Lattouf crowdfunds, while Nine gets a new boss and pays out a class-action

This week’s Media Briefs brings you the latest updates in the ongoing Antoinette Lattouf sacking saga at the ABC, Nine’s new managing director of publishing, and why the media network has offered a public apology and compensation to 400 Palm Islanders.

Who is Tory Maguire? 

Nine has announced Tory Maguire as its new managing director of publishing, stepping up from her previous role as executive editor of the company’s metropolitan mastheads. It will bring all of the company’s publishing assets under her purview, including the Australian Financial Review.

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Maguire has worked in media for more than two decades, starting with News Corp in 2000. She edited the short-lived News Corp opinion site The Punch from 2010 to 2013, before joining The Huffington Post as the Australian edition’s first editor-in-chief. She joined Nine as the national editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in 2018, before being promoted to executive editor of the metropolitan mastheads in 2021. 

Maguire’s past year as executive editor has been colourful with staff unrest over coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, and a momentous outcome in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation saga. 

Maguire said last year that the outcome, a judgment in favour of the papers and journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters, was “a vindication for … important public interest journalism”. Roberts-Smith, who is appealing the judgment, had sued for defamation over reports he claimed portrayed him as a murderer and war criminal. 

Maguire replaces James Chessell, who leaves the company after two years in the role for a consulting position at Bespoke Approach, a firm headed by former Liberal Party adviser Ian Smith and Rupert Murdoch’s personal spokesman Andrew Butcher. The Australian reported late last year that Chessell would remain working with Nine in an external capacity.

Antoinette Lattouf v ABC 

Journalist Antoinette Lattouf’s legal battle against the ABC has continued this week, with 80 ABC staff threatening a walkout and demanding a meeting with managing director David Anderson. It comes after the Nine papers reported secret WhatsApp messages in which pro-Israel lobbyists sought to target ABC upper management in a campaign to get Lattouf sacked. 

More than 200 ABC union staff met at 1.30pm over Zoom on Wednesday. While Anderson didn’t meet with them, the SMH reports he instead issued an email statement circulated to staff. “The ABC rejects any claim that it has been influenced by any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity,” it read.

The ABC union house committee told the Herald it was “disappointed” with Anderson’s response, and “notes the response does not address member concerns”. An MEAA spokesperson had previously told Guardian Australia “the priority is for David Anderson to come out of his office and engage directly with members about how the ABC deals with external criticism and supports its staff”.

Lattouf has also taken to social media to post a crowdfunding appeal for her legal fees. The fund, which has a target of $60,000, has raised $64,376 at the time of writing — Lattouf is being represented by Maurice Blackburn’s Josh Bornstein, who your correspondent interviewed prior to proceedings being filed. 

Nine pays out, with apologies

Nine will offer a public apology and pay compensation to 400 Palm Islanders over a 2020 broadcast that claimed Islanders spent separate compensation payouts, over racist misconduct by Queensland Police during the 2004 Palm Island riots, on luxury goods such as sports cars and boats, the Townsville Bulletin reports.

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The report, by Nine News Queensland’s Alexander Heinke, claimed there were “serious holes” in the compensation process, describing the payouts as “massive taxpayer-funded” cheques. The $30 million compensation package came after a 2016 judgment in the Federal Court that found Queensland Police engaged in a number of incidents of unlawful racial discrimination in response to the riots. Justice Debra Mortimer found police acted “with a sense of impunity … because they were dealing with an Aboriginal community”.

A class action was launched on racial discrimination grounds, alleging the broadcast was racially offensive, insulting and humiliating.

Lawyer Stewart Levitt, speaking on behalf of Andrea Kyle-Sailor, the lead applicant, described the settlement agreement as “just and fair and … very likely to be approved”.

Nine is not expected to make an admission of liability, but has agreed to a public apology, retraction and payout.

Alexander Heinke could not be contacted for comment by Crikey.

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