Fitzy & Wippa’s replacements leaked ahead of radio’s sacking season. Plus, jobs cut as women’s website closes – and MP blows up over Young Liberals in party group chat: INSIDE MAIL

Redundancy Era 

We hate reporting on media layoffs here at Inside Mail – especially if they involve entire outlets being closed… and especially if the parent company is treating the whole thing like some kind of dirty little secret.

Earlier this week, we noticed an editor for women’s website The Latch, Sangeeta Kocharekar, announced on Instagram she had sadly entered her Redundancy Era.

She had been working for The Latch’s publisher Val Morgan Digital – the digital publishing offshoot of the famous cinema advertising company – for four years, including serving as Lifestyle Editor at Popsugar Australia (more on that later).

It turns out Kocharekar publicly announcing her departure was a sign of bigger changes at Val Morgan – changes they want to keep on the down-low.

‘The Latch is gone,’ a source tells us of the website that Inside Mail had never heard of until just days ago but apparently specialised in travel, lifestyle and entertainment for an older millennial, female audience.

The Latch, founded in 2020, was Val Morgan Digital’s main homegrown title. The rest of its portfolio is made up of licensed local editions of American and British brands, including BuzzFeed (‘memba them?), LadBible, GameSpot, Tasty and Fandom.

In addition to Kocharekar being let go, we’re also told a writer at BuzzFeed has filed his last buzzy dispatch. But unlike The Latch, BuzzFeed Australia isn’t dead yet – with local stories still being published on a dedicated Aussie homepage, and the brand announcing a new podcast only days ago.

Sweet and sour 

On the subject of seemingly dead websites, let’s return to Popsugar Australia.

The local arm of the global lifestyle brand (which has since been stylishly renamed ‘PS’) now appears to have gone dark. Try to access it and you’ll be redirected to the American homepage with no local content – as far as we can tell.

It’s all quite sad, as Popsugar used to be essential reading circa 2017 when Inside Mail’s media man was on the Bachelor beat as a young showbiz reporter.

However, we are told Val Morgan is still using the Popsugar brand in ad campaigns, meaning commercial articles are continuing to go up under that banner.

When we contacted Val Morgan for comment, director of strategy and marketing Paul MacGregor confirmed The Latch will shutter on September 30.

He added of the layoffs: ‘As part of an updated content and business strategy, we have made the difficult decision to make two roles within our publishing team redundant.

‘Both individuals have made a significant contribution to our business and were valued members of our team; we are grateful for their talent and commitment. We wish them every success in the future.’

As for Popsugar, curiously both MacGregor and Val Morgan Digital’s publisher Amanda Bardas insisted to us the local brand was alive and well… even though it really doesn’t seem like it.

The lack of an Australian homepage, we were told, was in line with other Val Morgan Digital licences like Fandom and LadBible. Furthermore, Bardas said Popsugar had pivoted to a ‘social-first publishing strategy, evolving to meet audience demands’.

‘We still publish local content on the PS website when it is relevant to our Aussie audience,’ added Bardas, who said Popsugar has two full-time content producers.

Fair enough – we won’t ring Popsugar’s death knell just yet… but razing your local homepage doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence.

‘We are f****d’

It’s a new dawn for the NSW Young Liberals, with newly minted president Cooper Gannon – husband to off-the-chain Sky News Australia golden girl Freya Leach – making his mark in the top job.

He’s taken over from Inside Mail regular (and Dave Sharma staffer) Georgia Lowden who was apparently over it.

Just days into the Gannon regime, the Young Libs’ social media accounts got a full facelift – including a new logo, new vibe… and a recruitment video.

In the corporate-inspired clip, Gannon strolls towards the camera, kicking things off with: ‘You’re a young person who’s clicked on our page, and yes we’re walking because every politician walks.’

Gannon’s new executive team then makes its pitch to new members, talking about policy, social events and urging people to join – with a caveat.

‘Join us… unless you’re a socialist.’

But the rebrand hasn’t exactly united the base. In a NSW Liberal Party group chat seen by Inside Mail, reactions ranged from eye-rolls to existential dread.

Anthony Roberts, the Liberal MP for Lane Cove, on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, sent the video to the chat, with a blunt ‘We are f****d.’

‘The Young Lib clip comes across like a Toastmasters recruitment ad. Will be interesting to see if this tactic works?’ someone replied.

Others were bemused by Gannon’s social strategy that seemed to mirror NYC Democrat rising star Zohran Mamdani, whose online presence is currently the blueprint for every wannabe political influencer.

But most agreed the final gag (‘unless you’re a socialist’) landed pretty well.

Radio rumblings

September has arrived – and with it, the ruthless season when radio executives decide which shows survive and who gets the chop ahead of ‘knives-out November’.

We’re rarely wrong when it comes to the game of chess that is Australia’s commercial radio industry – and our spies have some bold predictions for all the big companies.

Let’s start with ARN.

The broadcasting giant behind the KIIS and GOLD networks (R.I.P. WSFM) has already sent out its shiny invitations for its Q4 upfronts on October 29 – which Inside Mail first reported in late July.

Coming days before the month of industry blood-letting, word is a string of breakfast shows could be getting chopped to make way for Kyle and Jackie O going national.

That’s right – we hear the Melbourne disaster hasn’t stopped ARN from going full steam ahead in bringing the Sydney shock jocks to more metro markets.

We hear that while ARN was spooked by the advertiser and listener backlash to Kyle and Jackie O’s unique brand of bawdy breakfast entertainment, Kyle Sandilands is quietly confident about taking over Brisbane.

He’s a Queensland boy, after all, and the Brisbane radio audience tends to be less woke than their Melbourne counterparts. 

Meanwhile, Survey 5 results drop on Tuesday, September 9.

These numbers will ultimately decide the next steps. Contracts are normally locked in by September, so there will be plenty of hosts across the networks anxiously waiting to see if they still have jobs next year. 

Of course, the biggest radio move has already been announced – thanks to Inside Mail’s reporting. Jonesy and Amanda confirmed on air they were being shuffled from Gold 101.7 breakfast to drive after two decades waking up Sydney.

They are being replaced by Christian O’Connell, who is being networked from Melbourne (which we were first to report, by the way).

So who else is joining in the game of musical chairs? Well, rumours are certainly running wild over at Nova. 

As we previously reported, Fitzy and Wippa are expected to bow out after almost 14 years hosting the early shift in the Harbour City.

We initially heard Ryan ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald was bound for drive without sidekick Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli. Now, our sources aren’t so sure – they could stick together. 

One thing we can say with some certainty is that Nova’s national drive team is replacing them at Sydney breakfast… or at least two thirds of them.

Tim Blackwell and Ricki-Lee Coulter are said to be locked in – but we keep hearing that third co-host Joel Creasey won’t be joining them.

‘Not sure if it was his decision or the network’s decision,’ a source tells us.

‘But, honestly, he’s got so much on outside of radio with his comedy and TV gigs, I’m not sure how he’s balanced it all.

‘He was the only one based in Melbourne, with Ricki-Lee and Tim in Sydney.’

Meanwhile, Chrissie Swan has performed so well in the 2pm-4pm school pick-up slot that Nova is trying to convince her to move to national drive with a new co-host.

Sharaz’s idle thumbs

Inside Mail was winding down on Monday evening after a long day at work when an intriguing notification pinged on our phone.

We had just run a story about how former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins ghostwrote tweets for her husband David Sharaz, including one where he described how he was ‘in awe’ of her graciousness.

The revelation that Sharaz, who has often been unfairly maligned as a political puppet master, was actually taking dictation for his social media posts from his now-wife was just one of the many nuggets contained within Justice Paul Tottle‘s excoriating, 360-page judgment handed down in Western Australia’s Supreme Court last week.

Justice Tottle found that Higgins and Sharaz had defamed her former boss Linda Reynolds, ordering them to pay her $340,000 in damages. If they have to pay her legal fees, the total figure could well stretch into seven-figure territory.

Staring down the barrel of near-certain bankruptcy is a prospect to make even the steadiest of hands tremble in fear. So maybe shaking fingers explain why Sharaz mistakenly requested to follow Inside Mail’s private Instagram account on Monday evening.

We say ‘mistakenly’ because the request was almost immediately rescinded. Or perhaps it was his wife on his phone, given their apparently co-dependent approach to social media.

We’d ask Sharaz to clarify, but it turns out he has blocked us altogether.

The ultimate Insiders

On the subject of Higgins/Sharaz, one would expect the ABC’s flagship politics show to leave no stone unturned when it comes to the biggest political stories of the week.

So viewers of Insiders on Sunday were left scratching their heads when the seismic judgment in Reynolds’ defamation case did not warrant even a passing mention.

Could it be because Samantha Maiden, political editor of news.com.au, was on the panel?

It was Maiden, who alongside Channel Ten’s Lisa Wilkinson, originally broke the story about Higgins’ alleged rape in Parliament House – later found on the balance of probabilities to have occurred – at the hands of her colleague Bruce Lehrmann…

…and the ‘cover-up’ that was supposedly orchestrated by Reynolds and her chief-of-staff Fiona Brown – which has now been thoroughly debunked thanks to the forensic findings of both Justice Michael Lee and now Justice Paul Tottle.

‘As I will explain, whatever the defendant [Higgins] may have felt in 2021 about the way she was treated by the plaintiff [Reynolds] and Ms Brown in 2019, the allegation of a cover-up had no foundation in fact and the allegation of inadequate support was based on an incomplete and misleading account of the facts,’ Justice Tottle ruled.

Four days after breaking the story in February 2021, Maiden had messaged Higgins: ‘Just having played my little part in your operation has been one of the greatest moments in journalism I’ve ever had.’

Whether Maiden still feels that way was not a question David Speers was willing to ask. It seems that on Insiders, they look after their own.

ACTU, STFU

Spare a thought for the social media manager at Australian Unions.

The body, which is authorised by the Australian Council of Trade Union secretary Sally McManus, has been running a campaign in recent weeks calling for everyone to ‘pay their fair share of tax’.

‘We pay our fair share of tax. So should big business and the rich,’ is the union body’s pithy message.

But the ‘we’ refers to individual Australians, who may or may not be members of unions, because unions famously have been exempt from paying income tax for the last 100-odd years.

Yet, this distinction has been lost on dozens of people who have accused the union body of hypocrisy.

For example, a Facebook user called Steve claimed that ‘unions are big business with collective assets of around $1.2bn’.

‘They are greedy as they pay zero income tax,’ he fumed.

This deluge of criticism has clearly irked the poor sod who runs the Australian Unions account because they’ve started issuing increasingly catty responses.

‘Unions don’t make profits. Do we really need to explain what that means again, Steve?’ they thundered.

‘Every dollar we “make” goes right back into supporting our members.’

Another user called Alan, who had the temerity to ask if unions might pay tax, was similarly shot down.

‘Profits are taxed. Unions don’t make profits. It’s not that complicated, Alan,’ the admin responded.

We can only hope the ACTU is less condescending to its members.

Déjà vu

Let’s not kid ourselves: we love Pip Edwards here at Daily Mail.

She’s an endless source of intrigue – whether it’s a new boyfriend, a faux pas at the tennis or sharing her agony of being an empty-nester at 45.

But even we have our limits.

After making the cover of News Corp’s Sunday pull-out Stellar last weekend, we did some back-of-an-envelope journo maths and realised the P.E Nation founder had fronted the glossy four times in just over two years.

We get it – the local talent pool isn’t exactly overflowing. But surely the editors can cast the net a little wider? Or at least give Pip a breather.

Chinese whispers

The Daily Mail reported a couple of weeks ago how cybersecurity expert and ‘international man of mystery’ Robert Potter was the victim of attempts to oust him from an academic posting at the Australian National University.

His repeated – and not unreasonable – insistence that the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) disclose in media appearances that it is funded by two Chinese state-owned businesses drew the ire of the think tank’s director James Laurenceson.

Laurenceson wrote to the ANU on several occasions in recent months, detailing his chagrin that Potter ‘appears to remain affiliated with your centre’.

Potter had ANU’s backing. Well, he did – until going public with his concerns in the Daily Mail.

After being told off for not acting ‘professionally and with discretion’, Potter was informed on Monday his visiting fellowship had been terminated.

‘I have not done this lightly but I need to have confidence in our honorary appointees that they can act appropriately and not in a manner that brings adverse attention and criticism to our Centre or the ANU more generally,’ the Director of the ANU Centre for European Studies wrote.

‘I am disappointed in this turn of events, Robert.’

Potter, who has recently returned to Australia after helping train Ukraine vets in the art of cyber warfare, is not taking his academic defenestration lying down.

He has requested a formal review, insisting that he acted out of an ‘academic and ethical responsibility to bring attention to concerns that directly intersect with issues of national importance – particularly in relation to foreign influence in Australian institutions.

‘It is deeply concerning that Professor Laurenceson responded to criticism by seeking to undermine my academic standing and institutional affiliation. This approach – using informal complaints to discourage public or scholarly discussion of PRC influence – reflects a pattern of behaviour that risks chilling free inquiry and debate.

‘It should be a matter of institutional concern, not one where the whistleblower is penalised.’

A spokesperson for ANU said they did ‘not comment on individual cases’.

‘We value academic freedom, and all students and staff are free to express themselves on any issue in line with Australian law, and with our University policy and Code of Conduct,’ they added.

Read all about it

Nothing turns heads quite like a brilliantly located outdoor ad.

And few compare to this classic Inside Mail spied at Sydney Airport’s T3… promoting Joe Aston’s book all about the misdeeds of Qantas, The Chairman’s Lounge.

Olympic-level advice?

While governments across the country are slashing consultant budgets, the Federal Coalition seems to have missed the memo – or just decided to ignore it entirely.

On Tuesday, staffers were treated to a very modern political masterclass: a social media workshop hosted by none other than Olympic diver turned TikTok thirst trap Sam Fricker.

Yes, that Sam Fricker – who’s more famous for his Speedos than his political savvy.

But this isn’t Fricker’s first cannonball into the political pool. He previously played interviewer to a handful of pollies during the last election, and has been spotted more than once sharing videos and photos with his local MP, Simon Kennedy.

Whether it’s policy or poolside chats, Fricker seems to be diving headfirst into the Canberra scene. But not everyone’s impressed.

His political dabbling has previously sparked drama – most notably when Greens-adjacent media darling Abbie Chatfield dragged him for giving Clive Palmer airtime.

Inside Mail hears that Fricker’s words of wisdom to staffers included ’embracing trial and error’ and ‘getting creative with music’ – a suggestion that was promptly shut down by Coalition HQ with a stern reminder about copyright laws. (It turns out you can’t just slap Taylor Swift over a Sussan Ley clip and call it strategy.)

And speaking of Dutton, Fricker’s YouTube interview with the former Opposition Leader has racked up a whopping… 7,100 views. Not exactly viral.

One staffer wasn’t sold on the whole influencer-to-politico pipeline, telling Inside Mail: ‘I don’t think my MP is going to build a fanbase by posting thirst traps in Budgie Smugglers.’ Fair.