It’s been a brutal week for the Australian media industry, in the sense that it spent most of it talking about Karl Stefanovic.
The former Today host was sacked by Nine Entertainment after his independently produced podcast published a chummy interview with Tommy Robinson, the British far-right anti-Islam activist whose CV includes multiple criminal convictions and bans from most major social media platforms.
Decades spent sweating in the engine room of suburban Australian opinion — breakfast television — have clearly given Stefanovic a sixth sense for the national mood. And if the topics covered by The Karl Stefanovic Show are anything to go by, that mood is febrile.
That’s no doubt why the story has gained so much traction, beyond the juicy contractual details.
