Ten insider blows the lid off news show 'disaster'. Plus, the REAL reason Mamamia didn't cover Lattouf – and unhinged reply-all email rocks Parliament House: INSIDE MAIL

Broken news

Still no sign of life from Newsmax Australia, the much-hyped antipodean outpost of Donald Trump’s favourite cable channel.

Billed as a local rebrand of ADH TV – with the Newsmax name slapped on under licence – the venture was loudly trumpeted by Newsmax US boss Christopher Ruddy back in January.

There was even talk of signing up Erin Molan, fresh from Sky News, before that fizzled and she hitched her wagon to Elon Musk and Israel instead.

Six months on? No station. No studio. No hosts. No broadcast capability. No audience. Just a Facebook page with 62,000 followers and a website that says ‘COMING 2025’. It was meant to launch in March. It’s now July.

Inside Mail caught up last week with ADH TV co-creator and former 7News executive Jason Morrison, who told us delays were inevitable when launching a digital television network from scratch.

Morrison, now filling in for Mark Levy on 2GB, assured us the project’s wunderkind, 20-something media operator Jack Bulfin, was in America hustling to get things moving.

Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t.

Meanwhile, over at Sky News Australia HQ in Macquarie Park, the mood is positively jubilant. Sources say there’s been backslapping and schadenfreude over Newsmax’s no-show – especially after whispers earlier this year that the upstart was poised to eat Sky’s lunch.

Morrison, for his part, maintains no such briefings ever took place.

Ten insider blasts Project replacement

After a publicity blitz straight out of Frontline, Channel 10’s investigative news program 10 News+ launched to a whimper on Monday.

Drawing fewer viewers than the axed current affairs show it replaced – The Project – it was declared dead on arrival with just 291,000 tuning in.

It was a sorry start for the show that had promised to put ‘the truth first’ (don’t we all?) but Tuesday was worse: they lost another 10,000 viewers despite a massive available audience with everyone indoors dodging the rain.

A Ten insider didn’t mince words when we asked about the performance so far.

‘Disaster. An EP who has never produced anything before. Hosts who have never hosted anything before,’ they said.

‘I watched it last night – it’s genuinely terrible. Day one – stillborn. Day two – buried. Martin’s masterpiece.’

It’s a brutal verdict.

The ‘Martin’ mentioned at the end is Martin White, vice president of broadcast news at Paramount. The executive producer who copped a spray is Daniel Sutton, a veteran journalist, sure, but a first-time EP.

We won’t write off 10 News+ just yet – it’s early days and building an audience is possible. Plus, plenty of talented people are working on it and they deserve a chance – including co-anchors Denham Hitchcock and Amelia Brace.

But we won’t hide what is being said about the show, both inside and outside the bunker.

When contacted for comment, a Ten spokesperson went to bat for Sutton, telling us: ‘Daniel Sutton is a seasoned journalist and producer with 25 years’ experience. Network 10 is proud to invest in its staff and promote talented executives.’

They added of 10 News+ more generally: ‘Ten is taking a long-term, multi-platform view of audience development.

‘Building a loyal news audience takes time, and we are prepared for gradual growth as audiences discover and connect with our unique approach to news delivery across many platforms.

‘Ten is fully committed to 10 News+. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We are investing in building a sustainable, quality multi-platform news service that will grow and evolve with our audience’s needs over time.’

Looking for Love in Morwell

There’s no shortage of familiar media faces loitering around Morwell for the mushroom trial – but one unexpected sight on Monday had the press pack doing double takes in the cold.

Former Bachelorette Georgia Love – recently uncoupled from husband Lee Elliott – rocked up in leather culottes and a winter coat, looking more Vogue Italia than Latrobe Valley Law Courts.

But she wasn’t there to hand out roses (mercifully, given the calibre of courthouse lurkers). Love, it turns out, is back on the tools – filing bulletins for iHeart’s Your News Now service and moonlighting in the true crime podcast boom with the subtly titled Not Another Crime Podcast.

Her return to the journo coalface has raised a few eyebrows, but being on the ground should give her plenty of material for her poddy.

A word of advice from her old mates at Mamamia: best to keep the hot takes on ice until the jury’s done deliberating.

Dress for the job you want

It was touch and go for a while, but after inking a new $3million deal with Channel Nine, Karl Stefanovic officially has his mojo back.

Paps caught the 50-year-old Today host swaggering through Brisbane Airport on Saturday in a state of partial undress.

His shirt had no less than half a dozen buttons unfastened – which was a bit much, even by cocky Karlos’ standards.

Still, he’s earned the strut.

Earlier this year, whispers swirled that Nine was ready to swing the axe and hand the Today reins to rising golden boy James Bracey.

The clean-cut sports anchor filled in for Karl in April, and the ratings held up – well enough to make network bosses sit up and take notice. And with Bracey reportedly on a comparatively thrifty $600k a year, the maths was tempting. 

But Nine, perhaps still haunted by the last time they tried to bench Stefanovic, decided to stick with the devil they know.

Karl’s inked a fresh multi-year deal, with the same eye-watering pay packet as before.

No buttons? No problem.

One Nation, all friends 

Despite the infantilising name, Parliamentary Friendship Groups are a real thing.

They are established to foster cross-party support for serious topics such as women’s health, suicide prevention and policing… and not-so-serious ones like mindfulness, hockey and free-to-air TV.

The various ‘Parliamentary Friends of…’ groups are formally recognised by presiding officers and must be established at the start of each new term.

So it was that last week re-elected teal MP Zali Steggall sent out an invitation for the re-establishment of the Parliamentary Friends of Climate Action, copying in all MPs, senators and their staff members.

But just 16 minutes after the friendly invitation landed in everyone’s inbox, there came an accidental ‘reply all’ from a junior staffer in Pauline Hanson’s office.

The staffer – who Inside Mail is choosing not to name – responded with two memes from The Inbetweeners.

For those not familiar with the hit British comedy, one of the characters is mercilessly mocked by his mates for making a new ‘friend’.

All very juvenile, but quite funny.

Perhaps it’s time to start a ‘Parliamentary Friends of Memes’ group?

If the contents of the WhatsApp groups within Canberra’s power circles are anything to go by, we are sure such a group would receive overwhelming cross-party support.

A festival of impartiality 

Balance is supposed to be a byword for the ABC.

And there was certainly a lot of it on display during Mazoe Ford‘s report on the controversies at the Glastonbury music festival this week.

The Europe bureau chief told viewers that ‘punk rap’ duo Bob Vylan had led chants of ‘death, death to the IDF’ during their set in front of 30,000 people.

British police are now investigating and the band’s American visas were swiftly revoked by the Trump administration, nixing their plans for a U.S. tour.

The ABC’s urbane viewers heard from British health secretary Wes Streeting who condemned the ‘revolting’ chants. But we also heard from two people inside the festival, who gave their full backing to Bob Vylan.

The only problem? These unnamed festivalgoers were hardly your average punters.

The male interviewee was wearing a T-shirt from Palestine Action – a protest group the UK government is considering proscribing as a terrorist organisation.

Meanwhile, the female interviewee was Ash Sarkar, a well-known, left-wing British political commentator who gained global notoriety when she screamed at Piers Morgan that she was ‘literally a communist, you idiot!’

Further investigation revealed the original footage was shot by Reuters. 

But others who used the interview, such as CNN, made clear to their viewers that Sarkar was a ‘political commentator’. 

There’s obviously nothing wrong with interviewing someone who holds strong opinions. But none of this was made clear to viewers back home, with both presented as if they spoke for everyone at the festival.

What might an Israeli festivalgoer have thought as thousands chanted for death to their countrymen and women?

An ABC spokesperson defended the segment. 

‘The story contains a range of views about the Glastonbury performances including a UK Government minister, an Israeli statement and some concert goers,’ they said.

‘These are all clearly relevant perspectives that were well contextualised for the audience. Mazoe Ford is an excellent reporter and we highly value her work for the ABC.’

‘She doesn’t rate’ 

Once in a blue moon, Inside Mail finds itself agreeing with firebrand feminist Clementine Ford and suddenly needs an acid bath.

Earlier this week, Ford took a flamethrower to women’s website Mamamia for its total radio silence on the Lattouf vs ABC trial. Not a peep. Not a post. 

Taking to Instagram, Ford lobbed several live grenades at Mamamia founder Mia Freedman – whom she famously loathes – and floated some spicy theories about the editorial blackout.

But a source within Mamamia HQ insists there’s no conspiracy. They didn’t run the story, they say, because ‘Lattouf doesn’t rate – never has’.

Fair enough. Daily Mail is in the same business of publishing articles that get views and subscriptions and you can’t expect Mamamia to waste money and man-hours (Ed-surely woman-hours?) on stories their audience doesn’t care about.

Still, the verdict is a different beast.

Sometimes things are just news – clicks be damned. AAP was at court supplying copy that could quite easily be republished with a file photo.

Most outlets ran it. Mamamia didn’t. Why?

Lisa’s parting shot at Ten 

We predicted it months ago, and last week, Ten finally pulled the plug on The Project.

It was long overdue, but still a little sad – especially for those now out of work. Indeed, we were surprised by the outpouring of tributes for the show from hosts and guests of yesteryear as the final episode aired on Friday.

One of those tributes came from comedian Mark Humphries, who marked the ‘terrible loss’ with a clip of one of his appearances featuring a surprisingly funny off-colour joke about Barnaby Joyce.

But it was a comment below Humphries’ post that really caught our attention – from none other than former Sunday Project co-host Lisa Wilkinson.

Wilkinson reposted the clip with a caption: ‘That time we got good legal advice…’

While we can’t say for certain what Wilkinson was referring to here, it’s hard to interpret it as anything other than a parting shot at Channel Ten.

Humphries’ joke, she seemed to imply, was legalled before going to air. Could she be hinting that other public remarks – her infamous Logies speech, perhaps – did not receive the same in-house legal scrutiny they deserved?

Who knows! One thing’s for sure, Wilkinson has previously blamed ‘three women’ at Ten for the catastrophe that was her Logies speech in which she praised Brittany Higgins for her bravery in going public with her rape allegation.

It was a speech so legally combustible, it postponed a criminal trial and blew up her career – yet somehow it was signed off by not one, but three senior women at Ten – or so Wilkinson claims.

Speaking at a book festival in Taree in May, she said: ‘Three women who run Channel Ten all read that speech.

‘When s**t hit the fan I said, “I’m on the front page of every newspaper in the country right now, I am being destroyed. I will take some of the blame because I said those words, but they are the words you asked me to say.

‘”You [the Ten women] know the legal position I am in. You approved it. I went to the legal department… three times, including up to the afternoon of the Logies before I got on that stage. You’ve got to take some of the blame.” I was told, “Oh, we couldn’t do that. That will only make it worse.”‘

While Wilkinson didn’t name the three women, in an affidavit to the Federal Court for Lehrmann’s defamation trial against Ten, Wilkinson said she believed Ten’s senior legal counsel Tasha Smithies, head of PR Cat Donovan and CEO Beverley McGarvey had ‘reviewed and approved’ her speech. 

Of the three, only McGarvey still holds a major executive role at Ten.

Part-time anchor’s Euro summer 

She’s got the sweetest gig at Nine Sydney News, earning $600,000 a year to read the news two (!) nights a week.

So we took notice when Georgie Gardner – she of the two-female-hosts Today show disaster of 2019 – vanished from the Friday and Saturday 6pm bulletins last month.

She hasn’t been on air for going on six weeks, leading to feverish speculation that the newsroom wheels are turning – and not in her favour.

We asked Nine what was going on and were reassured Gardner wasn’t being put out to pasture. A spokesperson told us she was on planned annual leave – a European getaway, we hear – and will be back on our screens later this month.

Phew!

The reason we asked was because this isn’t the first time Gardner has gone M.I.A. 

Last September, she disappeared from her regular weekend newsreading duties for two weeks after allegedly losing her temper with a young female colleague.

The alleged on-set incident occurred as Gardner came off air after presenting the Saturday night news bulletin on August 31. A ‘heated’ exchange followed, apparently sparked by an issue with the teleprompter.

The producer – whom we chose not to name – made a complaint and an internal investigation followed.

Gardner’s subsequent fortnight off the air led to newsroom chatter she’d been stood down pending the investigation. However, sources said it was pre-booked leave.

Libs go dark after Dutton’s demise

New Liberal leader Sussan Ley has performed a handbrake turn on her predecessor Peter Dutton‘s penchant for waging the culture wars.

Ley began her National Press Club address with a pointed acknowledgment of country – a practice Dutton had claimed was ‘overdone’ in the last desperate days of the federal election campaign.

Nowhere are these culture wars waged more fiercely than on Elon Musk‘s X, and it seems Ley and the Liberal Party may have turned their backs on the platform, too.

The official Australian Liberal Party X account has not posted since the day after Dutton’s humiliating defeat back in May.

‘It’s been seven weeks since we heard a peep from you darlings,’ one X user observed.

‘Not even a quick tweet to announce your first ever female leader. Are you okay?’

Our enquiry went unanswered.

• Peter van Onselen is on leave