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It’s been a big few days for our friends at The Australian Financial Review. Last Wednesday, staff were told their editor-in-chief, James Chessell, would leave the newspaper to reunite with Joe Aston, the masthead’s former Rear Window columnist, at his upstart business publication, Rampart, next month.
By the end of the week, Chessell’s final day at the newspaper had been brought forward to Friday, following an angry staff letter. Over the weekend, Nine’s managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire, and Aston agreed to end a deal giving Rampart pre- and post-publication legal support and photography in exchange for a monthly Aston column and a cut of Rampart’s revenue.
But the deal, it would seem, hasn’t exactly been torn up with immediate effect.
Nine will continue to offer Aston’s Rampart legal support over the next two or so months, said two people familiar with the situation. The rest of the deal will be wound down on that same timeline, said one of the people, with the exception of Aston’s monthly column in the Financial Review, which is already a fixture of the past. No hard feelings then, we guess.
Still, the divorce negotiations threw up a handful of questions in media circles on Monday. Among them, at least for some staff at the Financial Review, was how big an appetite News Corp Australia’s executive chairman Michael Miller might have for offering up the support of Holt Street to the Rampart cause.
Not much appetite at all, it turns out. There has been no approach, according to a person close to the executive, and there are no plans to consider getting involved in the Nine-Rampart separation, leaving Aston to lawyer up and go it alone.
But our guess is his former colleagues won’t mind. Chessell’s resignation last week sparked an uncharacteristic wave of backlash in the Financial Review newsroom. A few of the newsroom’s union members wrote to management late last week outraged, asking why Chessell was being allowed back into the building before heading off to work for a competitor.
On Monday, Chessell’s successor, Cosima Marriner, cut her holiday short to head into Nine’s North Sydney headquarters for yet another staff town hall, to address staff concerns. Word is the meeting went as well as it could have, for Marriner, at least.
There are still strong feelings of betrayal among staff at the nation’s premiere business newspaper. In the town hall, Chessell was accused of not being fully straight with staff. Then there have been grumblings about Chessell being allowed to walk out of Nine’s office and immediately into the arms of Aston without any cooling-off period.
Out for lunch
Regular readers will no doubt recall we brought word this month that none other than former British prime minister Liz Truss has been booked as the headline act of CPAC Australia, Australia’s bootleg of the US political festival that birthed the MAGA movement.
Well, it looks like Truss, who of course is best known for her 49-day stint in Downing Street being outlasted by a lettuce, has been busy stacking her diary with appointments while she’s on Australian shores.
Among them is a “luncheon” hosted by the NSW Liberals, at which she’s set to appear alongside former prime minister and the party’s federal president Tony Abbott. In an invitation to lobbyists and party faithful last week, the party’s state director, Mark Neeham, said the get-together will feature a “fireside discussion on leadership, conservative politics, and the future of the west”. Lots to chew on, no doubt.
We’re just glad to see Abbott will still be able to keep his diary commitments after a close call volunteering with the Rural Fire Service over the weekend. He was among firefighters who got caught up after a routine hazard reduction burn got out of control in Sydney’s south-west. A pretty hairy day, he told CBD, but luckily it was only equipment lost.
Truss will then head to Brisbane, where she’ll appear at the festival alongside Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, along with Nationals leader Matt Canavan, Nationals defector-turned-One Nation recruit Barnaby Joyce, and his boss, Pauline Hanson.
The last time Hanson gave an address to the CPAC faithful was in the throes of her whirlwind trip to the UK and Europe, where she was pictured poolside with her billionaire benefactor, Gina Rinehart.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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