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'King' Kyle Sandilands is judged and found wanting | The Weekly Beast


It’s been 10 years since Kyle Sandilands lost his last Channel Ten gig as a judge. He was sacked by Australian Idol after a stunt on the Kyle and Jackie O show which involved strapping a 14-year-old girl to a lie detector test and asking her about her sex life.

A decade on and King Kyle, as he calls himself, has been welcomed back by the new owners at Ten for the reality TV show Trial by Kyle, now in production. Trial by Kyle is a Judge Judy rip-off, with Sandilands ruling on highbrow issues such as a botched boob job and a stripper who got ripped off. But the pitch – “Witness the justice Kyle-style” – is not working with all potential plaintiffs and the show appears to be struggling with its casting.

A producer asked the freelance writer and anti-sexual assault campaigner Nina Funnell to appear as a “women’s rights supporter” up against Sean Buckley, the outspoken managing director of Ultra Tune, about the “sexualisation of women in ads”. Buckley “hates political correctness” and vigorously defends the Ultra Tune ads, which regularly appear in the list of most complained about ads on TV.

“The show itself is light-hearted, though this debate is surely one to be had,” the producer said. “It’s a courtroom-style show in which you would be calling on Ultra Tune to pull the ad. We think you would be a phenomenal fit.”

Ultra Tune
(@UltraTuneAust)

Winning vs Roaring

Which commercial has been your favourite? pic.twitter.com/2LT14LcifM


February 10, 2019

Funnell says no money could ever persuade her to appear, and it turns out many others agree. Refusals have also come from the writers Clementine Ford, Jamila Rizvi, Ginger Gorman, Jane Caro, Tara Moss and Zoya Patel. A grassroots organisation that campaigns against the objectification of women, Collective Shout, also turned down the offer, which included a fee and return travel to the studio.

World is … no better five years on

One theory for the monumental stuff-up on Anzac Day that led to two pages of the Sydney Morning Herald being printed inside the Daily Telegraph is that the printing plant in Sydney’s western suburbs had a skeleton staff rostered on because of the public holiday.

Julie-anne Sprague
(@JASprague)

I knew I kept this for a reason #worldisfukt pic.twitter.com/ls6MmKl2Pu


November 9, 2016

Remarkably it was the fifth anniversary of “World is fukt”, the extraordinary printing error which appeared on the front page of the Australian Financial Review in 2014.

Layoffs continue in newspapers, with the Courier-Mail laying off all its casuals and 10 full-time staff. Sources say the production journalists will finish up on 7 May, right in the middle of a federal election in which Queensland seats are crucial.

Twitter fury over Twitter fury

Twitter is usually a fairly combative platform but the election has heated the place up considerably, leading to some spectacular dust-ups between mainstream media journalists and other Twitter users this week. The ABC’s News Breakfast co-host Michael Rowland stirred things up with an article about political journalists copping abuse on the site. Rowland, who is tipped to replace the retiring Barrie Cassidy as the host of Insiders after the election, said Twitter had been “particularly feral” since the election campaign began.

Michael Rowland
(@mjrowland68)

‘A peanut gallery of hyper-partisan tools’. My piece on how Twitter has gone crazy during the election campaign. Thanks for your insights, @CUhlmann, @murpharoo & @dwabriz. #ausvotes #auspol @BreakfastNewshttps://t.co/Xe5GJ1jR0v


April 23, 2019

Rowland’s analysis might have gone unremarked but for the startling contribution of Nine’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann, who said Twitter would be rendered speechless if it weren’t for the hard work of political reporters. “Twitter is a peanut gallery of hyper-partisan tools,” he told Rowland. “Unless you conform to their biases and beat to the death the people they hate, you’re obviously not doing your job.”

Uhlmann’s sentiments echoed his earlier comments about an online “vigilante mob” who loved to attack him for what they perceive as his rightwing bias. His latest foray into the debate made him few friends.

Rob Stott
(@Rob_Stott)

Imagine if the press gallery spent as much time examining its own role in the last decade of instability as it does complaining about mean tweets


April 23, 2019

The former ABC journalist, who moved to Nine in 2017 to replace Laurie Oakes, also came up with a choice phrase – the “post-Christian left” – which we’re still scratching our heads about. “While one of the memes of the early 21st century is the rise of the aggressive right, the emergence of what I would call the ‘post-Christian left’ is much more of a worry,” he said.

‘You won’t make it’

Don’t despair, there is somewhere where journalists are still popular, and that is the universities. The Australian’s veteran political editor, Dennis Shanahan, and The Project co-host Lisa Wilkinson were awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Wollongong this week.

UOW
(@UOW)

“I like to think of myself as a journeyman journalist. I try and tell people what’s happening, and I try to do that fairly and responsibly.”
Dennis Shanahan awarded Doctor of Letters for distinguished career https://t.co/7NcLa61l0a #ThisIsUOW @australian pic.twitter.com/Ki92dGkpQs


April 23, 2019

Shanahan, a Murdoch loyalist who has presided over the Oz bureau in the Canberra press gallery for decades, said one of his latest scoops was the story about Julie Bishop’s resignation – which he broke after receiving confirmation via a text message emoji.

“I spoke to the careers counsellor at my school and I told him I wanted to be a journalist,” Shanahan said. “I wanted to know more about the field, but he told me, ‘Don’t worry about it, you won’t make it.’ That really angered me, so I thought, ‘I’m going to prove I’m better than you!’”

In the teeth of criticism

It’s out of character for a Murdoch outlet to be at war with a big advertiser but Colgate-Palmolive’s decision to pull advertising from Sky News Australia’s after dark line-up has infuriated the rightwing commentators Rowan Dean and Andrew Bolt.

Sky News Australia
(@SkyNewsAust)

.@Colgate is the latest multinational corporation to cave in to anonymous activists.@rowandean: Who will stand up for you when the same activists turn their anti-capitalist bile against your business? It would have been people like me.

DISCUSSION: https://t.co/dsirBR5jcT pic.twitter.com/Ro9kCay3jY


April 21, 2019

Dean, a former advertising copywriter who has worked on Colgate campaigns, blasted the company for being “morally superior” and for aligning itself with “a grubby group of hardcore leftwing online trolls”, otherwise known as the lobby group Sleeping Giants, which targets Sky’s advertisers. The host of Outsiders and the editor of Spectator Australia said his Easter resolution was to “not brush my teeth”.

Fundraiser highlights Rappler film

The 2019 Press Freedom Lecture next month will be delivered by the Australian journalist and film-maker Yaara Bou Melhem. The independent film-maker’s latest project is an observational documentary about Time’s person of the year, Maria Ressa. The Filipino journalist and editor of Rappler has been targeted by the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte. The event, during which excerpts of the film will be shown, is a fundraiser for the Media Safety & Solidarity Fund.





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