Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers this week revealed the former Liberal staffer did not have a secret financial backer and that they worked on a no win, no fee basis.
But there is someone who has been vocal in her bid to raise funds for Lehrmann who she claims is a victim who has “suffered immense, likely lifelong damage to his reputation”. It is so-called men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt, who has written a book titled #MenToo.
Arndt admitted seeking funds for Lehrmann in the past but says she has not contributed towards legal costs.
We saw an email Arndt sent to supporters last year saying she had raised $30,000 but pleading for more cash, as well as accommodation, a scholarship and “a new friendship network” in Sydney: “He’d love an occasional game of golf … and other opportunities for some discrete socialising.”
Arndt told Weekly Beast: “I have never had anything to do with raising money for Bruce Lehrmann’s legal actions, current or future, including the possible appeal of the defamation case.
“I was part of a group of people who attempted to raise money for basic living expenses for Bruce Lehrmann last year after the criminal court case ended. He was then broke and trying to study law with no prospects of earning any income (due to his notoriety after his trial by media).”
Lehrmann cancelled his headline speaking role at Arndt’s “Restoring the Presumption of Innocence” conference, which has been rescheduled to August, after what Arndt describes as “hostile media attacks”.
Promoting the conference, Arndt described Lehrmann as the “poster boy for trial by media” who had “endured years of having his reputation trashed”.
The hardest word
We are pleased to report that Peter Stefanovic apologised on-air this week, as well as admitting he never should have asked Keegan Payne about an incident when he was a young teenager. The live interview on Sky News Australia was a humiliating experience for the Indigenous teenager who won a $1m fishing competition and the backlash against Stefanovic was fierce.
The network did issue a written apology on Friday but this week the host went further.
“An apology from me,” Stefanovic said on his First Edition program. “Last Wednesday we invited Keegan Payne on to our show to discuss his win in the Million Dollar Fish competition in the Northern Territory. During that interview I asked him about a theft that had occurred several years earlier. I should not have asked him about those claims and I regret doing so … I apologise sincerely to Keegan and his family.”
Unfiltered horror
One of the most powerful pieces written about the Westfield Bondi Junction attack was by Elizabeth Young, the mother of Jade Young, who was killed in the rampage.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Young took aim at the mainstream media and social media for the way her family found out Jade had been killed: “in uncensored vision being played on a mainstream TV news feed”.
The footage had been shared on social media and picked up by multiple news media programs.
“Those who run social media platforms are remote from the pain inflicted by their uploads and the dystopia they have helped create,” she wrote. “It is the victims who bear the cost … Have we become a nation of voyeurs fed by powerful uncontrolled media?”
The ABC’s news channel is one outlet which has stepped up and taken responsibility for inadvertently broadcasting the images.
“We acknowledge those images were graphic and inappropriate,” the ABC said. “ABC News is deeply sorry about that. A decision had been made to either blur images like those, or not broadcast them at all. Unfortunately, in this instance, that process failed and the videos were shown before they were blurred.
“It was an error of judgment for which we take full responsibility. The ABC apologises to Jade’s family and to anyone else who was distressed by the images.”
Nine and Seven have confirmed they did not broadcast any images that were not blurred.
ABC defends ‘second rate’ coverage
Still on the ABC and the Westfield Bondi Junction attack, Media Watch delivered a savage blow to ABC News this week for its handling of the breaking news story on the Saturday afternoon.
Host Paul Barry said the public broadcaster has a dedicated news channel but was slow to respond to the emergency and had a sole reporter, Lia Harris, on the scene reporting live and doing a news package for the 7pm bulletin.
We look at how TV networks covered the Sydney Westfield stabbing and ask why the ABC’s News Channel was off the pace. pic.twitter.com/O0TSWpoxb2
— Media Watch (@ABCmediawatch) May 7, 2024
The lack of firepower on the ground meant Aunty missed out on “powerful and tragic eyewitness accounts” like the one on Nine from the man who helped a mother, Ash Good, and her baby who had both been stabbed, he said.
The ABC defended its coverage internally as “well executed” and “superb”.
As justified as the criticism may be, it is like catnip for the ABC’s critics at News Corp.
“Media Watch host Paul Barry has excoriated the ABC’s coverage of last month’s fatal knife attacks at Bondi Junction, describing its breaking news broadcast on the afternoon of April 13 as ‘pathetic’ and ‘second rate’, while questioning the relevance of the media organisation’s dedicated news channel,” the Australian gleefully reported.
Google it
News Corp revealed at its third-quarter results this week that it has extended its “lucrative” existing partnership with Google in which the platform pays the company for its content under the news media bargaining code.
The Australian reported the company’s chief financial officer, Susan Panuccio, said “the financials were consistent” with the previous partnership, which was signed in 2021.
Under that deal, Google agreed to a multi-year partnership in which the search engine would pay for journalism from news sites around the world, including the Wall Street Journal, the Times and the Australian.
Guardian Australia also has a partnership with Google.
SMH friendly fire
The squabbling between columnists at the Sydney Morning Herald continues apace. Peter FitzSimons hit back at chief sports writer Andrew Webster this week after he bagged a column by FitzSimons about moves to prevent head impacts in NRL.
Fitz said he was “as staggered by his piece as I was that the Herald ran it in the first place, and under such a headline, but there you go”.
“New regime, and all that. In my 38 years at this beloved paper, I don’t recall such criticism from one colleague on another being published – only occasionally clashing columns where we have had divergent views on ideas.”
We asked the SMH why they were allowing the unseemly behaviour but we never heard back.
Michael Rennie’s next move
ABC viewers and his own colleagues were sad when Brisbane reporter Michael Rennie announced he was leaving the network after more than a decade of reporting the news from Queensland on ABC News Breakfast.
But this week Rennie’s future was revealed when NITV announced he will be the presenter and senior producer for NITV News, adding a regular Queensland-based presenter to the Indigenous news and current affairs team.
The Yorta Yorta and Gunditjmara man and mad sports fan will present weekly NITV News bulletins.
Something to shout about
The ABC’s chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, believes the public broadcaster should go out on the front foot and shout about its great content.
“Unfortunately we do get a fair bit of criticism in the media and we don’t come out and celebrate the wins,” Oliver-Taylor told Weekly Beast before announcing 10 new shows this week. “I really want to change that dialogue because – despite very fair criticism of the ABC which always needs to be there – it is everyone’s ABC and we are all paying for it.”
EXCITING NEWS! Brand new Hard Quiz Kids will be coming to brand new channel ABC Family soon! pic.twitter.com/xu2iWZdVrW
— Tom Gleeson (@nonstoptom) May 9, 2024
One of the offerings Oliver-Taylor is most excited about is The Assembly, a local adaptation of a French format. Presented by Leigh Sales, who stepped down from hosting 7.30 18 months ago and has been presenting Australian Story, it follows a group of autistic student journalists learning the craft and preparing to interview the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, among others.
“I do think a strong ABC is really important,” Oliver-Taylor says. “And I think most people agree with that even if we do end up challenging other commercial ventures. I just think a strong ABC for creativity is really important and we are going really well.”