Sacked Nine Brisbane news boss Amanda Paterson has lodged a formal complaint to the Fair Work Commission, alleging she was unlawfully terminated by the media company’s director of news and current affairs Fiona Dear for minor transgressions that were completely unrelated to the organisation’s highly publicised review of its workplace culture.
Paterson, who worked at Nine for 31 years – having started at the company as a 19-year-old – last week commenced legal action against Nine Entertainment and Dear, with the matter headed for a mandatory conciliation hearing in the FWC before proceeding to the Federal Court.
Paterson is seeking unspecified damages arising from unlawful termination. It’s understood that Nine wants Paterson to sign a deed of release to resolve the dispute.
Until 7 November, Paterson was news director of Nine’s Brisbane, Gold Coast and Darwin newsrooms. On that day, she was asked to attend a snap meeting in the boardroom of Nine Brisbane’s Mount Coot-tha headquarters.
During the seven-minute meeting between Paterson and Dear, who appeared via videolink from Sydney, the Brisbane news boss was informed that her employment was being terminated, effective immediately.
What does everyone think of the current Melbourne backdrop zoomed in? For the wide shots and the throw to sport it’s fine, but it doesn’t look great with the presenter shot. They should have it zoomed out for the presenter shot.
Paterson has complained to the Fair Work Commission that she was unlawfully sacked in November after 31 years at the network. Her lawyer, John Laxon, said the timing and circumstances of the sacking had given the impression his client had been fired as a result of the review, but Nine’s reasons were unrelated to this.
“They time the terminations to coincide with the release of a report so as to leave the smear and the inference somehow the termination has something to do with the report when it does not in any way,” Laxon told this masthead – which is owned by Nine.
“It just leaves a horrible taint that she’s a victim of the Intersection report, and she’s not.”
Laxon has represented several high-profile media figures and executives who have left commercial networks this year, including Seven’s Robert Ovadia and former Spotlight executive producer Mark Llewellyn.
Nine and Dear are listed as respondents to Paterson’s claim, this masthead was told.
Well, the SMH article has the response from Amanda Paterson’s lawyer to yesterday’s report in The Australian. The SMH article also happened to mention Airlie Walsh’s lawsuit but didn’t provide any details.
Not going to lie Nine Melbourne should update their skyline backdrop to this which is what was seen at the Royal Melbourne Show in September and October. I reckon it would look heaps better than the current skyline backdrop in my opinion.
