ABC journalist Louise Milligan

Louise Milligan takes us into what made the Four Corners consent story so compelling, Stensholt clears out his desk, and Elon Musk forgets he’s insanely wealthy long enough to engage in some Twitter bickering. And other media tidbits of the day.

Behind Four Corners‘ consent program. The ABC’s Louise Milligan, who reported the Four Corners story that prompted a NSW review into rape and consent under the law, has revealed how she locked down the extraordinary interview with Saxon Mullins. Mullins said she did not consent to sex with Luke Lazarus, who was subsequently acquitted of raping her.

Our original idea was to have a look at the broader issue of consent in society — and to feature more than one case study. But when we all saw the Saxon interview, we knew that there was a lot of power in telling this single story.

Stensholt’s last Rich List. The Australian Financial Review’s annual Rich List was published today, and it’s editor John Stensholt’s last for the paper, having been poached by The Australian earlier this year. The Oz’s CEO Nicholas Gray didn’t waste the opportunity on Twitter last night to remind his followers that Stensholt is heading over to News Corp, and tease “exciting new initiatives”.

News Corp cuts. Brisbane printers for News Corp Australia are facing a round of cuts as the company reviews its operations. A spokeswoman would not confirm numbers, but said: “As a result of a review of our printing operations in Brisbane, we are introducing more efficient and effective ways to produce our newspapers. Unfortunately this will result in a number of redundancies in our site operations. We are currently consulting with employee representatives on the number and detail of positions impacted.”

Elon Musk’s ‘Pravda’. Billionaire Elon Musk has gone to war with the media in response to critical coverage of his company Tesla, suggesting a system to rate journalists’ credibility. He’s used his Twitter account to accuse journalists of overstating problems at Tesla, and not comparing them to the rest of the automotive industry because: “fossil fuel companies & gas/diesel car companies are among world’s biggest advertisers”. His outburst has been compared to another American businessman who turns on the media when he gets negative press, President Donald Trump. Musk, who has been uncritically and almost universally lauded by the press around the world, is suggesting a crowd-funded rating system for journalists to be called ‘Pravda’. 

The head of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Network Alexios Mantzarlis took a look at whether the idea could actually work. (In short, “We should be asking these hard questions more before someone with a lot of money actually uses it to launch a terrible product”.)

Glenn Dyer’s TV Ratings. Another one of those nights — Seven did well because of solid performances by its digital channels and won total people. Nine did better in the main channels, and claims a result (and did well in the demos, unlike Seven). Ten holds up with MasterChef — 1.08 million national viewers — the most watched non-news program. Another weak night for 7.30 — 401,000 metro viewers and 656,000 nationally, too low for a program of its importance. The Project on Ten had 503,000 metro and 732,000 national viewers.

And being a Thursday night, there was the weekly battle of the AFL skewing footy shows from Nine and Seven. And it was bad news again for Nine’s Eddie McGuire hosted The Footy Show. In the three AFL metro markets, The Front Bar had 296,000 viewers, The Footy Show, 248,000. And The Front Bar had more viewers in Adelaide and Perth. 

Seven’s night in regional markets with the 6pm News on top with 598,000 viewers, Seven News/TT was second with 503,000, then the 5.30pm part of The Chase Australia with 401,000, Home and Away was fourth with 387,000 and the 7pm ABC News was fifth with 338,000. — Read the rest on the Crikey website