Karl Stefanovic’s extravagant wedding was timed almost to the day of his employer Nine’s marriage with former newspaper publisher Fairfax Media. But the new partnership didn’t win Stefanovic’s new colleagues at The Sydney Morning Herald or The Age any special access to his clickbait-friendly big day.
Instead, News Corp’s papers had the exclusive for their Sunday front pages, featuring quotes from the bride, Jasmine Yarbrough, on why she’s marrying the Today host, her hopes for the four-day wedding celebration in Mexico, and the proposal. The tabloid papers today quote from the ceremony, with a joint byline to Daily Telegraph gossip columnist Jonathon Moran and US correspondent Sarah Blake, from the location.
By comparison, the gossip in the Herald about the wedding is decidedly more sceptical — columnist Andrew Hornery’s report of the ceremony opened with reference to the bride being upset and groom “frustrated” on the morning of the wedding.
The wedding tops off a whopping year in the public eye for Stefanovic — breathless reporting of his nuptials and relationship, updates on his ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn’s life and career, dismal ratings at Today, and reported tension with co-host Georgie Gardner (not to mention that Uber ride).
Among the speculation as to Stefanovic’s future on Nine’s breakfast program comes The Australian’s glowing profile today of his stand-in host Brenton Ragless. Citing a “no dickheads” policy at Nine for on-air talent, the Oz reports that Ragless is a contender to replace Stefanovic permanently: “The Adelaide newsreader is widely perceived at Nine as the very antithesis of the classic, Stefanovic-style network celebrity from Central Casting.”
Stefanovic has been confirmed as Today host for 2019, but speculation continues as to whether he’ll still have the job if ratings don’t pick up.
Today’s ratings is just one of many things on Nine’s agenda for 2019. Today is the first day the publications formerly trading under the Fairfax Media brand have published as Nine mastheads.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald both dedicated their editorials today to the change, both emphasising that they would continue to prioritise independent journalism under their new corporate owner. One of the biggest concerns about Nine’s takeover of the Fairfax papers is the impact it could have on Fairfax’s independence.
In an email to his staff on Friday, Nine CEO Hugh Marks marked the completion of the merger process. “In the media landscape, we become Australia’s largest locally owned media company, evolved from two of the great heritage brands, Fairfax and Nine, who have served our community with the best entertainment, content, sport and news journalism for decades,” he said.
He said Nine’s mission was to create and distribute “great content”, saying that could be in the form of “a TV show like The Block which draws millions of viewers every night and captures water cooler discussion, or it can be ground-breaking journalism such as Adele Ferguson’s reporting of banking malpractice that drives community discussion on both a national and local level and forces the sector to reform”.
Bernard wrote, above: ” … few Australians have much interest in what happens in parliament, or politics more generally.”
I know how they feel. I have no interest in Karl Stefanovic, his wife, his wedding or anything else about him and I am not concerned to inform myself about them. I do not watch channel 9 and am unlikely to start now.
I read The Canberra Times and know that it is not part of this Fairfax-9 union. Its former editor, Jack Waterford, writes an unfashionably long and well-argued article that appears each Saturday. I would miss these articles greatly. But generally TCT engages in parish pump reports on matters I do not concern myself with.
I agree re Waterford’s Saturday column – it is compulsory reading for me and should be included in the SMH and Age each week.
It’s great to see another one of us Ozzie battlers making the best of the limited opportunities life presents us.
Seems Julie “The Eagle” Bishop rocked up too? ….. I wonder what “party business” she was able to “coincide” in Mexico for those days?
“… the best entertainment, content, sport and news journalism”. News last. And yep, The Block beats Adele Ferguson’s reporting of banking malpractice hands down. Is it any wonder I cancelled my SMH subscription when the merger was announced?
The “network celebrity from Central Castings” is someone famous for being famous so why did Crikey feel it necessary to make 2/3 of the article about this non entity’s wedding?
For this we pay a subscription.
Am I the only person in my neck of the woods who reads a news item to find out what that news is? It seems as if other people read the news to find out what the news reader did in bed last night.
Dear Crikey, please don’t go too far in writing about, what’s is name? Karl Stefanovic and his fellow surface scribes, it can only bring down the value of Crikey itself.