ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Popular Fairfax investigative journalist Kate McClymont returned from lunch this afternoon to find a yellow envelope waiting on her keyboard.
In it were details of where her position as the last shining beacon of true investigative journalism was going to be heading after the merger.
Moments ago, Kate spoke to The Advocate from the Sydney Morning Herald’s second story payphone using her personal phonecard.
“They asked me if I’d like to start working as the ‘Editor-at-large’ of A Current Affair from December. I told them I’d think about it,” she said.
“But I’d only be allowed to investigate hoons, dodgy tradies and neighbourhood disputes in low-socio-economic areas in my capacity as a journalist. They even suggested I have my own ongoing segment on the show called ‘Kate’s War on Hoons’ – something to mull over, I guess,”
“They made it clear that rugby league scandals were now off-limits. No more ICAC-related stories. No more CCC, either. But the real clanger, get a load of this, they want me to start including more colloquialism to my articles such as ‘Straya’ and ‘Chazwazza’. It is what it is, it could be worse.”
Never-the-less, our reporter spoke to A Current Affair host Tracey Grimshaw who said the whole ACA team was looking forward to having all of McClymont’s Walkleys on display out in the foyer like they’re Cannes Lions at a second-tier ad agency.
But Grimshaw was quick to tell our reporter that her desk is only big enough for one.
“If they want us to merge, they’ll have to call up Charlie Teo to stitch us together because I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
“Charles Croucher had a crack at trying to knock me off my perch. I had him shipped off to Canberra for that act of attempted regicide,”
“Aside from that, I can’t wait to work with Kate. She’s one of the very top journalists in the country. I once heard she choked out Peter Stefanovic with a Macbook charger – something everyone here at Nine has dreamed of doing at some stage!”
More to come.
