Campbell Reid came armed with facts and figures to defend the Murdoch empire from accusations of climate denialism.

News Corp’s corporate affairs executive was part of a Judith Neilson Institute editors panel on constructive journalism when he was asked by moderator Fran Kelly if the Australian had overplayed the role of arson in the bushfires.

In early January the Oz published a story, “Firebugs fuelling crisis as arson arrest toll hits 183”, which was seized on by the London Sun and Fox News and tweeted in America by Donald Trump Jr as the real cause of the fires.

Thanks @JN_Institute, @prueclarke & all who organised. @UlrikHaagerup gave great insights into how to create a constructive & future focused media landscape. Trust is essential - to this and our area, press freedom - so how can we collectively rebuild this? Good stuff to chew on. https://t.co/bt1iB5EkVn — Olivia Pirie-Griffiths (@PirieGriffiths) March 10, 2020

The former editor of the Daily Telegraph and the Australian said News Corp had published 3,500 stories about the bushfires, had assigned 150 reporters, and only 3% of the coverage was about arson.

“We never overplayed the arson story,” Reid said. “In the middle of the bushfire crisis, armed with some information, 3% is hardly a crime against journalism.”

Asked about James Murdoch’s criticism of his father’s outlets for climate denialism, Reid said the Murdoch heir was misinformed.

“James, like everybody else, was commenting on what other people were saying about what we were saying, not what he was consuming for himself,” Reid said.

“All of the people who people say are News Corporation’s climate deniers were on holiday during that period, so what we were doing during that period was covering the fires.”

The Australian did run comprehensive reporting of the bushfire crisis, but it also ran things like this editorial, which denounced “loony claims [Scott Morrison’s] government has abandoned national leadership during the bushfire crisis and that ‘Australia is burning’, climate change is causing it and we can fix it by slashing our emissions now.”

Asked about James Murdoch’s criticism of his father’s outlets for climate denialism , Reid said the Murdoch heir was misinformed.

“We don’t live in a media democracy but in a social media democracy,” Reid said.

“People don’t comment on what we say, they comment on what other people say we said; and so other people said we overplayed the arson story. And people then commented on the fact that we overplayed the arson story.”

Holt St ‘delinquent’

One of Murdoch’s outlets did a spectacular job of presenting the facts about climate change and fire this week.

We've just taken over the @newscomauHQ homepage with stories about CLIMATE CHANGE! Check it out #timeisnow pic.twitter.com/ksyt4vlddQ — Stephanie Bedo (@stephanie_bedo) March 8, 2020

In partnership with the Judith Neilson Institute and the Australian Science Media Centre, the media group’s most popular website, news.com.au, launched a comprehensive series called Time is Now, which explored the impacts of climate change in Australia.

The Time is Now project was not entirely surprising for those who are familiar with news.com.au, which, until recently when it was knocked off by the ABC, was the most read news site in the country, according to Neilsen data. The online-only masthead has a vastly younger audience than the Australian, and is more likely to publish progressive views. It also has a good record on climate reporting, and on Friday the editor, Lisa Muxworthy, announced she had hired experienced political reporter Samantha Maiden as national political editor, replacing Malcolm Farr.

Excited to announce @samanthamaiden is joining the @newscomauHQ team as our national political editor. She's a legend of the gallery, an incredible news breaker, and we can't wait for her to start — Lisa Muxworthy (@LisaMuxworthy) March 12, 2020

The series landed on the same day as Oz associate editor Chris Kenny lambasted the ABC for its “delinquency” on climate issues, a delinquency now presumably shared by his Holt St colleagues at news.com.au.

Kenny accused Aunty of “repeatedly and dishonestly asserting that global warming was the critical factor in our summer of bushfires” and of presenting “disingenuous spin on climate change”.

Senior reporter Shannon Molloy even tackled the climate denialists in the comments section with a piece later in the week which offered rebuttals to their false, and sometimes wild, claims such as “climate change is a conspiracy to make billions and billions of dollars”.

Down to the wire

The closure of AAP has come at the worst time for the media, which is increasingly under strain from keeping abreast of the news about the coronavirus. Channel Nine has already been hit by the crisis, with two of its morning presenters in isolation for two weeks after contact with Rita Wilson.

The 180 journalists and 100 photographers thrown into unemployment by the end of the wire service have a tough decision to make. They’ve been told if they take a new job before the closure of AAP in June they won’t be eligible for a redundancy payment.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance is investigating claims from some journalists who say they are very unhappy with the terms of the packages on offer.

Trioli ratings row

The ABC’s new Mornings presenter in Melbourne, Virginia Trioli, is never shy about hitting back at her critics. Trioli took over from broadcaster Jon Faine when he retired last year, and has had to put up with the Australian tracking her ratings and claiming she’s failed to hang on to Faine’s loyal audience.

Odd - Mornings actually added 24,000 listeners over the week according to today’s ratings, so not sure how Lily is reading her figures. 🤷‍♀️ ⁦@lvitorovich⁩ https://t.co/CtC3H2po8E — Virginia Trioli (@LaTrioli) March 10, 2020

After another unflattering headline when the radio ratings were released, Trioli, a former News Breakfast host, questioned the Oz’s figures, saying she had in fact increased the Mornings audience by 24,000.

Staying power

The ABC is now the most popular news website in the country, according to the Nielsen rankings, but which websites turn over their most prominent stories at the highest rate?

The ABC has taken the top spot in digital news rankings from News Corp's https://t.co/SlhkFwnvF0, according to Nielsen numbers for January. https://t.co/bZJd9MXruS pic.twitter.com/bh9bbQxzXO — AdNews (@AdNews) February 11, 2020

News.com.au, the Daily Mail and Brisbane’s Courier-Mail all average 60 top stories a day, with articles lasting less than three hours in the top 10 positions on the website before being replaced with fresher news.

Sites that keep their top stories in the prime position for longest include Guardian Australia, with an average of five hours in the top 10, and the Australian, with about four and half hours, according to analysis of the websites between 6am and 10pm for four weeks in February by Streem media monitoring.

This is fine

One of the worst takes on the coronavirus was a first-person piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald shortly after a pandemic was declared on Thursday.

It was written by a young man called Tom Hywood, who described himself as a property technology entrepreneur and who looked to be in rude good health.

Hywood’s complaint was that when he contracted coronavirus the reaction was “disproportionate” and he was treated like he had the bubonic plague – even though he had now recovered and he felt fine.

This is irresponsible. We don’t need opinions from "property technology entrepreneurs”, we need facts, from experts. pic.twitter.com/Lh8BblXj5n — Dr Darren Saunders (@whereisdaz) March 12, 2020

“While I’m very aware Covid-19 can be lethal for the elderly and anyone with a compromised immune system or respiratory difficulties, the experience of a young, relatively fit patient seems out of proportion to the panic and fear I’ve encountered since my diagnosis,” he wrote.

“The response from friends, colleagues and acquaintances was extreme. Entire businesses in Melbourne and Sydney were were shut down immediately, their staff sent home, because they’d had contact with me. Friends of friends who had seen me before I even went to Hong Kong were isolating themselves and pulling their kids out of school.”

The young Mr Hywood is not a public health expert but, as it was soon revealed on Twitter, the son of the former chief executive of Fairfax, Maserati-driving Greg Hywood.

Loose lifts

We can’t wait to see what New Idea writes about Tracy Grimshaw, now the Nine star is involved in a real drama. Grimshaw has chosen to stay away from the Willoughby studios after it was revealed Hollywood star Rita Wilson had coronavirus. Wilson was interviewed by Nine’s Today Extra on Monday and may have shared the same makeup studio as Grimshaw.

On the very day Wilson visited Nine in Sydney, New Idea published a story Grimshaw slammed on social media as “absolute crap”.

New Idea said unnamed insiders said Grimshaw had “requested Nine bosses build a secret lift from the car park so that she – and others such as Today’s Allison Langdon – can go straight into hair and makeup when they arrive without being seen by the general public in North Sydney”.

Nine, and its newly acquired newspaper empire, is moving into a North Sydney tower block this year after selling the historic Willoughby site.

Grimshaw said she always arrives at work without makeup. “I wouldn’t know anything about the lifts in the new building,” she said. “

“Have had zero input, made zero requests.

“I once did ACA [A Current Affair] with no hair or makeup in Brisbane after wading through floodwaters all day in 100% humidity,” Grimshaw wrote. “A Sunday paper gossip columnist devoted her entire column to how poorly groomed I was.”

Note: This article was amended on 13 March to correct statement that an article, “Firebugs fuelling crisis as arson arrest toll hits 183”, appeared on page one of The Australian. It appeared on page five.