquisite timing it was announced this week that SBS had been honoured with Gold at the Australian Workplace Equality Index LGBTIQ+ Inclusion awards. It received the highest honour for creating a more inclusive place to work, greater visibility and more diverse content for audiences.

Redundant ABC staff engage with the community

Some workers like to go out in style when they’re made redundant.

That’s just what one staffer from the ABC’s community engagement division did when she put an out-of-office message on her corporate email address. Anyone who contacted her got the following bounce-back: “Hi there, my position at the ABC has been abolished. I would refer you on to a colleague, except that the entire ABC community engagement function has ceased to exist. Sorry about that. If you have any queries relating to this, please contact” … and she put the email addresses for her boss in strategy, Mark Tapley, and the managing director, David Anderson.

The division was one of the few non-content divisions hit, which surprised some because many of the jobs in the more corporate divisions such as human resources, strategy and finance have salaries upwards of $200,000 so it may have been a good place to start rather than the 70 journalists and content makers which were targeted in a cull of 250 staff.

The ABC confirmed there is a proposal to abolish four positions within the ABC’s community engagement team.

Walkley award for how not to be classy

The Walkley Foundation, which runs the annual Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism, made an embarrassing social media misstep this week, posting a tweet which many thought was in bad taste.

“We know the media is a competitive industry, especially right now, so here’s a tip. Journos, if you really want to get one over your nemesis once and for all, winning a Walkley is the classiest way to do it. Enter now.”

With as many as 2,000 journalists losing their jobs this year alone, it was bad timing to say the least.

“The Walkley Foundation acknowledges that our tweet on entering was inappropriate and not in the spirit of our values and how we celebrate and recognise great Australian journalism,” the foundation said after deleting the tweet. “We sincerely apologise.”

AAP cut off, but not quite

When News Corp pulled the plug on AAP in March it devastated the wire service’s 180 journalists and photographers, as well as many small publishers who relied on the service it provided.

After an agonising stop-start process for staff, it was saved at the 11th hour and will continue as a smaller operation under new management, although with only half the staff.

The AAP feed to News Corp was officially cut off at midnight on 30 June when the relationship between the Murdochs and AAP ended. So it was quite surprising when AAP copy began appearing in the Daily Telegraph and on news.com.au.

The AAP bureau chief in Canberra, Paul Osborne, wrote on Twitter: “The wire feed to News was formally cut off at 23.59 AEST last Tuesday, after 85 years of continuous flow. And yet we are miraculously seeing full sentences of our copy on news.com.au and photos published without attribution.”

The news.com.au reporter said it was human error and “literal crossed wires. It shouldn’t have happened, I’m sorry it did, and I’m rectifying.”

A spokesman for News Corp told Beast: “It was an error on the part of the reporter who was not across the details and dates of the AAP cut-off. The copy was removed and staff have been reminded that News Corp is no longer serviced by the AAP wire.”

Adani v ABC, round two

Adani and the ABC have had a rocky relationship in recent years, the miner’s public relations arm never missing an opportunity to stymie ABC investigations.

In May last year ABC released FOI requests from the Indian mining giant, which had made several requests for information about ABC journalists covering their projects, including Queensland investigative reporter Josh Robertson and environment reporter Mikey Slezak. The next month Adani spokeswoman Kate Campbell called news boss Gaven Morris directly after being asked questions for a Saturday AM report by reporter Isobel Roe. Roe’s report never ran.

This week Adani tried a new tactic. When investigative business reporter Stephen Long asked questions about a legal dispute in India over a thermal coal-fired power plant, Adani posted a lengthy statement on Twitter.

“Today we received a media inquiry from ABC’s @stephenlongaus who has written a number of stories about Adani. Stephen has often omitted facts provided to him by Adani to create a negative perception of our business. We have decided to share our response to his questions below.”

The story, with Adani’s public post was published on Friday.

News goes low in Dan Andrews attacks

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has never been less popular with News Corp papers than he was this week. The Daily Telegraph reacted to the Victorian shutdown with its usual subtlety, with a giant headline “Mexicans Shut Out”, referring to the state south of the NSW border, and adding an unhelpful racial tone to the coverage. It was followed on Wednesday by an equally negative front page in the Australian, “Dan’s Covid Relapse”, putting the blame for the second spike squarely at the feet of the Labor premier. Andrew Bolt was highly critical too, questioning the need to shut down the state when the coronavirus had “killed just 22 Victorians” compared with 175 people who took their own lives this year.

Sky says channel soaring without Speers

Sky News Australia boss Paul “Boris” Whittaker was talking up his ratings in an interview with the trade press this week, claiming he’d fulfilled his brief to expand the audience for Sky, which he was given when he took over from Angelos Frangopoulos 21 months ago. Whittaker said the audience had grown through running Sky on the Kayo sports channel during the pandemic, a simulcast on iHeartRadio and new subscribers to the Sky News Australia channel on YouTube.

Boris made special mention of how the channel hasn’t missed a beat since the departure of its star presenter David Speers – in fact the ratings had soared.

Speers resigned from Sky News in May 2019 and stepped into Barrie Cassidy’s shoes in February.

“The timeslots that were previously hosted by David have all grown,” Boris told Mediaweek. “Sunday’s Agenda has grown by 14%. That was previously Speers on Sunday. Afternoon Agenda in that timeslot has seen audience increase of 28% between 4pm and 5pm, which was an hour that David did. And the Kenny Report which we moved from midday to 5pm, that’s up 35%.”





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