Vice is the Media Show, with Jack outing Hello and welcome to the Media Show. Tonight we have the fallout from the federal election, and later on in the show we discuss CNN sitting down with cartel members in a wild attempt to humanize them. But first to the hush money scandal engulfing the Nine network amid revelations of witness and the Ben Roberts Smith defamation case, was paid seven hundred thousand dollars to stop her for publicly accusing Nine
of having access to the soldier's privileged legal strategy. Now Shari Markson, who broke the story, also aired this development on Wednesday.
Nine paid seven hundred thousand dollars hush money to silence a witness who threatened to telecot judge that the media company had been given unauthorized access to Ben Roberts Smith's emails during the war crimes trial. Well, tonight I can reveal that reported Nick mackenzie told this Weekness that she was causing him anxiety and he said he had to cut her off. This is a woman nineclaimed had been a victim of domestic violence, and they pressed her to testify for them against Robert Smith.
And Somehow, this gets even stranger when you read Mackenzie's letter to the witness.
In a formal letter that we've obtained, Mackenzie said he wasn't trying a victim blame, but said that her trauma had caused him anxiety. He wrote, I also want to explain why I no longer have contact with you due to the deep distress you suffered. You contacted me very often for a long time. I saw it as my job to try to manage your stress and trauma. It was very challenging. There were times I was so worried I notified your husband of concerns you might self harm.
In time, I began to seek help about how to manage dealing with a victim survive. I'm not blaming you for a moment. I'm just explaining that it began to take a significant.
Toll on me.
Well, none of this is a great look for Nick McKenzie, whose ethics and cavalier methods of dealing with sources have
been called into question during this sordid saga. Now, working a contact and building trust is one thing, but for nine to pay her to hide pertinent information is completely unacceptable, and this goes far beyond McKenzie because Nine won't answer questions on this, and they won't say who authorized the payment, whether the board knew, and whether the newly minted Channel nine chair Catherine West had personally signed off on the
extremely large payment. For Nine to dodge questions on this is unethical and for an organization which sends people tough questions every single day, it is very problematic. Now Channel seven had the same thoughts, so they sent cameras to ask West in person, which created this damaging scene.
So far, the chair of the nation's biggest media company, Nine Entertainments, Catherine West, continues to dodge the media.
Did you sign off on the seven hundred thousand hush money payments?
And it's clear now silence is nine strategy.
Why would anyone respect this organization enough to answer questions from them?
Ever?
Again, the cowardly chair is completely in over her head and nine's large collection of newspapers and TV channels have run dead on this story. No mention that we could see of the hush money payment, and no coverage of an incompetent chair hiding from cameras and refusing to answer any questions. Now, keep in mind the City Morning Herald and the Age carry the OsO arrogant slogan independent always.
Well.
Joining me this week to discuss is managing editor at The Australian, Darren Davidson and two Double C host Stephen Senateempo. Thanks for joining me, gentlemen. Well Darren, why don't we start with you? Quite an incredible story and Shari Markson has done some brilliant, quite ferocious reporting on this Channel Nine seems to have an issue with its chairs when there's scrutiny, dodging some of those questions, and I know your newspaper has had a bit of history with that.
We certainly have. This is I mean, it's turned into Australia's most expensive defamation trial and it's not journalism. It looks like it's you know, corporate crisis style management dressed up as kind of check book journalism.
Great story by Shari.
Well done to Shari for breaking this story. A very significant development. It's very embarrassing for nine. As you've said, they claim nitorial independence, but this kind of think sort of kind of legal interference and you know, allegedly it looks like they try to sort of rig this in the background somehow, I think The other point I would make is you mentioned there that the coverage from Channel nine has been a bit muted. I would probably say
the same about the ABC. They haven't covered this, in my opinion, in the way that they probably should, And had this been Sky News or News Court, they would have been calling for a royal commission by lunchtime. And so it's but it's a very different approach when it's Channel nine for some reason.
Yeah, it's a good point, Steven.
Let's bring you in very awkward scenes I think for Kaftra and West when she's come out of her house and you know, for the record, this is something that her network does quite often. So my opinion fairs fair. If you're going to be the chair of that organization and you've got those kind of current affairs shows doing the same sort of thing. It's awfully different when you're on the other side of those cameras, though, isn't it.
Yeah it is.
Look, I'm on the record of saying I don't like this kind of journalism. I don't like the chasing people down the street stuff. I don't like it in Channel nine. I don't like it when people do to them. But you're right, you know if the shoe fits, wear it, But this is just a bad look in general. I mean, at what point do we get back to the stage where journalists tell the story in front of them, not the story they want to tell. Now, it's all well and good some of us, and I'm one of these people.
My job is to tell people what I think about the news. But if you're going to report news, then report it straight down the line. Don't try and create a story around something that you've decided has to be delivered to the general public. Because that's what this sounds like now.
It's just the way the.
Media has treated some of our military personnel in recent years has been nothing short of appalling. And if Ben Robert Smith has done something wrong and has a case to answer, so be it.
But that's to be played out.
In criminal courts, not in the court of public opinion based on what a particular journalist or a particular news outlet wants to push as the agenda. And that's what really annoys me about this.
Yeah, and I guess the other side to it as well, Darren, is it's not even just you know, telling one side of the story, it's paying someone so that one side of the story doesn't surface, and that brings a whole other ethical Now, yes, there is the legal implications, because I think the court probably would want to know that they allegedly had access to, or had the potential to
access the Ben Roberts Smith legal legally privileged strategy. But then to pay someone so that that can't become public, that's a whole different game.
Totally agree.
It really does stink, and there are some big serious questions now that need to be answered by Channel nine.
I mean, he signed off on that payment, who authorized it, and as you said at the beginning of the segment, I mean the char of Channel nine, Catherine West, she really does need to suffront this up and answer some big tough questions on this because the public and the Channel nine viewers and the Channel nine newspaper readers and subscribers that pay for that newspaper deserve to know completely.
And it's one of those things it's how could she not have known? If she didn't, and if she did know, what's the explanation, what is the shareholder obligation there to talking about this sort of thing. But moving on now to the election fallout, which has become the ultimate Russhack test, where so called experts see exactly what they want to in the labor win. For labor loyalists, the thirty four percent primary was seen as a validation that they had won the culture wars.
And from the oldest continuing civilization on that planet. And I acknowledge the traditional owners, and I.
Acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we make, and I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging today.
And every day and on seven.
It was Dutton's alleged links to Donald Trump that killed his political career.
Links to Donald Trump cost him not only the federal election but his own seat.
And for some wet blanket and the Liberal Party, the fault was with this network labeling us a puritanical litmus test.
A couple of former colleagues of mine say, you just get what's on sky after dark quoted at you at branch meetings.
Why aren't you doing this?
So and so in certain name of commentator says we're not being hardline enough on ABC or D And the Liberal Party is going to have to learn that is not representative of where the electorate is and following down that path will not lead you to will not lead the Liberal Party to electoral success.
Maybe, but I think right now that out network, which reaches millions and millions of Australians every single month, is a tad more representative of Australia than your dying political party, Scott Ryan. And the mistake that Scott Ryan makes is a common one. Journalists are not there to sycophantically support political parties. I'm proud of the fact that we point out policy absurdities within the opposition which made it an
impotent nothing option to voters. And I'd challenge Ryan or any expert to name these so called right wing policies that Sky News forced the Liberals to take to the election.
Mean.
Was it slightly cheaper petrol is filling up your car now an activityological resistance? Was it right wing to propose giving a one off, one two hundred dollars tax offset to low and middlecome income earners, or was it the proposition that Australian should pay a higher personal income tax now? None of those headline policies seem inherently conservative or right wing to me, and you can see how absurd this whole debate has truly become. People see in it what
they want to see. And it is hilarious that anyone at the Liberal Party would blame the media for their humiliating loss when this is the sort of advertising they were running at the time.
Please vote for.
Me, screamed Dame bard Albanesi in a desperate attempt Clutcher dub in the last four days of the Fortnite election. Despite his best efforts to cap his way to victory, the players in the lobby knew his time was for the last three seasons of an easy at promised the cheaper item shop, but the price for the battle pass kept rising and causing many players to crash out. The rage continue this album as he hosted a mini event on the island where he spent four hundred and fifty
million taxpayer v bucks on a voice referendum. And now with the storm closing in, the choice is clear, a capping default or duntan who will clutch up and get the dub for ossis.
Well.
As I said last week, if you publish that sort of garbage, you deserve to lose everything. And it has absolutely nothing to do with ideology. Well, Steven, let's bring you in here, really interesting debate. I think that's breaking out in the media, and I use example of a rawshacked test because what I'm seeing is everybody, for their own game, is dissecting this loss with the prone spin for their own narrative. So the left is looking at it through the prism of how the left does, and
then conservatives are looking at it through that lens. But in reality, it was just a poorly run election and the advertising was terrible. There's all these other features that I think the media is missing.
What's your take, though, Yeah, I think you're right.
Well, look, there's a bit to unpack at her that the media is no doubt complicit in some of the way this election campaign went. But you can only, as I was talking about with the Channel nine story, you
can only report what's in front of you. And when you talk about I think we're going to stop using the words conservative and progressive altogether because it's pretty clear nobody understands what they mean anymore, and particularly people on the conservative side who think they're conservative and they're not. They're a right lunatics in a lot of cases. But the reality is that what went wrong here was the Liberal Party didn't have a platform and they didn't prosecute
what little platform they did have. And then when the Labor Party came out and used a scare campaigneries of lies, they didn't call them out. And speaking of blaming the media, here, I saw David Little proud do that saying, well, why aren't you calling out the lies? And my question is why aren't you calling out the lies? You know, at some point somebody's got to take responsibility for their own actions, and whether that's us in the media or the politicians themselves,
we're all responsible for our own actions. So look, it's a very very big problem. Yes, the media is part of the problem. Yes, some people on Sky are part of the problem. I'm happy to admit that too. But at the end of the day, as you say, and look, and I don't buy into the liberal parties dying. I think the pendulum will swing back the other way because Labor only got thirty four percent of the primary vote.
And I was only looking at the seat count earlier this morning, and there's probably twenty six seats that are in striking distance at the next election. Now that's not enough to get the coalition back into power, but it's
going to make it a very very different situation. But we need to start calling out talking about facts rather than just trying to push our own, whether they're ideological, philosophical, or per and the legenders, because that's what's happened all the way through this campaign, not only from media commentators but also from the politicians themselves about how bad they handled their own part of the problem.
Yeah, and look, I guess when I say that it's dying, I'm saying it's dead for three to six years, and it is dead. They can't do anything, they can't block anything. They're going to have to rethink their policy platform.
Darren.
One of the points that I find it hilarious, you know, the likes of you know, Amy Ramikus, who's now kind of a lobbyist in her own way writing for the new Daily blaming Sky News. I'm struggling to figure out what these evil right wing policies are that Dutton took to the election.
I can't think of one.
I can maybe see some credence in nuclear but if you look globally, that doesn't seem to be an ideological issue. It just seems to be a mechanical and engineering issue. Can you think of anything that these journalists are correct in that it was this left v right contest.
No, look, I agree with what you've said there. I sort of slightly agree with disagree with Steve and I you didn't come up with those rubbish policies around tax and fuel that the Liberals were running that failed to gain any traction. I think Stephen is right about the seats. I mean they were helped by the Greens as well and the collapse of that party Labor. I think the Trump factor is massively overstated. Personally, I think the Liberals
campaign was badly conceived, badly executed. I don't think Labour did win the culture War. I think the Liberals just failed to kind of contest it with any real conviction and stay true to their values and the broad Church. As Paul Kelly wrote in The Australian this week, brilliant piece and brilliant video as well, if if you've got
a moment to watch that. I think he summed it up quite well and ultimately Labor didn't you know, their campaign was scarcely brilliant and Alberniz he has hardly got the charisma of Bob Porp, So you know, I think there's a lot of post Wartem stuff going on here. That's not quite right, but I certainly don't believe that
made the media is to blame. It's funny how it's you know, the failing MPs always blame the media and not themselves, and I think pine Lange media did pretty good job of covering what was a challenging election and at times a slightly uninspired election as well.
Yeah, well hang on, can I got to cut in there because I mean we saw, you know, questions asked of the Prime Minister about his football team, about it, you know, whether or how much Veggie might he puts on his toast, these kind of things. The media is complicit in that when there were fair income questions that needed to be asked, there was a lot of very very soft press conferences that the Prime Minister got to stand in front of. Peter Dutton didn't get that same opportunity.
So in that case, we do need to we need to take a look at a hard look at ourselves for not calling out a lot of this stuff when it happened.
Stephen Darren, thank you so much for your time and your insights. I really appreciate it. We're going to take a quick break, but up next, Bernie Sanders defends his use of a private jet to campaign against the rich and see and then sits down with the Mexican cartel in a wild interview. Welcome to Stars and Gripes, and Joe Biden is back in the media, this time sitting down with the BBC to remind the world just how successful he was.
Did you leave it too late? Should you have withdrawn earlier? Given someone else a big a job?
I don't think it would have mattered and become so successful our agenda. It was hard to say now I'm going to stop now. Things move so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away ticket. And it was a.
It was a hard decision, but regrets.
No.
I think it was the right decision. I think that the well, it was just a difficult decision.
Biden struggled in this interview, but I genuinely believe he thinks the campaign was going well up until that infamous debate. That's because journalists and his own team told him it was going well. There was a collective lie being told, and it didn't disappear until these journalists realized it was no longer advantageous to lie, and that must really have confused Biden. When the entire machine turned on him overnight. Well, joining me now for more on this is author and
commentator Shamika. Michelle Shamika, thank you so much for joining me for your first time on this show. Really interesting interview with the BBC, and obviously we saw the same hallmarks of a Joe Biden who was a bit sluggish and not quite there. But as we played in that clip, the thing that was really interesting was that he seemed to think everything was going well up until it wasn't.
Yes, it was hilarious, by the way, thanks for having me on. I thought it was hilarious when he said it was hard to walk away. Well, we know it was hard for him to walk away because we saw how much he fell. You know, I think that Joe Biden should really just take this time out to retire. The fact that he actually believes things were going well at any point just shows us that he's not quite with us.
He's not completely.
There, and it's really sad that they're continuing to put him in front of the camera. Listen, He's served his time. He was in political office for decades. It's time for him to just rest and relax and stop having to go through the daily grind of being the so called, you know, former president. It's time for Joe to relax because this isn't looking good. A lot of us here believe that his wife is behind all of this, doctor Gill Biden, and she constantly keeps putting him in front of the camera.
It is not a good look.
And we saw exactly what happened on the stage when he had to debate Trump, and they could no longer hide it anymore. They continue to try and lie to the American people until they just couldn't lie.
Anymore, well said.
Moving on Champagne, socialist Bernie Sanders has given an awkward interview to Fox News. Now he's doing this stunt called fighting Oligaky, which is essentially him flying around America on a private jet to protest to the rich and what he calls the corporate oligaky.
Whence the last time you saw Donald Trump during a campaign mode at National Airport?
No, no, no, it doesn't. But he's also not fighting the oligarchy.
No.
And you run a campaign and you do three or four or five rallies in a week, the only way you can go around to talk to thirty thousand people, think I'm going to be sitting on a wedding line at United waiting. You know what, thirty thousand people are waiting. That's the only way you can get around. No apologies for that. That's what campaign travel is about. We've done it in the past, We're going to do it in the future.
So Bernie, man of the People, thinks he is too special to sit in line at an airport. Now he says this with a straight face. Now this stuff isn't cheap. And don't even get me started on the climate change talking points these people spew when they're willing to do this. But in the first quarter of the year, Bernie's campaign spent more than two hundred and twenty one thousand dollars
on private jet travel. Let's bring Shamikha back in. Now, this is I mean that figure, two hundred and twenty one thousand dollars for somebody who's taking on the oligarchy and the rich and the you know, the whatever he wants to call his kind of propaganda tour. The thing that was really telling for me in that in that interview was that he just sees it so beneath him to travel domestically, to travel the normal way that everyone
else has to travel. He just scenes that's so far beneath him from a class perspective.
Yeah, it's clear that the only person Bernie Sanders has ever lifted out of poverty was himself spending that.
Type of money. And we're only in May.
That is absolutely ridiculous, And it's He's funny to me because he reminds me. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Muppet Show, but he reminds me of the characters Statler and Waldorf. It's like they come to life, and we're so over Bernie Sanders. He's another one that it's time for him to retire. I don't understand why these people stay in position until they absolutely just can't do any other thing.
He's another one that.
Needs to just clock out and go enjoy his retirement.
I love Howard's defense is, well, Donald Trump did it, so therefore be able to do it, which seems like that should be against his whole talking point. But moving on, MSNBC is regularly featured on this program for some of the ridiculous content that it puts to air, but this week they broadcast an absolute shoka.
What do you make of that?
That he's just been a little less visible than I think a lot of people Trump observers expected he would be.
Yeah.
Well, reportedly he's been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building, and there are reports that daily briefings to him have been changed from every day to maybe twice weekly.
Frankfurt Glusey was on that morning during this hour discussing the work of administration officials.
At the end of that.
Segment, for Glucy said that FBI Director Cash Bettel has reportedly been more visible at nightclubs than at his office at FBI headquarters.
This was a misstatement. We have not verified that claim. We will be right back.
Well, the slur by former FBIS system director should have been pushed back on hard immediately, and in my opinion, the vague disclaim a backstep after the fact was insufficient when you have no evidence to back up the assertion. Now, Schmikh, let's get your opinion on this, because yes, television is particularly live television.
It's fast and you're moving quickly.
But I feel the most networks if there was an allegation that basically somebody's a drunk at a nightclub and they're not rocking up to work. And that person is the FBI, the head of the FBI. You would think that a journalist would challenge that, but at MSNBC, they just they let these people just go on with these slurs.
This is why Trump referred to them as ms DNC because we know that they only work for the Democrat. This is what they do, and they get on TV every chance they get and just tell things that are not true, and we will never see them push back.
And of course it's always easier.
To come back and say, oh, you know, this wasn't true or this wasn't verified, because the lie has already.
Gotten out there and people are running with it.
They're not going to come back to say, oh, let's see if ms d n C retracted their statement.
That just usually doesn't happen.
But this, this is who they are, this is the network.
Well, moving on, because there was an extraordinary moment of television which went to air on CNN, which is being described as an attempt to humanize the cartel.
According to the Trump administration, you are a terrorist. The cartils have been labeled foreign terrorist organization.
What do you make of that.
What's your message to Donald Trump if he's watching.
This, sais coming, Shamika.
Everybody is always thinking about these families ravaged by drugs, but no one is thinking about the poor cartel members. No one's thinking that they too have to wait. It's seeing an entre winner here.
This was the wildest thing I have ever seen. I can't believe that someone would want to own Trump so bad that they would stoop to such low levels.
I was actually shocked. Even for CNN.
This was really bad television and I'm appalled and.
I can't believe this. This is where we are that.
People hate Trump so much that they would do something like this to to try and bring empathy or sympathy for a drug cartel.
This is low even for CNN.
Yeah, really weird stuff now, Shamikha Michelle, thank you so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
We're going to take a quick break, but when we return, we speak to Jared Henderson about some new appointments the ABC. Welcome back and joining me as he does each and every week as Sky News Australia's media watchdog columnists. Jared Henderson, Jared, thank you so much, pleasure joining us. Now there's been some developments at the ABC and there's been some high profile movements.
Tell me a little bit about Laura Tingle.
Well, Laura Tingle announced the other day that she's stepping down from their role at seven thirty. And she did become Global Affairs Editor, which is a terrific job because you can travel large parts of the world. She won't be overseas all the time. She'll be ABC's a fair bit of the time. Great perks, big a big job. But in a sense, I mean, has she earned it. I mean, it's not so long ago that she was
counseled by ABC management for calling Australia racist country. She's on record as having said that the Coalition government under Scott Morrison was into ideological bastardree. So if you behave unprofessionally and she's also on the ABC board, but if you behave unprofessionally like that and you get canceled, you get a big promotion.
I forgot that she was also on the board, but.
Also with John Lyon to see because he was criticized by a former ABC board member for his for his reporting on Israel and his hostility to part large parts of the Jewish community in Australia, So what happened. He was then Global Affairs editor, but they probably wanted to get him away from Israel, so then he went off
to Washington as Editor Americas. So the two very senior journalists at the ABC who have been causing management problems have got substantial promotions and great gigs overseas for a large part of the year.
And I just kind of help but think that surely has to be somebody that's better qualified than somebody that was reprimanded only twelve months ago.
And there are a lot of young people who give a go to as well. I mean, Laura Ting's been around for a long time. John Lyons has been around for a long time. The ABC's always banging on about giving young people to go even in comedy, for example, but they never do. I mean some of their comedians are sort of sort of heading towards Methusel's age, you know. I mean, I shouldn't talk, but then I'm not employed by the ABC, you see.
Yeah, I don't think they would be considering us for the role. Now you've got another one for us. Sarah ferguson interviewing just into Nepuchin for price. Now let's have a listen to the grab.
Peter Dutton tonight has lost his seat with your embrace of Donald Trump make Australia great again. Are you part of the reason for that loss?
Oh that's a big call, don't you think. I mean, you sling enough mud in an election, it sticks. And we did see a prime minister who absolutely misled the Australian people all the way through and was rarely called out for his conduct. And I think that's absolutely deceitful.
Let's just talk about this. Let's just talk about this seriously. At a time when Donald Trump was sending shop.
I'm around your worst seriously you.
Well, it's not a smear campaign. I just want I want you to address him seriously, dissenter at the time that Donald Trump was sending shock waves around the world disturbing, so disturbing.
Don't think if you don't think that I'm if you don't think that I'm addressing this seriously, I am addressing this deadly seriously.
Now that is extraordinary.
Well, when Michael Suker was on and we discussed it here with Sarah Ferguson, she said to him, when you did one interjection to Clara O'Neil. She said to him, what would your mother say? So you wonder looking at that, The first thing I thought was what would Sarah Ferguson's late mother say? I mean, what what what would she says? But so there's one test. I mean, there's a mother test for someone that you don't particularly like, like Michael Suka.
And there's another, but it doesn't apply with disinenterprises.
Dog get anger to it as well.
And I think you can have a disagreement and have it, you know, professionally, and be courtious with it. But she's really no, you answer this story. I mean she is answering, just not in the exact way that Sarah Ferguson wants it.
And what she's saying, which is the Senator Price picked it up. What she's saying is the Senator Price isn't serious. Now, whatever you say about Senator Price, she's certainly serious. But to Sarah Ferguson, because she doesn't agree with her, therefore she can't be serious. So she interrupts her and tell it, tells her to get serious.
I mean, really, they're also the editorial assertions. They're observations that Sarah's making she's not reporting or having a conversation. She is asserting to her, and she's not asserting to her with the hypothetical of someone else's perspective. She stated that she was pro Donald Trump and then asked her to explain why that had cost the coalition the election.
And there's no evidence that it did. I mean, the many other factors. But even today on ABC online, they're calling Senator Price for Us a firebrand. Now that's an opinion. There's not a fact. She has a title, she's a senator, she has a first name and a second name. They call her a firebrand. You know.
Yeah, Well that's incredibly inappropriate as well, and that is going to hurt the ABC if they don't.
Fix that sort. So I have to fix it.
That's something that chu Mars is going to have to come in there and look at and say that it's not a professional way to conduct it. Now, David mar calls a younger man rather aged.
Should we have a listen to this.
Grace, Well, they do tend to be white men, and they do tend to be rather aged, but some of them can write terrific rhetoric. Laura, and you mustn't you mustn't disparage them for that. I mean, there was Alexander Dhana condemning the fantasy of changing the weather.
Unpacked this one for me, Jared Well, David Marr's four years older than Alexander Downer. There's David Maher, with the support of Laura Tingle, worrying about people who are rather aged on his program I reckon The average age on that program that night among Laura Tingle, Nicki Saba, David Mara. It was a sort of a left wing hangout group and Nola Green with each other. The average age was seventy four. But we don't actually know Nikki Saba's age
because it's apparently is a state secret. But I first met her in Parliament House in January nineteen seventy six, which would give you some idea. She was a journalist then, so she's not particularly young. So there's David mah banging on about people at a certain age and suggesting a negative way, in a negative way, and sort of laughing the saying that talking about climate change in a negative way to Darner, But he didn't sort of notice that he's older than him.
Perhaps he's only as old as he feels.
Well, our money as old as I feel, and I feel one hundred and seventeen.
So there you go.
Well I think we all are now.
Jared Henderson, thank you so much, really appreciate it as always. Now that's all the time we have for this evening, but up next is Newsnight.