FOURTH ESTATE TURMOIL:
Three of the four television stations in Brisbane have lost their news directors for the third time in barely a month.
The three senior newsmen were summarily sacked yesterday, escorted from their studios (above) after missing what was arguably the news story of the past week, if not the year so far!
The news directors at Channel 7, Channel 10 and ABC TV were escorted from their respective workplaces after managements at each studio finalised their investigations into how their nightly news services could possibly have missed a major item aired on rival Channel 9’s 6pm news on Tuesday night – namely that a petrol station at Upper Comera was offering discount petrol to Costco Wholesale members!
The three men had been in their positions for barely a week, after their predecessors got the sack for missing another recent Nine News Brisbane scoop – the fact that Aldi was having a winter ski-season sale whereby snow-bound customers could be decked out for less than $100!
Even those three were new to the job, only hired after the staffers previously in those roles were sacked for missing Nine News’ heavily promoted scoop recently that Costco Wholesale was about to introduce an executive membership level providing up to $1000 in rewards a year, including extra benefits on insurance matters but not petrol!
In Tuesday night’s bulletin, Nine co-presenters Andrew Lofthouse and Melissa Downes first promoted the hot news just before the first ad break and then breathlessly broke the big story straight after that the Upper Coomera garage would be offering discounted petrol after all – to Costco members – even if the local new Costco store wouldn’t be opened until June!
A colleague of the latest Channel 7 news director dismissed up at the station’s Mount Coot-Tha studios told The Bug: “He is really kicking himself because he was getting constant daily memos from management not to be outscooped by Nine on any breaking Costco news.
“He has only himself to blame, really. His antenna must have really been off to miss a great news story like that one. That’s a Walkley-award chance gone begging, that’s for sure!”
The Channel 10 executive told to pack his things and leave that station’s studios was also ruing his oversight.
“Very, very unprofessional, I have to admit,” the long-term senior newsman finally given his chance in the big chair admitted. “I live a helluva long way from Upper Coomera but bloody hell, that sure is a remarkable deal for the handful of Costco members in that area and I should have been onto it. I reckon we could have done a longer segment than Channel 9 managed and got just as many paid ads in return, if not more!
“I just hope my successor has a better nose than I have regrettably displayed for really important, punchy and topical news like this.”
And Channel 2 actually lost two from their inner-city newsroom yesterday – their relatively new news director and a specialist Costco news reporter the station had hired to hopefully ensure it would never again be gazumped by Nine on such newsworthy matters.
All three channels are now looking for their fourth news directors in less than a month.
Whoever takes their roles would be advised to keep a close eye on rival Channel 9 News, who seem to have this uncanny ability to sniff out the hot, breaking, news that really matters; news that Andrew Lofthouse and Melissa Downes are clearly always as pleased as punch and proud to boot to bring to their viewers.
Don Gordon-Brown
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