Vince is the Media Show with Jack Houghton.
Good evening and welcome to the show. I'm Jack Houghton, and tonight my guests are the Australians Darren Davidson and James bolt Off Sky News. Later in the show, we're going to get into a crisis at the ABC. But first, the fallout of Donald Trump's hush money convictions continues and some of the media have been claiming that this is going to be the end of the former president.
But other than his breathless seke of fans whose entire identity is wrapped up in their slavish devotion to the guy, there was no major show of support, no protests, certainly no violence, and that's going to be especially worrisome for Trump, considering his strength is derived from the optics that his supporters will heed his every back and call. Once that illusion is pierced, it becomes clear that Trump's power is built on a house of cards and starting to come down.
And while MSNBC thinks Trump's days are number back here in Australia, our journalists have a different take.
Say they're worried about the leadership in the United States. Whatever the result in November's election. Even before Donald Trump became a convicted felon six in ten, Australians were concerned about him returning to the wine house. According to a new pole commissioned by Q and A, it's a big year for elections India, the UK and of course America, and the results will have implications for the future of democracy itself.
Democracy itself. That does sound serious and where have I heard that kind of rhetoric before.
Arnold Trump wants to destroy not only the city but the country, and eventually he could destroy the world and elections forget about it.
That's over, that's done.
If he gets in I can tell you right now he will never leave.
But surely the media is not just following the lead of crazy actors. The media would never be inflammatory. I mean, this is a serious issue Q and A have just the democracy is on the line. So I look forward to this very serious analysis of that very real.
Threat, because, as Nick said, the media just endlessly obsessed with him.
I never want to hear the words Donald Trump ever.
Again in my life. Yeah, and as someone who is living, Yeah, and it's interesting part of the problem. I am part of the problem. And every time they do it. I think I'm giving this day. Yeah, come on, come on, where is the point?
Where is the point?
But the point is people love me?
Now, bring in the panel, Darren. Thanks for joining us on the show. For Q and A to assert that democracy is on the line and then to transition to some asonine impersonations of Donald Trump. It seems to me like they're not taking their own fears too seriously.
Yeah, I think the well, nobody doubts the sincerity of the jurors in the case. I think many American voterism and a lot of people around the world will conclude that while Trump may be a bit of a cad, it doesn't actually the case. The judgment doesn't disqualify him
from running the White House again. And I think with this legal action, which a lot of people perceive to be a tool for a political agenda on part of the Democrats, what it really does is just open up another kind of destabilizing period in American politics.
Yeah, James, let's bring you in. What do you make for Do you think Donald Trump is a very real threat to democracy? And do you think by publishing an effective impersonation of him, Q and A is going to that.
Ten seconds so well, he's done it.
Yeah, yeah, But like I mean, the whole thing about the American democracy. People do tend to forget that America was literally involved in the Civil War. As to whether or not America can survive four years of Trump presidency, they literally survived the Civil War and they're still in America. So I think those concerns are a bit over the top. But the problem that the freakouts like Q and A have and their sister freakouts over in the US have is that I think it actually fuels Trump's base. In
that twenty sixteen Trump was the outside of candidate. He was there to shake things up, and you know the system that works against you. He's going to come in like a wrecking ball and everything's going to be different. And in twenty twenty you're no longer the outside of candidate. You're the sitting president. And in twenty twenty four you're also the former president. You're not an outsider. Now that there's a legal case against him and all those same
threat to democracy, this is the birth of fascism. We're all worried he becomes the outsider again. Now the phrase convicted fellon Maybe that alienates true true neutrals in Trump v.
Biden.
But if you're a Republican vote and you go, I don't really want to vote for Trump, but then this happens, they are actually out to get us. That is a motivating factor for people to get out and vote for him. So I think freak outs like what we just saw there aren't doing themselves any.
Favors you could have, not playing in the Republican's favor. And it's something interesting from that Q AND episode as well, Patricia Carvella cited the figure of six out of ten Australians are concerned about Trump. You have to wait till halfway through the show before she explained that fifty two percent or five out of ten Australians were worried about Joe Biden taking offers.
So shows as.
Everyone's worried no matter which way it goes either one of them.
That's right.
And the truth of the matter is that what American boaches ready care about is immigration, jobs, economy. Those are the issues that matter. And I think by the time the election comes around this this case will be forgotten about.
Yeah, well said, well, let's move on now to a crisis at nine, which just got a whole lot worse yesterday when cher Peter Costello appeared to shoulder charge a journalist to the ground.
Were you aware of the allegations against mister Wick before he left nine?
Thank you?
Were you aware of those allegations? Mister Costillo? Why won't you support mister sneezebe publicly good to see? Well, you've got to answer the questions, mister Costello. It's great.
You've just assaulted.
You've just assaulted me.
The reporter was the Australians Liam Mendez. And if you think he went too hard in his pursuit of Costello, as I have seen a lot of commentary suggests, keep in mind that Costello is the boss of nine. It's the company which brings us scenes like this one from last week all the time that was.
Anything I'm not here to answer question yep.
From this reaction, it's hard to believe he wanted anything to do with this.
Hands off, hands of hands off.
Costello is a big boy and his reporters play the game just as hard as anyone else. So what did Costello say about the incident? Well, for them, it was all a simple accident.
A reporter walking backwards with his phone filming as I walked past him, he walked back into an advertising placard and he fell over. I did not strike him.
Gee, it must have been a fairly transparent placard because you could not see it on the video, and that's not how multiple witnesses described the event. But whoever you back in this blue, one thing's for sure. It was big news and well done to the Sydney Morning Herald for not shying away from this fact. They ran the story digitally within an hour of the incident and even published this front page in the morning. And interestingly, we couldn't help but notice even the SMH wasn't buying the
chair of their own company's excuse. Costello assaults reporter. Now, those tiny quote marks do little to water down the assertion, and it raises the question if Nine's own publishing arm things Costello likely told a porky. How does the bloke keep his job? Well, Darren sensational story by The Australian. Now linam Mendez is one of your reporters. Can you walk me through what he is saying to you guys about the shoulder charge? Can you give me any of the background, Scoop.
Well, Liam doesn't want the story to be about Liam. Liam wants the story My apologies, Yeah, Liam wants the story wait to be about the story which he was asking some very personal, important questions about serious misconduct allegations that have been leveled by many members of staff at Channel nine, and many of them are female members of staff.
Cassello fronts and chairs a publicly listed company. It's his job to answer those questions, and a Liam was doing his job as a journalist and behaved in a very professional manner. I think it's remarkable that Liam managed to get up from being pushed over, gain his composure and continue to ask very good, important questions. Now there's a good piece actually on this straining his website today by Tim Burrows, the publisher of Our Made and Media Remarking outlet,
And what Tim says is really really interesting. He makes a couple of points. One is he questions Cassello's behavior after the sharp pointing out that he doesn't actually ask how Liam is Lian falls on his back, and that's that's quite a serious that's a serious thing, and that The second thing that Tim makes a point about is that Costello shares a company that every single day asks its journalists to go to put them in harm's way and ask important questions, and he no longer has the
moral authority to do that, and he should resign. I mean, it's pretty clear from that video that he he chugs Liam.
That's very, very very clear.
And as you pointed out, as well as eyewitnesses that can corroborate that as well, Liam was just going about doing his job as a journalist, and hats off to him. It's an important story and the way in which Lim behaved was beyond approach.
You can see Costello's shoulder drop slightly in the moment for impact. That to me is quite telling also the witnesses. But James Darren raises a good point. There was actually a moment in the clip when Liam actually said to Costello, well, you're the head of nine, and your nine reporters do this all the time. There is a bit of hypocrisy, and you know, I think a lot of punters because I've read some commentaries saying, well, the reporter shouldn't have gotten in front of him.
The reporter got on the road.
But that's the game that Costello plays. His media organization operates like that. And now that he's got a bit of a taste of his own medicine, he appeared to lose his cool and allegedly assault this journalist.
Yeah, it's a tough one for me because I'm personally close to some members of the Costello family and also Liam is a friend of the.
Show that I produce here at Sky.
So as to what happened, I'll wait for the CCTV to come out the Australians version of the Separuta film.
We'll go over a frame by frame.
I will acknowledge that if you have to give a second doorstop after your first door stop, the first door stop.
Probably didn't go the way you were wanting it to. So I'll leave that one there.
But the other thing that I'm noticing about this story, and Paul Murray pointed it out in his show last night, is that at the second doorstop, where Costello talks about the incident, no reporter mentions any of the questions that Liam was rightfully asking Peter Costello.
They're all about, you know, did you show the charge, did you strike? What's next?
So if I'm Andrew Giles, for instance, I'm seeing, Okay, this is how I can change the conversation, Like maybe next time he's a depressor. Does he just launch himself with the first journalist knowing that no one's going to follow up with a question about ZD and ees.
All they need to do is just ask them about the shoulder charge.
Yeah, and that's a good point, and you're already touched on this a little bit. But their share price is plummeting. And one of the allegations, which involves Costello and it involves the CEO, Mike Sneezeby, is that shareholder money potentially was paid to Darren Wick. Well, they knew they had all these allegations hanging over his head. Instead of sacking him, they arguably had cause they took shareholder cash and paid
him a sum. We don't know what it is. It's between half a million dollars up to a million by some reports. There is an onus on Costello to explain that to the shareholder.
Surely, absolutely, I mean the numbers being speculated are not insignificant at a time when the share Chentleman knows halved in three years on Sneezebe's watch, So that does take some explaining. They've opened an investigation and that will buy them more time. But I kind of feel instinctively, and it's just my view that that castello will go and eventually sneez people go.
As well, yeah, we'll said, well, there's been shareholder class actions over less over negligence leading to dramatic drop, So we will see what happens, but plenty more to come in the moment. We're going to take a quick break. Welcome back now to the ABC, which is struggling with what seems to be a toxic culture right with bullying and sexual harassment. ABC News staff survey reveals one in four respondents experience bullying, one in ten was sexually harassed
over the past two years. Now blossing over the fact that the ABC journalist who wrote that headline can't even spell the word harassed, which only has one are we should take these findings very seriously, even if the sub editor didn't. Any other statutory body or government department posting these sort of fears would cause an outcry, But for the ABC, criticism is always somewhat stifled.
Now.
According to this report, women are twice as likely to be bullied at the ABC, and the report found that women were reluctant to come forward with complaints after being sexually harassed. So what will happen to clean up the culture in the ABC well managing director David Anderson says the bullies and sexual harasses should leave, but that is yet to be seen. Yeah, well, Darren, this is a
very serious issue. And I make the point that if this happened at another organization there would be some call for an inquiry. But those kind of stats, they speak to a systemic issue, an issue of culture where women aren't feeling confident to step up. And what I didn't see from David Anderson is some kind of resolution for
that issue. And for him to come out and say you will get rid of you if you're not following the rules, that to me doesn't seem to address the core issue that people have not felt comfortable to speak up, presumably because of some sort of retribution.
Absolutely, women have a right to feel safe in a work environment, and this survey has revealed some really staggering, alarming numbers. I was quite shocked when I read the report and went back and read the report again, and this morning when I came in and I learned that we were discussing this topic today, I did some research to find out what actions they were taking as you say, and I kept feeling like I was missing the story or had some incomplete information because there was no inquiry.
There were some statements from the chairman and the managining director condemning that bad behavior in a workplace, but it felt to me and maybe they've corrected this since that wasn't there's no inquiry that there are no remedies actions. What are they doing to make people and particularly female start at the OBC feel safe going forward, and what are they doing to give them the confidence to actually speak up and bring these problems to the attention of senior management.
Yeah, exactly.
And to be fair to the ABC, this is not a problem which is isolated to that newsroom or even newsrooms in general. Every other business is grappling with how to deal with this. But for people watching on to bad behavior in the media, we've had the Channel seven allegations. We've had massages put on company cards, three hundred dollars t bone stakes, you know, prostitutes, arguably that kind of culture. Channel seven, Channel nine, we've had the culture with Darren
Wick allegations. There must be people watching at home saying, God, what on earth are these self righteous journalists doing behind closed doors.
Yeah, the reason that the ABC should be held to a higher account is because these are the people that for years morally lecture us from on high I mean just recently we've been told our a racist country by an ABC journalist. Recently, you know, last year we had the Voice shut down at threats, and stories like this come out and they just show you that their moral certainty, their moral high ground, is built on false foundations.
And I'm reminded by and I'm not.
Comparing this, it's a completely different situation, but I'm reminded when I read Ronan Pharaoh's book on his reporting on the Harvey Weinstein trial, and he talks about what he was hearing from women with completely blanking on the name here. I've got a written down it is Mel Streep. Sorry
for that, but he talks about with Mel Streep. He puts all the stuff he's hearing to Merl Streep and she goes, oh, but he donates to such good causes, And I just go like, isn't that just relevatory of how well, if someone's got the morally correct things on moracally correct.
Views on certain issues, we ignore things about He's one of us. He thinks one of us, so you can give you a pass. I think there is a bit of that as well. I think as well there is a bad trend with companies where they put out this corporate statement acknowledging they have issues, and the acknowledgment they think is enough. You saw it in America with universities saying that they were we acknowledge we have systemically racist ties, and then there was the argument, well then why are
you taxpayer funded? And you could also make that argument here if you have such a systemic issue, and it's great that you're commissioning these reports and putting it out, but if you're finding that we're paying for that, fix it up.
Yeah, absolutely, those should be bringing in an external, independent investigator to have a look into these complaints, and should be.
They're released four out of ten people alleging that being bullied by ABC management and their peers. It's absurd to do anything less. But anyway, let's move on. The Safety Commissioner Julie Evan Grant has been forced into a humiliating retreat from her fight with Elon Musk, granting the billionaire of major victory against her bid to censor the global Internet. Now, we've covered this issue on the show a few times. In my opinion, Grant's overreach was bizarre, illogical, and embarrassing.
The language that she uses is inflammatory and there is an arrogance about this person which delegities her mission.
The battle has been lost.
I made a strategic decision to withdraw here, but.
The e Safety Commissioner warns the fight is just beginning.
Let's face it, the war is going to be much longer and more extended.
The war. Who do you think you are? You are not a soldier. The courts were clearly poised to side against you because it is not your place to decide what content is shown in other countries, they have sovereignty and make up their own minds. And it was strange and suspicious that Grant has done nothing to censor the constant images of war from Ukraine and Gaza which are flooding social media. Her outrage over showing vision of a radicalized Muslim allegedly attacking a preacher did not extend to
other content areas. How much of your money did this full waste taking on this unwinnable legal position, Well, Darren, the main issue that I have with the E Safety Commissioner's approach to this is she was probably never going to win it. The conversation the court centered around jurisdiction and is it fair do we have the power to tell another country can we go, Oh, Lithuania, we don't want you to see this video that originated from Sydney. But also why would we even try to do that?
Why wouldn't we be focusing on what Australians can see?
Yeah, look, I do get that there are legitimate concerns from security agencies about copycat attacks. At the same time, it's probably not an interest of a fair trial for the accused of the unedited footage to be available on the Internet. But with this one, I think what we're seeing really is that the federal governments just tiptoeing around
Muslim extremism. And that's really linked to the fact that there are large numbers of Muslim voters in labor seats, and I think that's really what's going on here in the background.
Yeah, I mean, James, I a cynical part of me would tend to agree as well, because you have images of babies which have been horrifically blast to pieces, which are finding the way into social media and Australians are watching that and it is confronting, and it's far more confronting than that. So where using a selective lens to pick what Australians can see. And it appears to me that the narrative behind it does matter. And so the narrative of the guards and injuries are well, Israel's doing
a bad thing. She's happy for that that narrative to exist, but she's not happy with the narrative of radicalized Islamic terrorists to be shown.
I might add cynicism your cynicism here because I think it was more okay if you're the labor government, if' Julian mcgrint you want power over what people can spread on the internet because you feed this information and you know the public gets a bit queasy with that. But when you have scenes outside the church like we saw, you might have the starting pista to be like, well, I think the whole public we'd never want to see that again. So why don't you just give me the
power to say what videos can go out. I'll take the interest in it, and then no one will be able to see those videos.
And we're we going to see a Wakely Church scene.
Ever again, now that is something that the Australian public could agree with, and that is what I think they were trying to get. So I'm glad that this is gone. I think it was stupid. It was ever brought in, but she says there was not over. I don't think it is because when Albanez he's asked about this, he says about Elon Musk, he's in social media, but he does have a social responsibility in order to have that social license to say that there's a social responsibility to
say that there's a social license. That's not how you speak about a company in a free market. That is how you speak about someone you view as a subject. To say, I'm giving you the license to have Twitter in this country, you have a responsibility to me to prove that you should be able to operate it.
That's the framework he's putting it.
That makes me scared that when this isn't the last we're going to hear from Julian m Grant's about misinformation.
Darren Stories of the Week, what do you have for us?
Sorry from the US, but an NBA player who plays for the Mavericks Dallas Mavericks Luka Donnick. I'm twenty five years old. He sets to earn a billion dollars in his career, more than Lebron James, who's still playing, and Michael Jordan combined. He might earn more this season than
Michael Jordan earned in his entire career. And it just speaks to the power of live television, whether it's news, which you guys do so well, or whether it's sports, And in an age of kind of chord cutters and streamers, that the importance to advertisers and viewers of appointment viewing, whether it's live sport or news, just grows and grows and grows.
Yeah, well, said James, what do you have for us?
Yeah?
And Luca has to win this year because beating the Celtics system moral challenge that all of us need to be a part of.
So I'm glad we're talking about that. My one.
So, John Ross is a Republican congressman. He was giving a speech in Congress today and no one paid any attention to what he was saying, because well, you'll figure it out pretty.
Quickly, regardless of one's opinion of the current Republican nominee. We'd be well served to remember the long and cherished tradition we have in this country of settling our political differences at the ballot box for nearly two and a half centuries.
I thought Anne Ellie was the queen of Question Time reactions, but you might have a new challenge.
Of James Bolt. It's always a pleasure, Darren Davidson, thanks for joining me. That's all we have time for tonight. But up next is a lefties losing it with Rita Panahe