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Seven News battles its own star reporter · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Monday, September twenty nine, twenty twenty five. Chinese police
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: are secretly training Solomon Island's cops in riot control. The
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  Speaker 1: Australians today revealing photos showing Chinese police in the province
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: of Malaita demonstrating how to use riot batterns and conducting
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  Speaker 1: martial arts classes. There were anti Beijing riots in the
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  Speaker 1: province in twenty twenty one, but the Solomon's government has
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  Speaker 1: signed a security deal with China and is also allowing
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Chinese officials to conduct fingerprinting and questioning citizens in a
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: so called community policing exercise. Anthony Albanezi says he'll work
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  Speaker 1: with imbattled UK Prime Minister Sir Kiir Stama to defend
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: democracy itself. That's in a speech overnight at the British
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Labor Conference in Liverpool. The PM visited King Charles at
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  Speaker 1: Balmoral and invited the Prince and Princess of Wales to
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  Speaker 1: visit Australia with their children, but he's refused to meet
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: populist right wing leader Nigel Farage, who's aligned with Don Trump.
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  Speaker 1: Those stories alive right now At the Australian dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot Au, a senior award winning seven News reporter has
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  Speaker 1: been stood down after she initiated a class action against
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the network for allegedly underpaying staff. It comes amid leadership turmoil,
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  Speaker 1: a ratings nowsedive and widespread fears among staff about further
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  Speaker 1: cost cutting. Today, what's going on at the legacy broadcaster
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  Speaker 1: We are underway? Perfect bounce. Nearly four point one million
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  Speaker 1: Australians did something very old fashioned over the weekend. They
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  Speaker 1: flipped on the TV and tuned in to Network seven
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  Speaker 1: to watch.
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  Speaker 2: Live's amazing scenes.
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  Speaker 1: Have brisbrant it come forty seven point fiors and that
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  Speaker 1: made the AFL Grand Final, where Brisbane thrashed the Geelong Cats,
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  Speaker 1: the most watched TV event of twenty twenty five, even
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  Speaker 1: beating July's State of Origin to Cider in the Rugby League.
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  Speaker 1: What tonight?
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  Speaker 2: This is?
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  Speaker 1: What a spectacle. The death of traditional broadcast television has
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  Speaker 1: been grossly exaggerated. It's still kicking with a million viewers
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  Speaker 1: each night watching seven and nine news bulletins at six pm.
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  Speaker 1: But both these storied networks are going through change at
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  Speaker 1: a head spinning pace. Nine's lost two chairs, a chief
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  Speaker 1: executive ahead of News, and an EP of its top
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  Speaker 1: rating current affairs show. Seven's gone through a giant reset too,
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  Speaker 1: turning through two top news bosses, a CEO and an
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  Speaker 1: entire generation of experienced news talent. We connect people with
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  Speaker 1: people across Sydney, across Australia, and when we do it,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: none of us are alone. Seven News connecting you. And
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  Speaker 1: now Seven's facing a potentially multimillion dollar class action lawsuit
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  Speaker 1: from its own staff. Steve Jackson edits The Australian's Media Diary. Steve,
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  Speaker 1: what is going on with this lawsuit?
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  Speaker 2: Claire? This has been going on for a couple of
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  Speaker 2: months now. We first revealed this back at the start
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  Speaker 2: of August that staff in at seven had been vised
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  Speaker 2: Fair Work has put up the minimum wage. Congratulations, you've
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: got to pay rise. Unfortunately, there's a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: bad news with that. We're taking it out of your
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  Speaker 2: personal margin now. For people on contract at seven, a
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: personal margin is the amount that they get paid over
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: the awarded enterprise agreement salary, so they negotiate it themselves. Hey,
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  Speaker 2: I'm on this minimum amount, but I live in Sydney.
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  Speaker 2: I live in Melbourne. He's a top up in it's
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: quite often called the Melbourne or the Sydney margin. So
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  Speaker 2: everyone's gotten a little bit outraged by that, and then
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  Speaker 2: they've started having a look around and going, well, hang on,
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  Speaker 2: you're taking out this minimum salary increase, but at the
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  Speaker 2: same time you haven't given me a pay rising years.
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  Speaker 2: So they're complaining that even the most experienced newsroom operatives
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  Speaker 2: are quite often on an entry level journalism grading and
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: making about fifty five to sixty five grand a year
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  Speaker 2: with their personal margin on top. And nowadays they're doing
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  Speaker 2: more work than ever. You know, they're doing three full
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  Speaker 2: live crosses into bulletins. They're starting early, they're finishing late.
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  Speaker 2: Particularly as newsrooms sort of reduce or retract in commercial
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  Speaker 2: television outlets across the country, they're being asked to do
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  Speaker 2: more with less and for less money. And it's just
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  Speaker 2: created this tinder box of outrage and we're seeing it
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  Speaker 2: starting to explode, with one staff member going well, hang on,
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  Speaker 2: I'm actually going to do something about this. I'm calling
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  Speaker 2: in the lawyers. We're starting a class action and we're
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  Speaker 2: suing Channel seven.
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  Speaker 1: What do we know about the person who's leading this
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  Speaker 1: class action?
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  Speaker 2: So she first raised the issues around the time we
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  Speaker 2: found out about it. She went to her boss's and said, look,
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  Speaker 2: there are these issues. We haven't been keeping tabs on
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  Speaker 2: what hours everyone's working, and I'm actually really concerned that
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  Speaker 2: a lot of people basically aren't being paid for what
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  Speaker 2: they're doing at the network. That was about seven weeks ago.
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  Speaker 2: She ended up going off on stress leave, and she
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  Speaker 2: returned to their network last Sunday. She told her bosses, hey, look,
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  Speaker 2: I know I was stressed about all this, but I've
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  Speaker 2: now passed it off to my lawyers and they're taking
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  Speaker 2: on board. I'll let them deal with the nuts and
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  Speaker 2: bolts with the bean counters upstairs, and I'll just get
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  Speaker 2: back to the newsroom and do my job. Unfortunately, that
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  Speaker 2: solution hasn't worked for everyone.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bold move for a TV reporter to put
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  Speaker 1: their heads up and make a complaint because in television,
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  Speaker 1: unlike in newspapers, generally staff are on two year contracts.
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  Speaker 1: That makes everyone pretty vulnerable, doesn't it.
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  Speaker 2: It's the highs and lows of working in television. You
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  Speaker 2: sign that two year contract, you're invincible for twelve months,
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  Speaker 2: and then the next twelve months. It's that ongoing fear that, hey,
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  Speaker 2: my contract's not going to be renewed, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: it creates an ultra competitive environment quite often amongst people
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  Speaker 2: on the same show, where they're competing for the boss's attention.
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  Speaker 2: Rather than worrying about rival networks or rival programs, they're
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  Speaker 2: trying to prove it they're better than their own colleagues
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  Speaker 2: so that they get their contracts renewed. It's a really,
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  Speaker 2: really combative, and I would say not ideal situation when
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  Speaker 2: people are continually in fear that at the end of
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  Speaker 2: their contract, thank you for coming, been great having you
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  Speaker 2: here for two years, no reason that we're not extending it.
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  Speaker 2: We're simply not. And we saw that in nine's Cultural
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  Speaker 2: review last year that people were sort of describing the
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  Speaker 2: feeling of being on Punishment Island at these shows. And
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  Speaker 2: that's that period where, hey, your contract's up to expire
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  Speaker 2: in six months. The boss doesn't want to renew it,
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  Speaker 2: They don't want to tea just yet because they want
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  Speaker 2: to get that last six months out of you. So
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  Speaker 2: no one's sort of talking to you. You know that
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  Speaker 2: you're about to be voted off Punishment Island, but there's
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  Speaker 2: nothing you can do and it creates this environment where
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  Speaker 2: one of the ways you'd try to get back in
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  Speaker 2: the good books is basically to show that you're better
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  Speaker 2: than your colleagues, rather than better than your rivals.
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  Speaker 1: The management justification for doing that is that it obviously
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  Speaker 1: at least it's better performance. Is that true?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Look, it's one of those things. There'd be a
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  Speaker 2: lot of journals such as myself, who would say that
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  Speaker 2: I was always performing better when someone was yelling at me.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I definitely worked harder when someone put the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: fear of God into me. Did it create a more
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  Speaker 2: collegiate environment? Is it an acceptable culture of fear these days?
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  Speaker 2: I'd say in an era where there's fewer journalism jobs,
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  Speaker 2: but there's also fewer top line candidates, the right approach
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  Speaker 2: is to try to hang on to the talented people
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  Speaker 2: you have, and nowadays with competitive environment for candidates, if
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  Speaker 2: you put the fear of God into people, they'll just
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  Speaker 2: simply leave and go somewhere else.
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  Speaker 1: Now, the journalist who's leading this class action has been
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  Speaker 1: stood down. What seven's explanation to that?
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  Speaker 2: According to multiple sources in a newsroom, they've told her
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  Speaker 2: that they have three issues that have raised concern and
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  Speaker 2: have cited these as the reasons they've stood down and
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  Speaker 2: excluded her from the newsroom. Apparently, she turned up to
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  Speaker 2: a first shift back in more than a month last Sunday,
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  Speaker 2: and one of the red flags that management raised with
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  Speaker 2: her was that she parked in the wrong parking spot
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  Speaker 2: in the work car park. Now it's a Sunday shift.
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  Speaker 2: Colleagues have told me that the car park's widely empty.
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  Speaker 2: She pulled into a car spot, didn't think anything of it,
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  Speaker 2: but they've listed that as one of the courses of concern.
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  Speaker 2: Another one of the red flags was that she tried
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  Speaker 2: to question a colleague about their experiences in the newsroom
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  Speaker 2: with doing additional hours and how they had been paid
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  Speaker 2: in what was described as a quote interview style unquote
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  Speaker 2: setting doing work hours. Obviously, they're in the newsroom during
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  Speaker 2: that Sunday shift, and there is some suggestion she was
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  Speaker 2: trying to broach it so she could sign them up
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  Speaker 2: to the class action and that that could be the
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  Speaker 2: reason it raised some concerns. But that's another one of
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  Speaker 2: the red flags. And the third official red flag was
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  Speaker 2: that she's been told that she'd been reported for rifling
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  Speaker 2: through the chief of staff's desk on the news desk. Again.
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  Speaker 2: Colleagues have told me that's where the rosters were kept,
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  Speaker 2: and that she's told other people in the newsroom she
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  Speaker 2: was just trying to find out what shift she was doing.
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  Speaker 2: And yet this has been raised as a potential mental
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  Speaker 2: health concern and a reason to exclude her from the newsroom.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, even if she did have a mental health concern,
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  Speaker 1: is that a reason to stand someone down from the job?
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  Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, I mean, he's the fact of the matter
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  Speaker 2: is she's turned up to work on a Sunday and
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  Speaker 2: get this on top of all that. One of the
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  Speaker 2: other issues they've raised with her is that nobody knew
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  Speaker 2: she was coming in and saying, oh, you've unexpectedly turned
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  Speaker 2: up for this shift. So it's a Sunday shift. They're
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: not popular to begin with. But I've also seen the
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  Speaker 2: roster for that day. She's clearly down as being one
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  Speaker 2: of five reporters rostered on, so they knew she was
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  Speaker 2: coming in. So she's told colleagues in the newsroom, and
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  Speaker 2: she sent an email to everyone in there saying that
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  Speaker 2: she is she's being targeted in retaliation for trying to
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  Speaker 2: sign up people to a class action, and they simply
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  Speaker 2: don't want her in the newsroom, creating trouble and getting
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  Speaker 2: more people to sign.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Up coming up. What's fueling all this newsroom drama some
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: very stark economics. People love predicting the death of television news,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: but clearly that's not anywhere close to happening. In Australia.
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  Speaker 1: A million people still tune in every night to watch
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  Speaker 1: seven and nine News, but what's happening inside seven? They've
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: had a very tumultuous year.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, so the numbers don't really lie sapples for apples.
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  Speaker 2: The same ratings boxes that were recording the numbers ten
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  Speaker 2: years ago are still doing it today. And what we've
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: seen is there's this return to free tow aar television.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Arguably the price is right, it's free, but people are,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: particularly in an AI era, they are tuning into six
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: pm news and you completely write, more than a million
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: people watching seven News every night at six pm, more
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: than a million people watching nine News at six pm
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: every night. Add in almost a million watching the ABC News.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: There's this great hunger for live quality news. But unfortunately,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: at the same time, there's been dramas behind the scenes
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  Speaker 2: that the major commercial networks seven hasn't been spared. We've
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: seen two heads of news. It's all comes amidst very
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: drastic cost cutting. Last financial year we saw some one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty staff get cut as they attempt to
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: rain in the high cost of making television. And I
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: mean that's one of the factors that makes it probably
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: an outlier in journalism. You look at radio, it's done
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: for effectively the cost of a phone call to get
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: someone on an interview them newspapers and online you've just
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: got to have a keyboard and type. But the cost
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: of making television is still exorbitantly high, and unfortunately a
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: lot of the ads that have traditionally supported that are
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: going to online channels like YouTube and Meta, and the
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Australian commercial networks are finding it harder and harder to
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: justify the high cost of making top shelf, first class television.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: You could argue that the six pm news bulletins have
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: always been a bit of a lost leader. You spent
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a huge amount of money on them, but they set
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: your audience up for the night of viewing ahead. In
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: this age of streaming, where people might not necessarily intend
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: to stick with Network seven or nine all night, they're
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: going to turn off and go to Netflix instead. Does
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that logic still work? Is that still what the TV
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: news bulletins are for?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it is obviously something that gets
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: people in because you can't find that anywhere online. If
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: you are driving home and you see a car crash
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: or a fire or there's a roadbot, where are you
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: going to find out what's actually happened? And that's the
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: bread and butter of television news. You get home, you
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: can put it on in the background while you're making dinner,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: which invariably most people still do because you know, you
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: don't have to pay attention to all of it. You
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: can tune in and out. But it is such a
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  Speaker 2: high quality and popular way for people to get a
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: little news update as they're doing other things at home
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  Speaker 2: of a night. Doesn't necessarily translate to hanging on to people, No,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: probably not, but nine has revealed still they are the
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  Speaker 2: number one channel amongst YouTube or any of the international
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: streamers like Netflix when it comes to what people are
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: still watching on their television, So obviously there is a
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: case to be made get them in with the news
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: and then during that will flood them with ads for
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: the great content coming up. Obviously they are still hanging
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: on to a lot of viewers and that approach sort
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: of justifies the continued existence of the news.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think those fears among staff about continued cost
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: cutting are going to come true? You know, are they
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: going to try and just pair those books right back
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: over the next decade or so?
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Is it going to come true?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Is it going to be over the next decade. No,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: it's going to be over the next twelve to twenty
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: four months. And what we're going to see is greater
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: nationalization of the news bulletins. So we've lived in this
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: great luxury where Brisbane has its own bulletin and Sydney
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: has one in Melbourne and Perth and Adelaide and it's
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: really curated to local tastes. What we're going to see
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: more is national news content filling up large swathes of
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the hour long bulletins with only few or fewer local
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: news stories, and particularly we're going to see that in
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: regional areas where they're going to be hit with smaller newsrooms. Basically,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the networks still have to pump out Australian content, just
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to be state based content.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Steve Jackson edits The Australian's media diary, and you can
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: read it right now at The Australian in dot com
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: dot au