Wherefore art thou the wisecracking satirist? The one-time darling of the Melbourne Comedy Festival? The funny guy on The Project? The brilliant, cutting-edge host of his own TV show on the ABC?
Back in the day, Pickering embraced the comedian’s creed – you gotta be willing to fly close to the sun in the full knowledge that occasionally your wings will melt and you’ll crash to Earth.
We loved that guy. Where did that guy go?
Sad to say, Pickering went where celebrities and media types often go when facing a pile-on from the luvvies. He crawled into his shell.
The 48-year-old’s “crime” was to suggest what most of Middle Australia was already thinking: that the ABC’s decision to allow Grace Tame a podcast on the public broadcaster was “problematic” given her recent calls to “globalise the intifada”, not to mention her claim that the horrific rape and torture of innocent Israelis on October 7, 2023, was “propaganda” since “debunked”.
That was it. Pickering didn’t say the ABC’s decision to grant Tame a podcast was objectionable. He didn’t say it was offensive. Or disrespectful. Or insensitive.
All he said was that it was “problematic”. Not exactly a controversial opinion.
Let’s quickly recap: on Tuesday afternoon, Pickering offered his entirely valid, sober and sensible opinion about Tame’s hosting of an ABC podcast when asked about it by YouTuber Avi Yemeni outside the public broadcaster’s Melbourne studios.
By Wednesday afternoon, Pickering, who is the recently installed drivetime host at ABC Radio Melbourne, had become the story. ABC listeners who were on Team Tame were enraged by Pickering’s ponderings. Things had become problematic for Mr Problematic.
Come Thursday, Pickering had a decision to make. He could stand by the reasonable and thoughtful opinion he offered to Yemeni, or he could desperately back-pedal.
He chose the latter.
Pickering told his ABC listeners he had been taken out of his context. He stressed he was a “big fan” of Tame.
“I was a little naive and I will learn from that … but whatever beliefs I may hold on any particular issue, it cannot be said I have a problem with or would in any way have gone after Grace Tame,” he said.
Which, of course, misses the point. No one really cares if Pickering is a fan of Grace Tame.
Plenty of people are, and some are not. But Diary is willing to wager a large sum that there are many Australians who greatly admire Tame and yet still think the ABC shouldn’t have gifted her a podcast at this point in time.
Pickering wasn’t asked by Yemeni if he was a fan of Tame. He was asked about the ABC’s decision to hire her.
His “problematic” descriptor of the ABC’s call wasn’t taken out of context. He said what he said. But when the pile-on from the left started to outweigh the praise from the sensible centre, Pickering bucked and opted to play it safe.
In 2015, when Pickering left The Project, he told lifestyle website Mamamia that the compromises demanded by commercial TV had become too much for him, and that the pressure to appease his then network (Ten) “felt like a betrayal of who I was”.
It looks like similar pressures apply at the ABC.
What’s in a name
And what of the ABC’s handling of this mess?
How does Tame’s rally cry to “globalise the intifada” and her shocking commentary on the “debunked” torture of Israelis on October 7 sit with the requirements of the ABC’s charter for staff to observe impartiality and accuracy?
Tame, of course, isn’t a full-time employee of the ABC, but she is fronting a podcast on the public broadcaster – a podcast that includes editorial content and reporting by its journalists who cover disability affairs, health and science.
Was Tame given any guidance on what she could or couldn’t say?
The ABC wouldn’t tell us when we asked, but surely someone referred to the Tale of Antoinette Lattouf before Tame was handed her visitor’s pass to Aunty’s studios?
Meanwhile, several autism advocates told Diary that they were uncomfortable with the title of Tame’s podcast, Autistic AF (As F..k).
“The flippant title fails to respect the fact that there are varying degrees of autism.
Quite a few people in the sector think it’s offensive,” one expert in the field told Diary.
“It’s hard to understand why they called it that.”
Diary asked the ABC who had settled on the name Autistic AF.
In response, an ABC spokesman said: “The Autistic AF series is not intended to provide a complete overview of autism.
“It shares personal experiences and perspectives from a variety of contributors alongside interviews with researchers and experts.”
Translation: We’d rather not answer your question, thank you very much.
Levy pays his levies
As a restaurateur, 2GB Mark Levy makes a very good radio host.
Regular Diary readers will recall that Levy, the Sydney station’s morning show presenter (and weekend rugby league caller), has been struggling with some off-field drama in recent times with the collapse of his Italian eatery Pronto-Sylvania, in the city’s south.
To cut a long story short, the restaurant started well in 2024 but after about a year the schnit hit the fan and a liquidator was appointed.
Creditors were owed a tonne of cash.
The revelation that Levy’s hospo business had hit the fence, leaving many out of pocket, was not welcome news for a guy – and a station – that prides itself on calling out those who do the wrong thing by ordinary Australians.
How could Levy legitimately scrutinise the likes of Treasurer Jim Chalmers for his budget missteps if he couldn’t balance the books of a suburban joint that specialised in a Balkan mixed grill?
Levy started to cop flak in the press over his kitchen calamity. Initially he didn’t handle it all that well, lashing out at journalists who had reported on the matter and accusing them in January this year of being “infatuated with the story”.
Levy claimed journos were singling him out for being a failed small business owner because of his media profile.
Yep, that was pretty much it.
To be fair, Levy always insisted that everyone who was owed money from the Pronto wreck would be repaid in full.
There may have been some doubters along the way but on Thursday morning Levy told his 2GB listeners that the debts had been settled.
“All creditors who came forward have received 100c in the dollar … a total of $674,119 has been paid,” Levy said.
“Admittedly, this has come at a huge cost. Many would have walked away. Some would have gone into receivership and declared bankruptcy.
“That was never an option for me.
“At my core, I believe in standing up, taking responsibility, accountability and doing what’s right. No matter how hard it gets.
“I want to thank all of the aforementioned creditors for their understanding and their patience while the lengthy process has run its course.”
Credit where credit is due – Levy could have resorted to accounting trickery to dodge some of the massive bill, but he put his money where his mouth was (even though that’s what literally got him into financial trouble in the first place) and he paid up. That is to be admired.
Levy even had some kind words for the journalists who had pursued the story of the Pronto shambles.
“I don’t harbour any ill feelings towards those who have reported on the demise of the business and fully understand they are doing their job,” Levy said.
Gee, thanks!
And just to prove that Diary is as financially honourable as Levy, this column will honour the pledge we made on Australia Day to buy the radio host a beer if he pays all his debts in full.
Just FYI, Mr Levy: regular Media Diarist Steve Jackson, who is currently on leave, will purchase your pint upon his return to work.
Hells Bells
All in all, it was a good week for Levy.
Not only did he palm off those pesky creditors but he also conducted the interview of the week – brief though it was.
Levy invited One Nation senator Sean Bell on to his 2GB program on Friday morning, as confusion over the Pauline Hanson-led party’s policy on foreign ownership of residential was front and centre of the news cycle.
It was magnificent radio, if one’s definition of magnificent radio is when the conversation goes completely off the rails.
Levy began by asking what in any other normal circumstance might be considered a Dorothy Dixer: under a One Nation government, would foreign owners have their property seized after a two-year period, and what would happen if permanent residents refused to give up their homes.
But poor old Ding Dong Bell wasn’t across his brief.
“That is an excellent question, but what we’re saying, and it is perfectly reasonable to expect that homes in Australia go to Australian citizens,” Bell responded. “It’s very simple. What happens is that, again, this look, it’s a fair question to ask …”
Levy: “So what’s the answer?”
Bell: “The answer is that this is going to be, this policy is one that’s being brought forward and investigated.”
Levy correctly identified the interview was “turning into a train wreck” and advised Bell should “go and get some clarity before this gets worse”.
“You can’t come on the radio and say ‘We’re going to give people two years to divest their property’ and then not answer the question. Go back and get an answer, and come back to me,” Levy thundered.
Senator Bell was last seen looking for Mal Meninga’s phone number, presumably to ask if there’s any escape from the Radio Trainwreck Hall of Fame.
Walkleys whispers
It’s that time of year again, when journalists from the ABC, the Guardian Australia and the Green Left Weekly start reviewing their work over the past 12 months, sifting through what they think might be journalism that is worthy of an entry to the Walkley Awards.
But this year, there is a bit of extra intrigue surrounding the once-prestigious gongs.
As first reported by The Australian in April, the independence – and the charity status – of the Walkleys Awards is under renewed scrutiny after its revamped board was filled with a majority of union-aligned members.
Some industry folk have joined the dots and suggested the apparent stacking of the board doesn’t augur well for the supposed independence of the awards, but the Walkley Foundation was having none of it when it last spoke to us.
“The foundation’s board has always included independent directors and the new board continues that,” a Walkleys spokesman proffered.
Righto.
But since then, another curiosity has emerged.
The new chair of the Walkleys judging board is a chap named Ben Butler. According to the ABC website, “Ben Butler is an award-winning investigative journalist with interests in finance, crime and the areas in between.”
Strange that the ABC website would carry that claim because Butler doesn’t work there anymore.
According to multiple sources, Butler left the ABC in early April, just before he was appointed to the position of chair of the Walkleys judging board.
So we thought it reasonable to ask the Walkleys when, and by whom, Butler was appointed, and were they aware of the circumstances of Butler’s departure from the ABC?
Diary sent questions to Butler, as well as Shona Martyn, the CEO of the Walkley Foundation, and Michael Slezak, the federal president of the media union who sits on the Walkleys board.
Ms Martyn promptly replied to our inquiry on Wednesday: “Appointments by the Walkley Foundation board of directors are questions for that board.”
In the trade, that kind of response is known as a handball, or a hospital pass, depending on which football code you prefer.
Slezak ignored several emails across several days before replying with a message on behalf of Butler on Sunday afternoon.
Slezak wrote: “Here is a response from Ben: ‘I am confused by your inquiry. Your questions include materially false allegations and information’.”
The truth is out there.
What the Hegarty
Sixty Minutes’ lone, full-time male reporter Adam Hegarty is nothing if not prolific. But sometimes less is more.
Diary couldn’t help but notice Sixty slipped to its lowest ratings of the year last Sunday even though audience numbers typically go up in winter as inclement weather encourages people to stay indoors and warm themselves in front of the small screen.
As everyone in television knows, it’s never great to pull poor numbers and even worse to be one of the reporters on-air the night that it happens.
Sadly for Hegarty, he didn’t just have one story on the show last Sunday during the record low … he had both of them.
One was a heart-wrenching story about mothers being separated from their kids and the other an update on an old 60 Minutes yarn about an aviation investigation. Neither seemed to really take off with viewers.
On the up side, Sixty did at least manage to finish in the top 10 on the night, well ahead of Seven’s rival Spotlight (which was shown in only a couple of states because of the network’s AFL coverage), while it also muscled out Ten’s once dominant reality cook-off MasterChef to claim seventh spot.
Rare Maroons victory
While the Maroons are still plotting their revenge against the Blues next week, Nine’s Brisbane newsroom is already celebrating a massive victory in a state of origin clash, with star reporter Annie Pullar returning to Nine News Queensland.
The hard-hitting newsbreaker cut her teeth on television reporting after launching her career in Nine’s Toowoomba bureau and moved on to the network’s Gold Coast bulletin before being promoted to first grade in Brisbane.
Like all great Queensland products, she was lured to the bright lights and big city of Sydney back in 2022, but in a massive fumble that ended up having a huge knock-on effect at Nine, arch rival Seven managed to swoop in under then Sydney news director and current Daily Telegraph news boss Jason Morrison and convince her to change channels.
Nine’s national news supremo, Fiona Dear, was so devastated at having Pullar snatched away that she was still fuming about it two years later.
Indeed, it is understood the failure to extend her contract at the network was listed as one of the key reasons former Queensland news director Amanda Patersonwas brutally axed in late 2024.
Pullar – who sources internally at Nine are already describing as “the new Sylvia Jeffreys” – had a headline-leading run in Seven’s Sydney newsroom before relocating to Paris and filing for the network as a freelance Europe correspondent.
In a feted homecoming, Paterson’s successor, Brendan Hockings, convinced Pullar to return to the Queensland capital and her old stomping ground at Mt Coot-tha as one of his newsroom’s chief reporters from July 20, replacing Lily Greer, who is jetting off across the Pacific as Nine’s new US correspondent.
The signing is yet another coup for Hockings, who already leads what has become Nine’s strongest news team, with his bureau continually battering Seven’s ailing second-placed offering in the ratings.
In fact, under his stewardship, Nine News Queensland has won every single ratings week since the start of last year, beating Seven by a nightly margin of more than 65,000 viewers each weeknight at 6pm with top-rating anchors Melissa Downes and Joel Dry.
The Pullar pick-up comes straight from the tried and tested Hockings play book with Dry, himself, convinced to return to his former home at Nine after freelancing as a Europe correspondent for Seven News just last year (while his wife, Jessica Millward, worked in Nine’s London bureau).
