Lee Lin Chin resigns. SBS’s weekend newsreader Lee Lin Chin has announced her resignation from the broadcaster. The news was, weirdly, first reported in an exclusive story on Ten Daily by Ten newsreader Sandra Sully, before SBS put out a statement yesterday. Chin has worked for the broadcaster for almost 40 years, 30 of those as newsreader. Her last bulletin will be on Sunday, but she has tweeted this is not her retirement:

She will be replaced by Anton Enus, back to full health and returning to the network after time off fighting cancer.

The Fairfax deal. The announcement yesterday that Nine was planning to acquire Fairfax dominated the company’s metropolitan newspaper front pages today, as well as that of News Corp’s The Australian.

Fairfax has worked hard to reassure readers that should the “merger” go ahead, the newspapers will maintain their independence. Addressing staff yesterday, CEO Greg Hywood said there would be “plenty of Fairfax DNA” in the new company, and editorials in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald today said the new company would honour Fairfax’s charter of editorial independence.

The revolving door. The ABC has appointed former Middle East correspondent Anne Barker to its Indonesian bureau. Barker will join David Lipson in the bureau, who has recently moved to Jakarta too. Previous Indonesia correspondent Adam Harvey is moving to Beirut as Middle East correspondent, and former Indonesia bureau chief Samantha Hawley is off to head up the London bureau.

CNN’s White House ban. The White House has banned a CNN reporter for calling out questions to President Donald Trump at a press event. Kaitlan Collins was the pool reporter for the day, and called out questions about the US politics stories of the day: Michael Cohen and Russia. Collins was later told she was banned from an event open to all press because her questions had been “inappropriate”.

CNN, the White House Correspondents’ Association, and even bitter rival network Fox News has criticised the move. 

Glenn Dyer’s TV Ratings. Very weak figures all round last night, particularly for Nine’s AFL Footy Show — 208,000 in the three metro AFL markets: Melbourne (147,000), Adelaide (23,000) and Perth (38,000). Seven’s more modest Front Bar got another clear win with 317,000: 218,000 in Melbourne, 53,000 in Adelaide and 46,000 in Perth. Another clear rejection for the Nine effort which remains stuck in the 1990’s with its bombastic hosts and commentary. 

In regional markets it was Seven’s 6pm News on top with 539,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 443,000, Home and Away third with 378,000, The Chase Australia at 5.30pm was fourth with 345,000 and the 7pm ABC News was fifth with 336,000. Read the rest on the Crikey website.