Sometimes a correction isn’t enough. Commonwealth Bank CEO Ralph Norris took a pretty unusual — and assertive — step on the weekend, when he decided to run full page ‘correction’ ads in all metropolitan Fairfax and News Limited Saturday newspapers to refute a damaging story that ran in the Murdoch press last week.
The full page display ad took umbrage with an article which reported that Norris said it was “better to see ‘a few’ foreclosures than have an economy hamstrung by a low-profit banking system” after the bank raised interest rates by 0.45% on Melbourne Cup day.
A correction was issued by the company a few days later, but it seems that was not enough to undo the damage. According to a Commonwealth Bank spokesperson, the ad was run to ensure that the bank “clarified the comments attributed to the CEO” and that it was “important to broadcast that message as widely as possible because the story was reported as widely as possible.”
The spokesperson also said that customers would not necessarily pick up both News Limited and Fairfax papers on the weekend, so it was important to run the ad in both publications. The ads, which in papers like the Herald Sun and Daily Tele typically cost more than $50,000 each, were paid for by the bank and were “very much a bank initiative”.
The spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the story had affected any business relationship with News. — Tom Cowie
Oakes live tweets Insiders. Yesterday’s discussion of Michael Kroger’s claims about Laurie Oakes and the alleged Rudd election leaks didn’t play out as well as the ABC’s Insiders could have hoped. Host Barrie Cassidy showed a clip of Kroger claiming he had “no doubt” that Oakes spoke to Rudd on the night of the chop and talks of Oakes hanging onto the information followed. Little did they realise, Oakes was live-tweeting his responses as they went.
Kroger claimed that Rudd “gave those leaks to Oakes on June the 23rd … and once having given that information to Oakes, Rudd had no control over when and where and how it would be used.”
Barrie followed on from the clip saying, “If that’s true, Oakes then had all of this information on that night. It was then in his hands when he would use it and he used it at a time when it would have had the most impact. In other words, he saved some of this material for right in the middle of the election campaign.”
Piers Akerman then began to question whether Oakes’ apparent decision to hold onto the information was in the interests of furthering his career. Panelists David Marr and Kerry-Anne Walsh both coined onto the potential slander that was unfolding and Walsh reminded the panel that “this is a theory from Kroger. It’s not being confirmed or denied or anything by Laurie Oakes.”
But it was:
A little later in the show Barrie announced that Oakes had called to inform the panel of his tweets. “He says he did not have a conversation with Kevin Rudd on the night of the coup and that he didn’t hold back any information at all,” Barrie said. “He was given the information that he delivered at the Press Club on that day.”
It was Oakes who had the final word:
— Crikey intern Cat Wall.
The Sunday Age‘s perfect placement. In yesterday’s Sunday Age Melissa Fyfe wrote about political beatups and myths including “violence in streets” and misuse of crime statistics for bodgy law and order campaigns.
Directly beneath her piece columnist Bruce Guthrie beat up on crime statistics with claims that “Our streets are awash in booze and blood. Something must be done.”
Proved Fyfe’s point exactly. — Anonymous Crikey reader.
Bank plague blows into Melbourne? It’s not always easy running a website and with all those tricky tools and codes, sometimes things can get a little mixed up. There’s been so much frenzy in the last week over the locusts hitting town and the mortgage rate rises that ABC Online seemed to get a bit muddled up over the weekend:
Perhaps they’re trying to send the banks a message. — Crikey intern Cat Wall
French press freedom under fire
“President Nicolas Sarkozy stands accused of co-opting the security apparatus of the republic, from the domestic spy agency, to police and magistrates, in a surveillance conspiracy designed to intimidate and harass “nuisance” reporters and expose their informants.” — The Australian
Defamation concerns over Fox News Glenn Beck
“The Fox News host Glenn Beck was criticized Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish advocacy organization, in response to a televised segment about the financier George Soros and the Holocaust.” — New York Times
More News of the World hack scandal evidence
“A file containing new evidence on the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has been submitted to prosecutors a week after the paper’s former editor Andy Coulson was interviewed by police.” — The Guardian
Logies take voting online to increase options
“When TV Week opens voting for its next Logie Awards in December, viewers will have more voting choices than ever before. With the shift to voting exclusively online, organisers will no longer put a limit on the number of submissions for the Popular Awards.” — TV Tonight
Fancy that, “Kroger being mischievous – extrapolating as fact”?
You just have to watch him at work on his various “guest appearances” on Lateline, to see that sort of form of his, and getting away with it. Why wouldn’t it be established, it’s been tolerated and nurtured.
Leigh Sales doesn’t seem to have one of those “(selective) grab-bags” of hers, on him.
Didn’t he have a political posting there, to the ABC, as one of Howard’s “embassadors, moles and watch-dogs”, along with a couple of other “governors”?
Of course Kroger was repeating the tosh by the excreble Paul Howes who really and truly should just shut up.
Perhaps the 2010 election leaks will remain a mystery forever. Or at least until the political careers of senior ALP figures is over and they publish their memoirs.
I assume the only reason Oakes can’t take legal action against Kroger is that it would involve revealing sources.
Re Apology to Norris & Paid Adverts
I see that the Adelaide Advertiser, the Herald Sun and Daily Tele all chose to aploogise to Sir Ralph, but an internet search of their website reveals that the Courier Mail chose not to, but still took $ from the CBA to run a full pager that called them liars. Obviously no shame at the Courier Mail…..