Media Roundup: Trump returns to White House, Nine’s cultural reset, News Corp shares, Bruce Lehrmann appeal

Trump

Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan pick a Hemsworth for Prime Video’s Deadloch 2, The real reason Guy Sebastian quit The Voice.

US election result: Trump’s comeback

The only thing America loves more than elections is television. So I tuned in

There is only one thing Americans love more than America, and that is elections, reports Nine Publishing’s Michael Idato.

Everyone and everything in America that isn’t bolted down is elected, from the town clerk, school superintendents and tax commissioner … to the president.

And the only thing America loves more than elections is television. When you put the two together, you get a circus of patriotism and stretched faces draped in red, white and blue flags, introduced by news anchors who, at times, look more like ringmasters.

Four years after an election night that pushed the nation to the verge of a nervous breakdown, even higher stakes this time round have left everyone with a collective knot in their stomachs.

The net effect was TV coverage that was initially quiet and contemplative. There was an underlying tension, largely unacknowledged. CNN and Fox News kept the mood upbeat, but neither seemed in a rush to say anything controversial.

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Monstrous Democrat lies told about Donald Trump will now be revealed

Donald Trump is America’s president again – back almost literally from the dead – and we’re now going to learn how much we were lied to, writes News Corp’s Andrew Bolt.

No, not by Trump. By the Democrats and much of the media.

That’s what will make this loss so devastating for the Democrats. That’s why it will also be the final blow to what’s left of any credibility the mainstream media still had.

Kamala Harris’s entire campaign was based on a monstrous lie: that Trump was a Hitler fan and she was “fighting for democracy”.

Her running mate, self-confessed “knucklehead” Tim Walz, called Trump a “dictator” who would “overturn the Constitution”.

All over America’s mainstream media, pundits claimed Trump was a fascist would use the army to round up his critics.

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‘Jubilant scenes’: Inside Donald Trump’s election party

Australian journalist Miranda Devine provided an insight into the “jubilant scenes” at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago watch party as he observed the states turn red at his Florida mansion, report News Corp’s Tom Minear and Julie Cross.

The columnist based in New York said Trump arrived in the gilt panelled grand ballroom at Mar-a-Lago about 8.45pm and sat alongside businessmen Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, and Dana White, the CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

“The mood was buoyant … bordering on jubilant as the good news rolled in for Trump,” Devine said.

“He watched Fox News on the big screen in front of him and kept twisting around to watch the glum faces of the CNN anchors on the screen behind him.

“Later in the night he had the volume turned up loud on Fox and stood at his seat watching the results and working his phone while occasionally talking to White.

“He left the ballroom at 12.11am and went back to his residence to freshen up for an hour before leaving for the nearby convention centre where 5000 supporters and media were waiting.”

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The Australian: Triumph of tenacity ushers in a new Trump era for US

For all his flaws and foibles, it took tenacity and resilience – important characteristics in any US president – for Donald Trump, 78, to achieve an extraordinary White House comeback. The result was more clear-cut than pundits and pollsters expected and was plain as the last polls closed across the US on Wednesday afternoon (AEDT), comments an editorial in The Australian.

During a campaign marred by celebrity appearances and trivia, Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris both left key questions unanswered. But the election outcome demonstrates that most Americans expect better leadership that creates the economic conditions to restore prosperity, delivers tax reform and places a stronger emphasis on border security and immigration control.

If there is a lesson in the results for the leaders of other nations it is that the centre-left of politics is on a hiding to nothing while it devotes its energy to woke agendas rather than key issues. Voters will not forgive parties that ignore economic reform, fiscal responsibility and cutting big government, leaving the pursuit of growth and prosperity to parties of the centre-right.

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Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos congratulates Trump on victory

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post, on Wednesday congratulated President-elect Donald J. Trump on his victory, a sign of a potential thawing between Trump and the billionaire tech mogul, reports The New York Times.

“Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Bezos posted on the social media platform X. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”

Bezos’s fraught relationship with Trump has come under scrutiny in recent weeks after his decision to end The Washington Post’s tradition of endorsing presidential candidates. The Post was set to endorse Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

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Trump Bump 2.0? Experts expect another media audience surge, with caveats

When Donald J. Trump pulled off a surprise victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016, the news media was a major beneficiary, as viewers stayed glued to cable news and readers signed up for newspaper subscriptions in droves, reports The New York Times.

Eight years later, Trump’s definitive White House victory could lead to another spike of audience interest in the news — at least in the short term — numerous experts said.

Cable news ratings, subscriptions to digital news organizations and philanthropic giving will probably increase, as audiences sort through a news-intensive post-election period. But that enthusiasm could wear off in the coming weeks and months as viewers become exhausted by the relentless news cycle.

“Trump 2.0 will likely be a very different administration than we saw before,” said Frank Sesno, a professor at George Washington University and the former Washington bureau chief of CNN. “That will carry immense consequences and news value. It will energize right-wing media, and it will panic the left.”

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How the Guardian will stand up to four more years of Donald Trump

We’ve just witnessed an extraordinary, devastating moment in the history of the United States, comments The Guardian’s Katherine Viner, [Viner is the London-based Guardian editor-in-chief and launched the news brand in Australia.]

In 2016, we promised that our coverage of a Donald Trump administration would meet the moment – and I think it did. Throughout those tumultuous four years we never minimised or normalised the threat of Trump’s authoritarianism, and we treated his lies as a genuine danger to democracy, a threat that found its expression on 6 January 2021.

Now, with Trump months away from taking office again – with dramatic implications for wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the health of American democracy, reproductive rights, inequality and, perhaps most of all, our collective environmental future – it’s time for us to redouble our efforts to hold the president-elect and those who surround him to account.

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Business of Media

Nine’s acting CEO wants a business review alongside cultural reset

Nine Entertainment’s acting chief executive, Matt Stanton, has launched a strategic review of the company’s operating model as part of a plan to squeeze more from digital assets in a tough advertising market and overhaul its culture, reports The AFR’s Sam Buckingham-Jones.

At the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday, Stanton, who took the role of chief executive last month after Mike Sneesby resigned, will face investors in the role at a public event for the first time alongside chairman Catherine West.

Nine sources, who were not permitted to speak publicly, said Stanton’s interim plan for the company had been signed off by the board and involved continuing $50 million in cost cuts this year and talking up business and cultural “transformation”.

Stanton is widely considered to be a frontrunner for the chief executive role and has told executives he will not be a “bench warmer” acting CEO. Other executives, including chief sales officer Michael Stephenson and managing director of radio Tom Malone, have put their hand up for the role, though sources with knowledge of the process said Malone had been told to withdraw.

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Activist Irenic backs push to end News Corp’s dual-class structure

Activist Irenic Capital Management said Tuesday that it would back fellow dissident Starboard Value’s push to dissolve the dual-class structure at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp via a nonbinding proposal, ahead of a closely watched shareholder meeting, reports CNBC.

For the last two years, Jeff Smith’s Starboard has been mounting a campaign at the media conglomerate, seeking both the dissolution of the dual-class structure that gives the Murdoch family outsize control and for the company to split off its highly valuable online real estate business.

Adam Katz’s Irenic has been making its own push at The Wall Street Journal parent for roughly the same time. Irenic wrote in its Tuesday letter to News Corp.’s board that while it opposed the dual-class structure, it remained supportive of management’s efforts to “unlock immediate value.”

Irenic also wrote it believes the Murdoch family and other super-voting shareholders should be paid a premium if a conversion to a single-share structure happened.

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News Brands

Mystery shrouds identity of Lehrmann’s barrister for defamation appeal

A Sydney lawyer acting for Bruce Lehrmann in his defamation appeal has taken the unusual step of writing the name of his proposed barrister on a piece of paper handed to the judge to avoid revealing his identity in open court, reports Nine Publishing’s Michaela Whitbourn.

Solicitor Zali Burrows, representing Lehrmann, told the Federal Court in Sydney on Wednesday that the senior barrister wished to remain unnamed at this stage to avoid being “trolled or harassed, for example, as I’ve experienced”.

Lehrmann is appealing against a decision by Federal Court Justice Michael Lee in April this year, dismissing his defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson over an interview with his former colleague Brittany Higgins broadcast on The Project in 2021.

Lehrmann alleged the broadcast wrongly suggested he was guilty of raping Higgins in Parliament House in 2019. Lee found Ten and Wilkinson had proven this was true on the balance of probabilities and dismissed Lehrmann’s case.

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Television

Guy Sebastian on his decision to quit The Voice: ‘Right now it is a bit too safe’

Guy Sebastian has detailed his reasoning behind standing down as a coach on The Voice after six years, reports News Corp’s Jonathon Moran.

The chart topping singer shocked fans with the announcement days after the recent season finale in which he sat in the red judging chairs alongside Adam Lambert, LeAnn Rimes and Kate Miller-Heidke.

“I think I’ve been too comfortable … I’ve done it because it is comfortable,” Sebastian told The Daily Telegraph of remaining on the reality singing show for so long.

“It is great for my family life and keeping me at home. I’m always busy and I’ve always got something in the calendar that is just sort of stopping me from jumping in with both feet and I think it boils down to this desire to be uncomfortable again.”

While viewers see much less, production on The Voice goes for roughly six months of the year.

“I want to pour myself into it but I can only ever really pour myself into my music and touring and my art these days in spurts, and it is a juggle of fatherhood, being a husband, being a musician, being on TV,” Sebastian explained.

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Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan cast a Hemsworth in returning Prime Video crime comedy

Australian actor Luke Hemsworth is swapping Hollywood glamour for the rugged Australian outback, stepping into a thrilling new role as a charismatic croc-wrangler and wildlife park owner in the second season of Prime Video’s crime-comedy series Deadloch, reports News Corp’s Georgia Clelland.

Hemsworth, best known for his role in Westworld and as the eldest of the Hemsworth siblings, will portray Jason Wade, a Territory legend whose wild animal park and daring personality promise to inject fresh danger and intrigue into the show’s steamy Darwin-based storyline.

Season two of Deadloch will see Hemsworth join returning stars Kate Box, Madeleine Sami and Nina Oyama, along with a roster of Australian favourites including Mad Max’s Steve Bisley and The Sapphires’ Shari Sebbens.

The series follows detectives Dulcie and Eddie who, amid Darwin’s wild landscapes, find themselves drawn into a sticky mystery following the death of Eddie’s former partner, a case that pulls them deeper into a web of suspense and dark humour.

Production for the season kicked off in the Northern Territory and has since moved to Queensland, where filming is wrapping up in local studios.

Show creators Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan praised the casting, calling Hemsworth the “perfect” choice for Wade, a croc-wrangling Territory icon.

“We’re feeling very happy with ourselves about this because he’s perfect. It’s perfect casting,” they said.

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