In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes… and the perennial confected outrage over the date of Australia Day.
No-one loves this old chestnut quite like the imagination-deprived editors at News Corp’s Holt St headquarters.
Unsurprisingly, the topic has been front and centre in the Lachlan Murdoch-controlled media giant’s fearlessly patriotic and predictably formulaic Daily Telegraph yet again this week.
We all know the drill: woke anti-Australia Day warriors are disrespecting the nation blah blah blah blah blah, see last year’s coverage for full vitriol.
Edifying stuff.
Of course, not everyone in Murdoch’s empire is so rabid about the matter.
Australia Day has been front and centre in Lachlan Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph this week
Popular Nova hosts Lauren Phillips and Jase Hawkins (left), and Chrissie Swan (right), will have the option to work through Australia Day following an edict from senior management
Inside Mail can reveal employees at his privately owned Nova Entertainment radio network were advised in a staff email this week that they need not celebrate Australia Day on January 26 if they felt too uncomfortable doing so.
Instead, staffers at the network, which features headline stars like Chrissie Swan, Ricki-Lee Coulter, Lauren Phillips and that delightful Sally Fletcher from Summer Bay, were informed they were free to work through Australia Day and instead mark the national holiday with a day off on another date of their choosing.
Hmm… that sounds eerily similar to all that woke, namby-pamby hippy nonsense the Tele gets itself so upset about. But surely not?
But Nova is not the first media outlet to give staff the option of taking a different public holiday.
Two years ago, Channel 10 bosses sent all editorial and programming staff an email referring to the day only as January 26 and telling employees they could work if they wanted.
The ABC did the same, but Managing Director David Anderson later revealed only three out of thousands of staff members took the national broadcaster up on the offer.
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