This is the Media Show, with Jack outing Hello and welcome to the Media Show. Tonight, we'll take a look at coverage of the Olympics and an end to damaging strikes at nine plus. Later on we reveal the salary of a key media watch staffer. But first, all eyes are on Paris, with one Australian newsroom forking out hundreds
and millions of dollars for broadcast rights. But the event, which is supposed to showcase the best athletes that humanity has to offer, has been marred by scandal after scandal which has dominated news headlines.
It's the self declared Green Games. But while Paris is being busy spooking its carbon friendly credentials, the push to go green has left many athletes seeing red.
We haven't seen this at Olympic Games before. We haven't had this amount of complaints about a village in Olympic history.
From hard cardboard beds to running out of meat in the athletes village. Parisians are seeking to be more climate friendly, and they've shifted the focus from the app athletes to poor conditions. But how much of it is about so called sustainability and how much is a bunch of cheap beds and bad food a cost cutting initiative. CNBC reports why the Paris Olympics costs so much less than Rio, London or Tokyo. The chief advantage this time can be
summed up in two words. Existing infrastructure. Temporary facilities also played a role in keeping costs down. Now journalists blindly accepting that this was all green initiative are just feeding you pr talking points. Having less meat on order might seem green, but it's actually way cheaper when you have to mass produce food. Make no mistake though, Those processed plant based burgers are horrendously bad for you. It is texturized goo and not something anyone should be eating.
Well.
Joining me this week on the Panels the Australians Darren Davidson and two Double Sea hosts Stephen Senetiero. Well, Darren, let's start with you.
I mean, this.
Whole vegan scandal, this is the one thing that I look at. I just cannot believe that they thought that athletes who are every single calorie, they're counting, every single vitamin that they're watching, they've got very specific diets. What on earth were they thinking?
Yeah, I mean, it's a shame that everything's becoming politicized at the Olympics. They are, as you pointed out, horrendously expensive to host and stage, and they leave cities and economies with these big kind of legacy cost issues after everyone's pat up and gone home. But really everyone should be focusing on the credible, herculean efforts and the amazing feats that we're seeing that you'd hope that would be
the main story. And there's some of these incredible young athletes who have been training so hard for many years. You know, you would really want the focus to be on that, and that's where you know, media companies are investing their dollars and big amatizing and sponsors are investing their dollars, and I think they would hope as well that that's where we're the focus is. It's a shame that this has become the story that it has.
Yeah, and Stephen, I think a lot of journalists are really allowing some of these propaganda points around climate change and green initiatives to bleed into their reporting, because yes, lowering the carbon footprint is one thing, but we know that a lot of companies do this just to save money, and we're letting them, letting them give these athletes poor conditions, but we're putting this kind of this air of nobility.
Around it, making it seem like a moral good thing. What are your.
Thoughts, Well, look, I think you're right, but I will give Paris one will let off here, and that is that nobody else wanted to host these games because they are too expensive. So the fact that France and Paris have actually picked it up and run with it, I
suppose it's a good thing. We still get to see all the athletes, and we're covering the games on our station, so you know, we talk about the sport, but you know there's a lot going on around these games that, as Darren says, is just distracting away from what we should talk about. Obviously, there was something recently, that boxing issue that has distracted away from what should be all about the athletes as well. But look, it's the Olympics. It's a bit of a circus. Paris at the best
of times is a bit of a circus. You put those two things together and I think this is what you get. But I think you've got to remember that the Aussies and this could actually play into our favor because the Australian Olympic Committee has actually sent container loads of our own food over. They've got taco Tuesdays in the Australian village on every Tuesday they've sent over. I think something like three four and twenty pis so our ossie athletes will be fine.
Yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of top chefs that are humiliated with the kind of feedback and headlines that are coming out because it's the culinary capital of the world. I mean they claim they hold themselves up a very high standard. Jack, I'm Italian. Let's be fair and inc Italy is the culinary capital of the world. Yeah, well, you guys love to go head
to head on that. But look, let's stay on the Olympics, but move on to another scandal which has dominated headlines and left view is extremely confused and angry.
Well, this was a moment of history.
It happened earlier today in France, and a major controversy too has now erupted out of Paris. An Algerian boxer shown in the red uniform, who failed a gender eligibility test last year, has now won an opening fight after only forty six seconds, her opponents breaking down in tears, calling it quote unjust.
Algerian boxer Amin Khalif, who has male chromosomes, ended the fight in just forty six seconds. Now that reports the Khalif is inter six as opposed to transgender, and many in the media were scathing at the IOC for allowing the fight to go ahead.
A boxer deemed a biological male beating an Italian female opponent, with the Italian crying out, I couldn't take it anymore. Despite failing that gender test by the International Boxing Association and being banned from an international tournament last year, Algerian twenty five year old Emman Khalif was okayed by Olympic authorities to compete, and apparently today it was a very one sided fight with Italian Angela Karini, also twenty five.
After just forty six seconds and several sharp punches to the head, including the nose by Khalif, Karini abandoned the faith well.
In response to the media reporting, the Algerian Olympic Committee came out swinging. They said, the CoA strongly condemns the unethical targeting and maligning of our steamed athlete Iman Khalif with baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets. Now let's bring the panel back into discuss I mean, this is again another scandal that the Olympics did not need to have. They probably should have figured out that there was going
to be this backlash. It is the when we're talking about men or intersects and the advantage over women in sports. When it's violence, when its actual you know, boxing and fists been thrown, that is when the public really just does not tolerated. But now you've got a situation where media outlets Darren have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to cover the sports and we're not even really talking about the sports anymore.
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean that the investment that media companies and sponsors have made is that is huge, and this is not where they would like, you know, the focus to be. And as we were saying earlier, I'd hope that the focus of the stories and what we were celebrating, these incredible herculeting efforts and the skill and the professionalism and the dedication of the athletes. And you know, Mike m I've got two infants, two and a half and four and a half, and they are obsessed with the
NPX like they are totally obsessed. They're memorized by the gymnastics and things like that. And for me, my reaction when I saw that clip, I mean, it's just absolutely brutal. It's really ugly, and it's quite upsetting to see this boxer on the on the on the canvas, crying about being absolutely pummeled by what looks like may have been an uneven fight that maybe shouldn't have happened. I don't know details whether that's actually been verified or not.
But yeah, the reports are intersex and Stephen, the reports are x y chromosomes, male chromosomes. You can't be a woman and have those chromosomes. That's the main point. Was there an advantage? I mean, to Darren's point, you look at the footage, the force behind the punch, the way that this woman was hitting the face, and then her reaction breaking down in tears as her Olympic dream is put to an end by this placement. It to me does not seem fair.
Well, there's a couple of things that need to be clarified. Angela Careni actually called the fight off herself. She went to her corner and said, I'm not doing this anymore. After forty six seconds and two punches. That was all it took. Because the reality is that this other boxer and look, I'm not blaming the other boxer for this, because the International Olympic Committee's got to take full ownership
and responsibility for what happened to here. But Imman Khalif was actually banned from women's competition by the International Boxing Asation previously. Now, because the IOC has decided to take over boxing and shunt the IBA aside, they've made their own rules up and they put somebody in this fight now. Angela Karini is a two time Italian champion. She's not adverse to getting punched in the face, that's what boxers do.
But she said to her corner in that moment, I have never been punched that hard before in my life. Why because she's fighting against an athlete that has a superior advantage because of levels of testosterone and X Y chromosomes. The reality is she was fighting against somebody that should not have been in the same category as her, and after forty six seconds said I don't want to borrow
this anymore. That's what happened here, and the IOC has got to take full ownership of this, and of course they're skating away saying no, it's all the media's fault. Move along, nothing to see here. Well, when it gets to boxing, now we saw there's two athletes in the Zambian football team who played against the Matildas the other day that have previously banned from previous competition but were allowed to play in the Olympics because of the same issue.
Again sanctioning that. But in this case, we're talking about pugilistic sport. We're talking about marshall sports where somebody can get physically hurt, and that is where you've got to at least draw the line.
That's the point.
But staying on the Olympics, the United States has shot up in the gold medal tally, but at the time we went to air was still trailing behind China. It might be why US media outlets have flipped the metal tally counting method to count total medals equally as opposed to the number of golds.
The Nightly Reports.
The official Olympic website ranks countries on golds rather than totals, but several American outlets, including the country's hosts broadcast to NBC, have opted to rank countries on their total number of medals, one which moves the USA team up into first place and bring the panel back. Now, Stephen, it doesn't get more American than that. If they're not ahead, let's change the metrics by which we're measuring and then go Team USA.
Look, you know my American patriotism.
Don't get me wrong.
I think where I'd like to see it's more like that here in Australia. But this is just typical American bs. I mean, look, they call this, but the Baseball over is the World Series. Nobody else plays in it. You know, whoever wins the NFL that was Super Bowl is the world champions. I mean, look, they kid themselves on every level in America when it comes to this concept of American exceptionalism, and this is just another example.
Look good on them.
If it's only being done in their own media and they can live in their own delusion, so be it, Darren.
Let's bring you in.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that mythology will change again at some point before the end of the games, and one way the other they'll be winning.
But if they're down by total metals, they'll flip. Mexico wouldn't put it past them.
We're going to take a quick break, but when we return, find out how much the ABC pays producers to make just fifteen minutes of television a week.
Welcome back.
There's been an end to strikes which have plagued nine newsrooms and put a dampener on their expensive newspaper coverage. Now keeping in mind that a large contingent of these reporters put down tools while on an all expense paid trip to Paris, it's pretty ungrateful stuff. And while staff appraising as a victory, they only received a tiny bump.
Over three years.
The AFI reports nine entertainment journalists and editors and production staff have voted to approve a new enterprise bargaining deal, ending a six month standoff that culminated in postponed events, diminished news coverage, and the first strike at the mastheads since twenty seventeen. Let's bring the panel back in, Darren.
It was really really bad timing for Nine management that have been dealing Nine as a broader company has obviously been dealing with a lot of scandals separately to this, but then they've forked out hundreds of millions of dollars for the games and staff in Paris have put down tools and just walked away.
Yeah.
Look, to be clear, you know, no one is denying the rights of workers to join a new you and take industrial action. And obviously I worked for one of nine's competitors and this is not an opportunistic swing at them in any way whatsoever. But the timing was awful, like really bad. I mean it kind of showed to come and run at such a time during such a big size ofic news event, showed an unwillingness to negotiate with management and good faith. But the deal that they
actually put on the table wasn't that bad. I think it was about ten point five percent over three years, which is a much better deal than most Australia and.
Now what they're going up to about eleven and a half percent. They've gone through all of that for about an extra one or two percent, Yeah, over three years.
And the original claim was or ask was twenty percent, which is pretty ambitious in this climate. At the moment, CPI running at two to three percent. I mean it's it's I feel for the advertisers. They've pointed out earlier, they've invested so much money.
You're a good managing editor, feeling for the advertisers.
And the readers as well, though more importantly the readers. You know, they're denying them the coverage. They're the exclusive rights holder. They've abandoned their readers, They've abandoned their advertisers. And you know that's not a good thing. Why not wait until after the Olympics?
You know what?
That have really made any difference?
Yeah, it's a good point, Steven. Let's bring you in here.
I mean, the result obviously was a positive result in that they are going to get paid a little bit more money, but not not significantly more money. And they've gone through a lot of pain to do that. They've cost themselves. I think of it as a journalist. I mean, what greater honor is there to go over to another country and cover the Olympics? To me, I just I cannot rationalize why you would forego five days of that and you know, not cover it as well as you
possibly could for one or two percent pay. I can't personally rationalize it.
What do you think, Well, there's a couple of things here.
I imagine that they're thinking, was let's do it during the Olympics, because we've got them. You know, we've got them where we want. We got them, we have to actually give us what we want. Other world, Yeah, you know, so I imagine that's why they picked the timing. But I've got a lot of friends who work at nine Radio who are over there. We're earning considerably less than a lot of the people at nine newspapers, and they are treating this like the greatest.
Honor they've ever experienced.
And they're doing a great job, working ridiculous hours. So they must be looking at their colleagues over in the print. Ar'm thinking, what are you guys thinking? But I've got to the bottom of what it really I reckon They've looked at what ABC journals are being paid and thought, weang on a sec, what are we doing here?
Yeah, well, definitely to get onto that in a little bit. But Darren, in terms of it's a really good point about the other parts of nine. Obviously this only impacted nine newspapers, but there does appear to be a cultural rift, and we saw that the television side of it. You had Karl Stefanovic was in the hotels, Mike Sneezbee is running around with the torch. There appears to be a little bit of a class warfare going on in the company, and it seems to be really hurting. It's leaking out publicly.
Yeah, look, I mean not just for veny different the US. Are there differences. There are lots of journalists. We know this because James Madden Austraining has been editor, has spoken to loads of journalists within the publishing division over the past week and they had just made how this is being handled. So they're not actually even unified within the newspaper publishing division, much less radio and other parts of television,
other parts of the business. But as you said earlier, like I really feel as well, just personally, for those fifteen to twenty journalists that went over there from the papers that were handed the assignment of a lifetime won a privilege and it's for five days, had to sit on their hands and not do anything, and this whole thing for them has been for evertonished by the timing of this industrial action.
Yeah, I would have been a scab personally. I just want have kept on going. But look, let's move on down to the ABC, which recently got to serve from its former chair eid To Buttros, who admitted she thought the broadcaster had a degree of unconscious bias and needed to steal itself against criticism. Now, if you miss those comments, take a listen. Do you think the ABC is delivering with regards to objectivity and impartiality?
I think there is an unconscious bias, and I think it's I think there's no harm in presenting both sides of an argument, and I don't understand the reluctance of some of our interviewers not to do that. We're also always unafraid to call out a news corporation, for instance, who has who have gone after ABC frontline reporters and
presenters pretty hard, including may full disclosure. Is that something that you think is concerning and does it have a sort of chilling, chilling kind of I think quite frankly, I think you're too sensitive about NewsCorp you know. And if we can't take the critics, if the ABC can't take the criticism, well then it just just should give up.
Well, the Media Union was unhappy with the obvious being pointed out. Ida Butcher's has no relevant role at the ABC any longer, and it comments are insulting to journalists who strive for accuracy and partiality as required by the NEAA Code of Ethics every day, and then this great line was published by the Australians. James Madden The Australian asked the Union why it suggested Miss Buttrose, who has worked in the media for more than five decades, was
no longer qualified to discuss industry matters. The MEAA did not reply, Let's bring the panel back in, Steven. Let's go to you first on this. I mean, what are your thoughts.
The breathtaking hypocrisy. Firstly, I've got to quit congratulate Ida for having her come to Jesus moment. One wonders where this attitude was when she was the chair of the ABC and was actually trying to present the same defense that Patricia Carvellis and the meule A are pushing now. But good honor for pointing out what is right now.
The other thing that I.
Would point out that people seem to miss all the time is that and they'll point the finger at news or they point the finger at opinion commentators like myself. I get paid to offer my opinion based on what the news is. Journalists at the ABC, under the ABC's charter are paid to deliver straight down the line journalism and balance, They don't do that. And the other thing people are going to realize is that we the taxpayer pay a billion dollars a year to the ABC to
deliver that charter. Other organizations taxpayers don't have to pay for and you don't have to watch, You don't have to subscribe this guy if you don't want to. You don't have to buy the Sydney Morning Herald or the Daily Telegraph or any of these other newspapers. The ABC you've got to pay for whether you want like it or not, and we should be able to expect a higher standard from them that we don't get. But again, good on Eider for finally waking up to it.
Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, the thing that I take away from this is that resilience. It's so important. And I think what Ida Butchers is she? I don't think she's actually saying the criticism is legitimate.
I think she's just saying, why do you care? And I would challenge anyone from the ABC to go and get a job at News Corp And deal with one ayota of the negative vitriol reporters at this company or this network, deal with They've got no idea, they get a tie it, they get a slightly negative tweet after an interview Darren, and then they just they lose their minds.
Yeah.
Look, the ABC charter actually demands the journalists and the output is impartial, and it seems like they won't really accept that, or they're unwilling to accept that. I think, you know, as you pointed out as well. Eight she left in March as a chair of placed by Kim Williams, and it was really ad mission that she's failed to
deal with this entrenched culture there. But the bottom line is that other media companies have a responsibility to hold the ABC to account because it's publicly funded by the taxpayer, whether they consume the products or not.
And it's such a good point.
If there's inefficiencies of the Department of Health, you're going to write about it. Any statutory body should be probed.
Yeah, when we were all free to you judge it on its performance, and we will and we'll continue to do that.
Yeah, well said, Well, let's move on now, because the ABC is always crying poor and now we know why media watches a weekly fifteen minute show which spends about eighty percent of its time running grabs from our network when it disagrees with the arguments. The ABC website has eight people listed as working on the program, including an EP, the presenter, supervising producer, a story editor, a director to
digital producers, and of course a journalist. And today we've got to look at how much at least one of these people are paid. ABC Careers is looking for a new EP, and the base salary is one hundred and
seventy five one thousand dollars. Let's bring the panel back in, Steven, keep in mind that is that is the base salary, and ABC journalists do get paid a bit of a premium with their super as well, and god knows what other benefits are one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars for just one of those eight positions fifteen minutes of television. Is that a good deal for taxpayers?
Jack, I just want to inform you, and I'm apologize for this, but this will be the last time I appear on your program because I'm going to go and work at the ABC. My car pass up this opportunity. Just there's a couple of things I want to point out. If I'm just read from the actual ad, we are looking for someone with exceptional journalistic talent and creative flair who will help create the next chapter of media watch a story in history. Well, at least after forty years,
they're going to try. But the other thing I got here was we're looking for someone with a track work ord and leading and managing teams of journalists and content makers, fine ability to manage oversea and drive high stake stories. Well, I don't know how high stakes you can get in fifteen minutes, and somebody with independence, integrity and grace, that'll dead, said doom Jack.
Seriously, Well said Darren. Your thoughts.
Well, look, you know Kim Williams. Recently the ABC chair asked for an increase in funding to renew you know, particularly radio, which is really struggling at the moment. And I think through the lens of that this doesn't really strengthen his case, does it. It's they look like they've.
Got remember this next time they ask for more money. Darren Steven, thank you so much for joining us. That's all the time we had for tonight.
Thank you. Next is Flefty is losing it.