Perth is the most isolated city in the world so when media wars
break out, the big personalities really play for keeps. Wendy West
normally writes about politics but today has branched out to give us
the inside running on this ongoing punch-up.

Fighting among the media in WA is hotting up with 6PR morning
show host and former West Australian newspaper Paul Murray applying the
blowtorch to the simmering row between The West Australian, The Sunday
Times and 6PR.

For those that came in late:

  • Murray was sacked by The Sunday Times as a columnist last year after his continual criticism of stories in the Times.
  • Sunday Times editor Brett McCarthy, originally a Brisbane boy, is
    a great mate of Murray’s ABC radio rival Liam Bartlett – they recently
    completed the Rottnest Island swim in the same team – who also writes a
    column in the Times
  • The ABC recently sacked tv news reader Deborah Kennedy … there
    was a massive outcry with Bartlett himself leading the charge devoting
    a whole show to the issue and baiting ABC WA news boss Kim Jordan to
    come on to explain himself.
  • Kennedy now reads the news at 6PR from 5am to 8.30am and does a 1 hour segment with Mooner Murray on Fridays.

Now, check this out! It’s a transcript of Mooner’s morning spray at 8.30am on Wednesday, March 10.

“When
is the truth not the truth. It appears that the answer to that question
is, when it appears in The Sunday Times. I was taken aback last weekend
when a very nasty little piece of journalism, if that’s what it was,
appeared in the Sunday rag about about our new colleague at 6PR Deborah
Kennedy.

“Now as you know, Deb was sacked from her
position as ABC TV newsreader for no good reason, sparking howls of
protest from thousands of ABC viewers. As one door closed, another
opened and it was our good luck to get Deb working here.

“But
this nasty little piece of knifework in The Sunday Times held out that
the ratings for the seven o’clock news had risen after Deb left. That
was a dagger right in her back. Interestingly, there were no figures
quoted in that article and that immediately got me wondering what the
true story might be. And there was another thing in the story that
puzzled me, that was where the ABC’s news editor Kim Jordan claimed
that ratings had fallen after Kennedy replaced Peter Holland. Now this
caused a bit of comment around the place, because a lot of journalists
can remember Kim Jordan crowing at the time that ratings had gone up as
soon as Kennedy joined the ABC.

“So I started wondering
when the truth was going to come out. Well Pam Casellas from the ‘West
Australian’ has got great contacts in the television world – she was a
longstanding TV writer and she understands the ratings game well. This
week she’s handling the Inside Cover column in the ‘West’. Her ears
must have pricked up on Sunday as well and she has done a bit of
digging.

“The true story, and it’s not the one you might
have read in The Sunday Times, is that ratings in the first three weeks
post-Kennedy are down on the three weeks before her sacking. Pam
Casellas says in the paper today that the viewer numbers for Tom
Baddeley are down by about 2500 a day, week on week. Not up as The
Sunday Times reported, but down.

“Now given the potential
damage to Kennedy’s reputation from that published claim, a journalist
worth his salt and an editor with half a clue about fairness and
accuracy would have demanded to see the figures backing the claim. If
they did and didn’t use them, then they’re just liars. And if they
didn’t, which appears to be the case, they’re just bumbling fools,
careless and dangerous. Kim Jordan was quoted in The Sunday Times
saying this: ‘I’m not a great bugler of ratings, but the ratings are in
fact up.’ Now he is quoted in Inside Cover today saying he’s keen to
“move on” and not discuss the matter further. I’ll bet he’s not.

“This
now isn’t so much a matter of bad judgement, it’s a matter of
truthfulness on the part of senior management at the ABC and on the
part of The Sunday Times. Now I know The Sunday Times doen’t correct
even the most agregious journalistic attrocities it commits, we saw
that in the outrageous claims they published on page one against the
SAS (that P1 splash was written by Liam Bartlett for the Times last
year). But I wonder if the threat of a defamation writ from Deborah
Kennedy might get the correction and apology she
so richly
deserves. I know the editor of The Sunday Times will publish
corrections when he’s threatened, I once managed to get a remarkeable
apology published in his own editorial column after one of his lapses
of judgement. So we will have to wait and see what the truth tellers at
the Slimes will do this weekend about last weekend’s untruths. You
might have a view on that today.”

ends

Crikey
hears that McCarthy has already rung 6PR boss Declan Kelly telling him
Murray went too far by getting personal and the “sue” word may have
been mentioned.

The Sunday Times journo that wrote the
story, Allen Newton, was pulled from his regular weekly TV spot on the
Gary Carvolth afternoon show on 6PR.

6PR is also fuming
about the continual negative stories served up by “Perth Confidential”
writer Lee Tate. Tate is a former 6PR breakfast program host. His boss,
and the editor of STM – the magazine lift-out where “Perth
Confidential” appears – is Di Sattler. She is the ex-wife of current
6PR breakfast host Howard Sattler. There divorce was a poisonous affair.

Incidentally,
every breakfast radio show in Perth was invited to the STM launch last
month, except for the 6PR breakfast hosts Sattler and Louise Rowe.

Tate
has admitted previously that Times editor McCarthy has told him he will
not publish positive stories about 6PR. That stems from his feud with
Mooner Murray.

As an example, a column written by former
Australian journalist Colleen Egan in the Times last year was changed
and the words “6PR” were deleted and “a radio station” was inserted.
Egan was refering to a story run by Mooner on 6PR and was apparantly
fuming about the change.

Further to the “Is the West
Australian anti-Labor” feature in Crikey, West chief political reporter
Steve Pennells and Times chief political reporter Graham Armstrong
(former spin doctor for WA Premier Geoff Gallop) were at the same press
conference 2-3 weeks ago.

Armstrong approached Pennells,
patted him on the back, and gave him the old ‘hope you didn’t mind that
story I wrote the other day’. Pennells opened up with both barrells,
called him a disgrace and a Labor stooge (or words to that effect) and
had to be restrained by another West reporter Mark Drummond. Needless
to say, a lot of political hacks around town are looking forward to the
next time they cross paths.

Okay, here is parts of The Sunday Times story that sparked Mooner’s tirade.

ABC boss tells: I was right to replace Kennedy
By ALLEN NEWTON
March 7, 2004

ABC
news boss Kim Jordan says his decision to replace news anchor Deborah
Kennedy with Tom Baddeley has been vindicated by increased ratings for
thePerth 7pm news.

Baddeley, 38, who has been hosting the news for three weeks, replaced Kennedy, who has joined radio station 6PR, where she is working in the newsroom.

The change came as part of a decision to add value to the newsroom, Jordan said.

He wanted a person who could get newsmakers to talk live on camera.

“I also wanted to have somebody who could do those interviews with some ease,” Jordan said.

“I spoke to Tom about it and decided I wanted him to do it.

“At
the end of the day, you’ve got to make changes and I made that change,
and as everyone seems to have forgotten, that it was her (Kennedy’s)
choice tomove on – and I wish her well in her new career.

“I expected a couple of weeks of press. You get that sort of thing and I think people who watch our product have a kind of ownership of it.”

Jordan said he was happy with Baddeley’s early performance.

“I’m not a great bugler of ratings, but the ratings are, in fact, up,” he said.

Jordan said changes of personnel could impact on ABC News ratings.

“If you put the wrong person in people are going to let you know loud and clear and they’re not going to watch,” he said.

News
ratings for the ABC fell when Peter Holland left the ABC to go to
Channel 9, but Jordan said the ABC News now had more people watching it
each nightthan Nine.

“We’re also very close to Seven on some nights,” he said.

“You don’t take this kind of risk without an eye on whether there’s going to be a collapse, but there obviously wasn’t going to be in my mind.

“I put Deborah in the seat and I started Liam Bartlett in his career, so I know a bit about what works.

“He (Baddeley) has the ability and the journalstic background to get people to the camera.

“He has contacts and he is connected to people in finance and politics.”

The tide of support for Kennedy was turning around now, with more letters and calls of support coming in for Baddeley, according to Jordan.