What he did and said was obviously reprehensible - and was right to cost him his job.
I don’t know if he was truly remorseful - that’s for him and Nine to decide, and they did. It was not a criminal offence, it’s one that would make any future staff working with him look sideways - that’s fully on him and the stigma should be carried with him until he has redeemed himself.
What I am not comfortable with is this attitude that no-one is redeemable, which seems to permeate through society these days.
Next Friday will be Georgie Gardner’s last bulletin - at 6pm. Presumably Belinda Russell will be on weather to farewell Georgie, as they have worked alongside each other since 2015.
I wonder if Peter Overton will make an appearance.
I have heard him over the years poke fun at Seven a lot too actually and on-air unashamedly, often coming across more negatively and seriously TBH.
I think a lot of it possibly has to do with simply HSV-7 having held a lot of the heritage events and TV zeitgeist in the Melbourne market (Good Friday Appeal, VFL/AFL, World of Sport/Sportsworld & Talking Footy, Davis Cup & Australian Open, Blue Heelers, Today Tonight with Naomi Robson and other indirect majors like the Olympics including Sydney 2000) and coming across that way with strong local presence and connections to viewers, perhaps in the way that ‘Nine Sydney’ is often perceived
Obviously GTV are famous and arguably more so for a variety of reasons, especially golden age and Bert and Kennedy, but yeah I do think that there is this weird thing.
But obviously footy being the main one (and why I put that in bold), it can’t not have been a bit painful and sucked for a long time and is why 2002’s rights for Nine briefly was such a shock shake-up and momentarily crushing for Seven. But the same could be said for Seven Sydney, with Nine having held NRL tightly for 30 years and Ten before that.
9News Perth on Saturday Night Marks the Return of Lee Steele who is Presenting Sunday’s Weather Report for Perth & Western Australia alongside Weekend News Presenter Monika Kos and Sport Presenter Alicia Molik.
What a thrill to sit in the big seat for my first news read… and to have the great @phitchener9 on hand for some last minute advice. I asked him for some tips and he said “just be yourself!”
That said I thought her cheerful disposition was a bit odd - smiling when reading a negative news story during one of her first stints reading the news on the weekend over Christmas.
