Nick Leys to edit Oz media diary
The new diary editor for The Australian’s Media section is to be the Melbourne based Nick Leys.
The announcement:
Today Stephen Brook, editor of The Australian’s Media section, announced that Nick Leys will commence in September as the new Diary columnist.
He joins the team from the Herald Sun where he was a senior reporter.
Oh thank God for that. I was wondering whether Overington’s reign of hatched, matched, despatch, catched, latched etc etc etc gossip was ever going to end. I suspect her time had come when there were no more gal pals and mates to shout out to (or they’re all on Twitter).
Sure the Diary is meant as a bit of fun in the Media section, but as Amanda Meade showed before her, it can be done with a bit of substance and dignity. The last was sadly lacking in that horrid one liner, a month or so ago, about someone “had better watch their back.”
Worst thing about it is that Overington obviously has so much talent. Her coverage of the Wheat Board kickbacks. The coverage of some of the most distressing community services cases in NSW. Her novels aren’t my cup of tea, but you can tell the desire to get out stories from the dark places in child protection that could never be published as news.
Good luck to her in the Magazine, and good luck to Nick Leys.
Nick has always been a genuinely clever writer, in contrast to Caroline, who is way out of her depth with this sort of stuff, as shown by this piece of tripe she wrote about our beloved Les Kennedy today: http://tiny.cc/6moh6. He deserves better than this.