Abc Appoints New Media Watchdog
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday November 28, 2007
IT MAY be the most challenging and high-profile job in Australian television: the veteran Four Corners reporter Jonathan Holmes has agreed to become the next presenter of ABC's Media Watch, pledging to tackle bad journalism and spin doctors alike.
The four-time Walkley Award finalist and 1998 Logie winner will take replace Monica Attard, who resigned after a two-year stint amid accusations that the program had become biased and trivial. The ABC is still looking for a successor to the executive producer, Tim Palmer, who quit along with Attard to take up a new job on Lateline and Lateline Business. Holmes will be Media Watch's seventh host since it started in 1989. He promised to keep the watchdog program "fast-paced and fun". "As a scourge of bad journalism it performs an invaluable function," he said in a statement, promising to try to "expose the more egregious antics of the industry that all too often tries to sway, or mislead, or simply stonewall journalists who are trying to do an honest job: the army of media relations people, employed by government and business". In an ironic twist, the ABC would not let its new media watchdog speak to journalists last night. Holmes, a former BBC producer, emigrated in 1982 to join Four Corners.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald