Veteran journo Chris Masters has been working for four years on a book about Alan Jones, commissioned by ABC Books. The book has now been canned, ostensibly for “commercial reasons” because Jones or his lawyers wrote threatening legal action. A number of reports suggest that commercial publishers are very interested in the manuscript, which had two goings over by legal eagles. But what’s most fascinating is that while one response to Keith Windschuttle’s appointment to the ABC Board was that the Board didn’t have any real power beyond appointing the MD, it would appear that the Board took an unprecedented interest in Masters’ manuscript - at Windschuttle’s first board meeting. Somehow I don’t think Masters is a Marxist, so perhaps there are more ramifications for the editorial independence of the ABC in the Howard board appointments than just culture wars sloganeering.
Update: Media Watch tonight claimed that the decision was made directly by the Board and not by ABC Enterprises.
Further Update: Here’s the link to the Media Watch transcript and I’d thoroughly endorse this sentiment:
The ABC has already spent over $100,000 on Jonestown that will have to be written off as a straight loss, while the profits and the plaudits for the book go to another publisher.
Now that doesn’t seem like good commercial decision making to us.
Direct involvement of the board in such decisions has to create the perception that the ABC is editorially timid, or worse, vulnerable to the influence of powerful men like Alan Jones.
Something doesn’t ring true from these reports. The Masters’ book will be a best-seller in Australia because of widespread interest in the Parrot’s views. Why is Masters worried about the ABC’s rejection - if it is not legally challenged he will sell lots of copies and make a packet publishing it elsewhere - you suggest there are other interested publishers. Is it that there are indeed serious legal questions about material in the book which make this not an attractive option?
If it is true that Windshuttle (or anyone else on the Board) rejected the book solely because of their political priors that is awful. But maybe that wasn’t the issue.
Is there any evidence that the book was considered by the Board? Iggulden states that the decision and a Board meeting were in proximity but the ABC has rejected any suggestion that the Board discussed the matter.
Jones litigiousness is legendary and ABC publishing wouldn’t have pockets as deep as some of the market leader publishing houses.
It’s probably a prudent financial decision for the ABC in the circumstances and a major PR windfall for Masters.
Geoff Honnor:
Chris Masters seems to think it was:
Geoff:
Got a source for that rejection? The statement given to Lateline is just this:
Which is not a denial it was discussed by the board.
There would be no publishing industry if all publishers were this gutless. Stick to Gardening Australia and cookbooks, ABC.
“Chris Masters seems to think it was:”
He said that “he’d heard that the Board was interested.” That’s a bit different to definitive proof that rejection was a Board decision.
ABC board role in ban ‘uncertain’
From: AAP
From News Ltd website:
June 30, 2006
“JOURNALIST Chris Masters says he does not know if the ABC board had anything to do with ABC publishers’ decision not to print his book on Alan Jones.
ABC Enterprises said yesterday it would not proceed with publication of the book Jonestown, which was commissioned after a Four Corners TV program in May 2002 by Mr Masters.
ABC Enterprises director Robyn Watts has said the decision not to proceed was made on purely commercial grounds.
Mr Masters today said he became concerned when he heard the board had taken an interest in the book, which had provoked threats of legal action by Jones’s lawyers.
He said he also was aware that the board had met yesterday, before Ms Watts informed him the corporation would not go ahead with publication.
“I don’t know what happened and I asked Robyn Watts whether the board had anything to do with this and she insisted the decision was hers and hers alone,” Mr Masters told ABC radio.”
Apparently Masters has been jumping through hoops for several years to have this book published. I reckon (pure speculation - I don’t know Masters) some of the legal battles centre around two things. One is the possibility, all-too-breifly mentioneed on the “Jonestown” Four Corners episode last year, that Jones, as a PE teacher to grammar school boys, was so fond of his young charges that he sometimes took them home. When my partner and I watched that sequence, our jaws dropped to the floor, but it was left at that.
More things I think Jones would mount a case against are revealed in a chapter of Master’s tremendous book, Not For Publication. In there is a chapter about a shock jock and nasty powerbroker who, among many other things, seeks to give the public the impression that politicians are calling up his radio show. All names have been changed (apparently for libel reasons), but it’s not too difficult to figure this is Jones. (In my opinion, of course.)
So, basically, no-one believes Robyn Watts when she says it was her decision alone and the board ain’t telling.
From what I’ve heard of the contents of the book, the juiciest bit is going to be something that is an open secret anyway.
Having been on more than a few boards, none of them media organisations, I’d consider it the board’s duty to be aware of any potential legal actions arising from book of such kind.
It’s pretty clear here that the deep pockets issue is important. Jones and his backers are squillionaires and would be able to continue actions for close to forever with the best end possibility in 5 years or so being costs of some $millions to each side. No book however popular in australia would return this much profit.
The out of pocket expenses are only one aspect of the costs involved in deep pocket excercises. The amount of senior management and staff time taken up any legal action, no matter how frivoulous or vexacious, is enormous and diverts an organisation from getting on with business. Legal action can and does send small organisations to the wall. Much better business to settle early and at low cost.
The real issue here is not the actions of the ABC board which to me, primae facae, seem to be sensible, but the libel, slander, defamation laws in australia that make such ventures hazardous.
Oops. I have been on the board of a media organisation.
if the book was rejected by the ABC Board, and if the book is subject to considerable positive attention by commercial publishers, then doesn’t this just suggest that the new right wing board appointments are just in keeping with the ABC’s traditional lack of commercial acumen?
Exactly, WeekbyWeek. And my feeling is that another publisher, perhaps one like MUP which published the Latham book despite libel implications, might ride on this wave of publicity and publish & be dammned. I also think, why would Jones sue when it’ll only bring his activities under more public scrutiny? He won’t sue, because Masters is a meticulous journalist, and he won’t sue, because he doesn’t want his dirty laundry aired even further.
I’m with you, Weathergirl — it had occurred to me too that Louise Adler at MUP will no doubt swoop down on this one like her namesake eagle on a juicy bit of roadkill and fight the other raptors for it beak and talon.
(Hmm, can’t get away from bird imagery here. Parrots, eagles …)
As for Windy’s victory, it will be extremely Pyrrhic, as most of the commerical publishers have far better marketing and distribution mechanisms in place than ABC Books.
Margaret Simons in today’s Crikey: “My sources suggest suspicion about the ABC Board is misplaced. Senior ABC management, and particularly the bean counters, seem to have stuffed this one up all by themselves”.
Can you elaborate Captain Wacky?
(PC, you must be hungry.)
Not really, WG. A bit more context for the Simons quote:
So according to Symons the report did go to the Board. In any case, my post didn’t say this was a result of Board interference as a certainty - note the hyperlinked word “appeared” where I refer to what Masters himself had to say about the possibility. If it is a stuff up by management, you still have to remember that the whole point of the Board appointments is to change the “culture” and the thinking of the way ABC staff operate - presumably pre-eminently management staff.
Exactly Mark. You create a climate, make them as nervous as possible, and then self-censorship occurs,
The underlings, particularly the aspirationals, will second guess what their masters want.
The Australian’s content in recent times suggest that the contributors, including the cartoonists, know on which side their bread is buttered.
Exactly, Mark and wpd. That’s a superb piece by Margaret Simons.
Update: Media Watch tonight claimed that the decision was made directly by the Board and not by ABC Enterprises.
Yeah. And apparently commercial publishers are falling over themselves to get the book. Windy, you’ve done private enterprise a great service.
Yes Mark, I have just watched Media Watch.
It would seem that the sledgehammer is preferred to the stilletto.
Bad tactics.
The same result could have been achieved from a much greater distance.
“Windy, you’ve done private enterprise a great service”.
weathergirl, I think that Windy, as an individual, had little or nothing to do with this decision.
As Mark has asserted, this is about ‘cultural change/climate’.
As an ABC employee, who in their right mind (and in the future there will be many more “right minds”) will ever suggest anything other than conservative/bland projects.
Personally, I think that they have overplayed their hand. Dumb Bastards.
“And apparently commercial publishers are falling over themselves to get the book.”
Yes, how do we know Chris Masters didn’t plan all this from the start. I’ve drank with the guy a couple of times and he’s certainly smart enough to realise the value of “The book they tried to stop!” as a cover strap line.
I mean c’mon, his target audience (which includes moi) is positively drowning in an attention economy. It takes a real controversy or moral panic to cut through the sargrasso sea of marketing crap these days - as Big Brother are now demonstrating. Damn, those Endemol people are smart.
Waiting for the transcript, but it seems to me Media Watch have effectively called Robyn Watts a liar.
Very effectively it seems.
Yes, more or less, Bill. It’s a bugger about those transcripts. The ABC should get a blog or something.
I wonder if they’ll post the letter from Gilbert Tobin. It seemed that it was what they characterised (without having had access to the book) as “sexual innuendo” was what they were claiming was defamatory.
Attard made a good point about editorial timidity at the end.
wpd, I agree it’s probably an own goal in a sense. But in another sense, it does reinforce the culture of fear that we’ve been talking about. And I don’t know whether or not Windy did have anything much to do with it. One reason why my title ends with a question mark. But I’d be very surprised indeed if a Board stacked with Howard supporters wouldn’t wonder what the PM would think about a book that might be critical of his “great mate” the Parrot.
I’d also not at all be surprised, incidentally, if Windy, Albrechtsen etc. would love to claim the credit. Might be worth watching some of the right-wing columnists who aren’t yet already on the ABC Board to see whether they say anything about it.
Yes (PDF).
Let us mention nothing about the toilets.
Or closets.
Further Update: Here’s the link to the Media Watch transcript and I’d thoroughly endorse this sentiment:
“Let us mention nothing about the toilets.”
Absolutely, for many reasons. Not least the fact that Alan simply lacked the guts, nous, or songwriting chops to turn the joke around and turn personal humilation into damn good entertainment for others.
Not much doubt about who had more balls here.
Masters’ Jones biography was mentioned in the May issue of The Monthly, in David Salter’s “Who’s For Breakfast, Mr Jones?” Here’s the relevant few paragraphs (pp 44-45):
I don’t reckon he’ll sue. He’d hardly want the toilet episode aired again.
Geoff Honnor on 3 July 2006 at 7:37 am
I’d like to preseve this comment as an example of just how wrong it’s possible to be.
So now it seems you all understand the problem with the bad old unfair dismissal laws and their abuse by the unions. Truth was often the casualty.
Just a dumb question- Does Masters own the work or did he write it on ABC time? That might have some bearing on whether it will be published before Jones dies.
- Does Masters own the work or did he write it on ABC time?
observa, that is a very important question. It is worth a considered answer.
I suspect that in reality it is a bit of both. The fact that the ABC doesn’t regard it as an ‘asset’ but a ‘liability’ gives Masters a fair degree of freedom.
But I am not a lawyer.
Since he’s an employee of the ABC and the book was commissioned by the ABC, I imagine it was part of his work.
Mark, does that mean he does not own the work and therefore cannot sell it elsewhere? Does he have to pay a commission to the ABC?
Academics write books in ‘mixed’ time. What is the legal position? How much of your work does the employer own?
You say that the ABC commissioned the work. If so are they wasting our money?
Well, yes, $100000 of it on editorial and legal costs now that the book isn’t published.
I’m sure he owns the copyright to the book - the ABC has indicated he’s free to publish it elsewhere.
Academics own 100% of the copyright to their publications as well - but not to teaching materials or IP that inheres in inventions. But universities get research money from the government when we publish. Mind you, except for textbooks and rare exceptions, no one makes any money from pure academic publishing except publishers. Journals don’t pay at all, and royalties on monographs are low and most have only a limited sales potential.
Mark, thanks for that.
If an academic discovers the ‘cure for cancer’.
Who benefits? Apart from all of us?
Their university, wpd, unless they’ve struck some sort of deal.
Where is the need for the ABC to be involved in the book or periodical publishibg business? There are many private sector publishers who’d be very happy to engage in a commercial relationship (risk taking and/or risk sharing) with the ABC to produce books from ABC-original programs (just as the ABC contracts-out banner rights for nagazines) particularly when the product will receive unique access to free ABC on-air advertising, fast-track interest from ABC commentators and prominent display in ABC bookshops and franchise outlets. The idea that a state-owned, state-subsidised broadcaster is an essential player in the Australian book publishing sector is absured, groundless and insulting to Australia’s excellent book publishers, editors and marketers.
GG, it’s simply a commercial arm. Many public bodies have commercial arms. And with inadequate funding the broadcaster has to raise money somehow, doesn’t it? And “absurd, groundless and insulting to Australia’s excellent book publishers, editors and marketers…”? A little overblown, don’t you think?
On that point, GG and weathergirl, see my comment on the cognate thread:
[link]
NEWSFLASH: Just heard that Allen & Unwin secured a deal with Masters. Undisclosed amount.
This whole tawdry tale has highlighted just how much of a brrom needs to be put through the sheltered workshop the ABC has become.
Man, did anyone watch The Chaser’s War on Everything tonight? Out-takes of Alan Jones spitting the dummy with every expletive on tap? I reckon they were giving the finger to their masters…
I think it’s unfortunate that Allen and Unwin have agreed to publish Master’s Parrot Bio.
I’m happy to imagine the absolute worst of that squamous fistula in the fundament of public life.
Now I’ll have to be content with a version of the truth.
I bet Jones will turn out to be relatively boring.
I don’t often agree with Gerard Henderson, and I don’t on the main aspect of this, but I do take his point that the left is wrong to “out” Jones on his sexuality in the way that has been done in so many places (explicitly and implicitly), including on this discussion.
Jones’s sexuality is no one’s business but his own, irrespective of what a monsterously evil figure the man undoubtedly is. The fact that he is deeply hypercritical does not give liscence to make an issue of it.
The only justification I can see is that if he had something he could use against an opponent he would certainly do so, without a moment’s thought to ethics. But just becuase he would does not mean we should respond in kind - we should be better than him. Let’s leave the toilet jokes out of this, and hope that Masters didn’t make an issue of it either - surely he would not lack for material to fill 600 pages.