Content by Anthony Dockrill
The news that Nine has parted ways with Karl Stefanovic, and his new GOLD Network multiplatform radio show The Long Weekend with Eddie McGuire is under a cloud, is the kind of news we really should take a step back from and ask what the hell just happened?
I have written before about the differences and perils between traditional broadcasting and more narrow forms of publishing such as podcasting but rarely has the divide been more on display than the news that the Nine breakfast host has been chasing clicks on YouTube by having chummy chats with various far-right figures.
Karl’s show on YouTube is a real eye opener, if you think of him as a journalist who has worked at Nine for the last 25 plus years. One thing Nine is known for is running a strong newsroom built around meeting the needs and expectations of middle Australia.
It’s also true to say that as a company that has a long history in the news game, it’s one that has avoided a lot of the ideological shenanigans you see at News Corp or now at Seven.
When Nine took over the Fairfax papers there were a lot of people worried about what Nine would do with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. It’s fair to say on balance their ownership has been largely positive and even benign.
So when you scroll through the episodes of The Karl Stefanovic Show, be careful your head doesn’t spin off at the sight of Nine’s major star chatting with a range of folk who could not just pop up on Sky News after dark, but a few who would never make it to air.
What the hell is going on?
One theory doing the rounds is that Stefanovic wanted out of morning TV so he purposely blew up his contract, which is a lot of work to go to when you could just quit.
Maybe he wants the publicity and the brownie points you get in certain circles from being cancelled, but it all seems very strange because he has possibly blown up his radio career as well.
After what has just gone down with Kyle and Jackie O, what Board, at any major media company, is saying we want way more crazy risk on our balance sheet?
Has he red-pilled?
It’s a serious question and his YouTube channel would indicate he has, or is now at the least closely adjacent. Some of his content would work on Russell Brand‘s channel, which is a crazy situation to find yourself in when your job is to help people wake up on Today. UFOs, chemtrails, anti-vaxxers and jumping on the One Nation bandwagon is not the stuff you’d expect a national figure like Stefanovic to be embracing.
The most striking thing about the Karl Stefanovic Show on YouTube is not how loopy a lot of it is but how unoriginal all of it is. It’s nothing more than a copy and paste of Joe Rogan and Russell Brand, standard conspiracy-driven content many on the alt-right are now making and consuming. It’s a weird and frankly sad end, and maybe a cautionary tale, if Karl has red-pilled, because if he has, maybe any of us could.
What are the lessons from all of this if you work in the media?
The difference between broadcasting and narrowcasting through algorithm still matters, even if it’s getting murky. If Stefanovic understood he was a broadcaster he would still have a job at Nine.
Want to make a show where you interview Pete Evans about big pharma and vaccines?
You can.
Stefanovic did this very interview back on the 25th of May and you can put it on YouTube and have it all over social media.
Can you play it on Nine?
No.
Could you play it on ARN?
Probably not.
Why? It’s because of those pesky things called broadcast law and editorial policies and standards.
Also, if you play the interview uncut you’d probably find yourself spending the next six months having a pen pal relationship with the ACMA.
Yes, you are largely free to stick this kind of stuff up on YouTube, but what if you are considered by your audience, your peers and your employer to be a broadcaster and a journalist? What then?
Why all of this has become murky is because the world’s richest man bought Twitter, now X, back in 2022. Now Peppa Pig is on the same platform as full-blown Nazis and other shades of crazies. The clear delineation the world used to have has disappeared and with it many people feel it’s OK to rub shoulders with folks they might once have shunned or never been exposed to.
A month ago Stefanovic chatted with Pete Evans, who was dropped by his publishers for posting neo-Nazi symbols back in 2020. So why not speak with Tommy Robinson? It’s not that big a jump, is it?
Well, not as far as the algorithm is concerned, or as far as your narrow audience on YouTube is concerned. But a quick look at Tommy Robinson’s Wikipedia page would have had flashing red lights in the minds of anyone with both feet in the broadcaster world.
But Karl Stefanovic had already left the building.
Anthony Dockrill is a Digital Producer at Pod Jam and the former Program Director of 2SER FM Sydney.