There’s something truly excruciating about listening to two of Australia’s most successful media personalities lament their self-induced fall from grace. Doubly so, when it’s Karl Stefanovic and Kyle Sandilands.
Last week, the pair reflected on Stefanovic’s podcast about everything they’d both endured and lost in their respective dismissals from Nine and ARN.
Referring to themselves as “two failed media giants”, Sandilands condemned the “people rejoicing and stamping all over the death and the ashes”, as Stefanovic nodded in agreement.
“I was one year into the 10-year plan and then, due to someone’s bad mood, that all fell apart. I’m not sure why. We still don’t know the real reason”, he said.
Sandilands went on to call himself a “little person” fighting an unfair legal system and suggested he would “bash” anyone who came after him in the press.
A giggling Stefanovic proffered the idea of starting a “little fund for people who just get f*cked over”.
I kept waiting for the moment where either of them might acknowledge the role they’d played in their demise, but of course, it never really came.
The inconvenient truth for our two failed media giants however, is that they weren’t just ordinary employees caught up in a restructure. They were among the highest-paid and most influential figures in Australian media, handed platforms most journalists could only dream of.
And neither man’s downfall was sudden.
Stefanovic’s exit followed his decision to interview British far-right agitator Tommy Robinson for his personal podcast, despite reports Nine had made clear where the boundaries sat around outside projects while hosting the Today show and Stefanovic repeatedly disregarded them.
It wasn’t simply that he interviewed a controversial figure. It was the editorial judgement surrounding the interview and the way he appeared to promote Robinson’s divisive agenda—even telling him at one point he admired his “courage”.
Sandilands’ story has been unfolding for years. Media companies repeatedly decided that his torrent of racist remarks, sexist comments, homophobic slurs, public complaints and legal battles were a price worth paying for ratings. Until, eventually, they weren’t.
Sandilands stopped bringing home the bacon, and his value to ARN plummeted. When he embarrassed and berated his co-host Jackie Henderson enough for her to finally leave and accuse him of bullying, it presented the perfect opportunity for ARN to pull the pin.
Like many successful men, Sandilands and Stefanovic perceived themselves as invincible.
At one point, making this ever more evident, Sandilands casually listed the prominent people who had checked in after he lost his job. Among them, he claimed, were former broadcaster Alan Jones — whose criminal trial on multiple alleged sexual offences began in Sydney today and who has pleaded not guilty — and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Lose one of the country’s highest-paid broadcasting jobs and it’s enough for the Prime Minister to check in and make sure you’re ok?
Meanwhile, thousands of women escaping domestic violence spend months trying to access housing, legal support and counselling. Families wait years to be listened to and for mental health care. Victim-survivors often struggle simply to be believed.
No one expects the Prime Minister to personally call every Australian doing it tough, but I guess that’s also the point.
Access is its own form of privilege. The ability to pick up the phone to the country’s most powerful people is something afforded to very few Australians. Outside of huge salaries, this was the exact kind of privilege that Sandilands and Stefanovic held in spades.
While listening to the pair’s relentless whinge-fest, I couldn’t help thinking about journalists elsewhere in the world whose work carries consequences far beyond losing a contract.
In Gaza, journalists continue documenting civilian deaths while mourning colleagues and family members of their own. Across conflict zones and authoritarian regimes, reporters risk imprisonment, violence and death simply for trying to tell the truth. Closer to home, local journalists continue exposing corruption, reporting on domestic violence and sitting through traumatic court proceedings for salaries that barely reflect the emotional weight of the job.
That’s real journalism and real sacrifice. Telling stories that matter and exposing truths, even when they’re dangerous or deeply uncomfortable.
Of course, Stefanovic and Sandilands’ privilege will endure far beyond them losing their jobs. Even in this setback, neither has been silenced. Stefanovic has a podcast and Sandilands just launched his own member platform. They both retain eye-watering wealth.
They’ve simply lost access to employers who decided those voices no longer aligned with their brands.