The former ABC broadcaster Kerry O’Brien got a standing ovation at the 70th Walkley awards on Thursday night for a rousing speech that reminded media in the ICC Sydney ballroom of the “clear and present danger for a strong, free, effective and independent media everywhere”.

The winner of six Walkley awards, including the Gold, called on the industry to unite to strengthen press freedom. He began by paying tribute to Palestinian journalists who have “confronted the world with powerful evidence that has gradually taken on the look and feel of genocide in real time” and decried the “outrageous casualty list of Palestinian journalists and other media workers in Israel’s war on Gaza since the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens two years ago”.

The former 7.30 host highlighted comments made by Anthony Albanese when in opposition that have not translated to meaningful improvements in press freedom, whistleblower protection or uniform national shield laws.

“He’s certainly talked the talk, and to a degree he’s walked the walk, but given what’s at stake now and in a potentially very volatile climate ahead … we as an industry cannot afford to lose sight of important unfinished business,” O’Brien said.

“And if we think we’re doing it tough … remind yourself of those journalists in Gaza or Ukraine, or Russia or China, or Myanmar or Afghanistan who’ve been shut down or gone to prison, or gone to their graves for an ideal – for seeking to report the truth.”

After detailing the attacks on the press in the US and Saudi Arabia, O’Brien, 80, said: “Don’t kid yourself it can’t happen here.”

Male delivery

The chief executive officer of Media Diversity Australia, Paula Kruger, unleashed on the ABC for its record on diversity after our story about the all-male lineup at ABC Sydney after Chris Bath’s shock departure.

A former ABC Canberra and Perth radio presenter, Kruger pointed out that not only are all the Sydney local radio presenters from Breakfast to Drive male, they are also all white.

“If you are content with delivering an ‘all white is alright’ and ‘all bloke means we’re not woke’ line up to a 2025/26 audience, there is no saving you,” Kruger said on LinkedIn.

Clockwise from top left: Thomas Oriti, Hamish Macdonald, Craig Reucassel and James Valentine.

“Do you know the world outside your front door? Your audience does. How can they trust you when you can’t see the world they see?”

In response to audio director Ben Latimer’s comment that “there is always more to do” on diversity, Kruger said: “It has been more than a decade of ‘there is always more to do’. We’re told ‘there isn’t any culturally diverse talent’, ‘they still need a lot of work’, ‘we don’t want to set them up to fail’. Mate, the problem is you. The failure is yours.”

Latimer did not respond to a request for comment.

Back for more on AI

When Kim Williams was appointed ABC chair in January 2024, Anthony Albanese described him as a “true renaissance man”, equally at home with the media as with arts and sport.

You can add artificial intelligence to that. Earlier this month Williams told our technology reporter, Josh Taylor, he was a prolific user of various AI applications, including ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity but warned of the “dangerous and sinister” potential of AI if the technology went unchecked.

The former CEO of News Corp said he saw AI as potentially devastating for entry-level jobs in accounting or law but he believed the effect on journalism would not be as damaging.

This week Williams gave his second keynote speech in as many weeks about the rise of AI and what it means for journalism’s future.

Speaking at the UTS Centre for Media Transition, Williams recommended a book for everyone in the media – If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares – and passionately argued for “ground rules” and “parameters” to restrain the tech moguls.

Kim Williams hit out at the ‘neo-reactionary social Darwinist’ language of some tech investors. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

“I cannot begin to describe the frustration I have with the way in which proponents of AI and proponents of AI investment are treated with kid gloves as if [to say] how dare we offer an opinion as to the consequences of interfering in their untrammelled right to do whatever they think is necessary in pursuit of AI development pathways,” Williams said.

“Well, that’s rubbish. And it’s not in any way connected with the way in which our society should operate and has until now operated … it’s foolhardy to see capital as being the determinator of all human destiny.”

Without naming any of the tech investors, Williams said if any bank CEO spoke in the same “neo-reactionary social Darwinist terms” as they did they wouldn’t last beyond a week.

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One Nation – wait, make that two

Speaking of AI, Seven News posted a video story about Pauline Hanson after she was censured by the Senate and suspended from the chamber for repeating her 2017 burqa stunt. The short reel had a couple of bizarre elements. It opened with a picture of a kangaroo grazing on a lawn. Then it switched to an image of the US Capitol flying the Stars and Stripes, with the text saying Hanson had been barred from parliament.

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Surely only AI would confuse Parliament House in Canberra with the US Capitol and illustrate a political story with a kangaroo. Seven did not respond to a request for comment. The reel has been taken offline.

The Guardian’s policy on the use of AI can be seen here.

Author of notorious quote dies

Prof Graeme Turner, a prolific cultural studies academic, was in recent months touring the country to talk about his latest book, Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good.

‘There is a bit of matron in there,’ Prof Graeme Turner said of Today Tonight host Naomi Robson. Photograph: Andrew Brownbill/AAP

So his death from a short illness at 78 came as a shock to the media industry in which he has been so influential. Among his publications about literature, film, new media, journalism, celebrity, popular culture and Australian identity, Turner undertook a major study of talkback radio and wrote extensively about television current affairs.

One of his 30 books was Ending the Affair: The Decline of Television Current Affairs in Australia. When Turner spoke to me 20 years ago about Naomi Robson, the former host of Seven’s Today Tonight, he offered these memorable words, which it’s fair to say would be unlikely to be published in 2025.

“There’s this cold, waspish, punishment-oriented, dominatrix in Robson that fits with the tabloid audience,” he told me when I was a reporter for The Australian.

“They want to see these people [on the program] caned. And yet because she is relatively stylish and good-looking she doesn’t come across as a harridan. There is a bit of matron in there.”

The celebrity agent Max Markson admitted in 2010 he had edited Robson’s Wikipedia page to remove reference to the Turner quote as well as the incident when Robson was ridiculed for wearing a live lizard on her shoulder in a report on Steve Irwin’s death.

The material was all put back.

Growth spurt Photograph: News Corp

The Australian, which this month launched a new brand campaign with the tagline “welcome to the contest of ideas”, is never shy about blowing its own trumpet.

On Monday a headline in the News Corp broadsheet said: “The Australian’s quality journalism sparks nation-leading growth”, citing figures from Roy Morgan Iris, a cross-platform measurement of audience adopted by some print and digital mastheads in 2023.

Those figures take into account the transparent Ipsos Iris measurement of digital sites and combine it with print readership figures to produce an overall audience number. The latest Ipsos Iris update ranks The Australian 14th among digital sites, with an audience of 3.5m. The top news site in October was ABC News, followed by news.com.au, nine.com.au, 7news.com.au, Guardian Australia and the Daily Mail.

We do know that The Australian surely knows its demographic, judging by the picture used to illustrate its story.