Nine news boss Fiona Dear says she knows employees are ‘hurting’ after scathing independent review

Nine Entertainment’s television news and current affairs boss has told staff she understands they are “hurting” after an independent review into the company exposed a toxic workplace culture.

In a late-night email to Nine broadcast employees on Monday, Fiona Dear, who took over from former news head Darren Wick in May, acknowledged the “incredibly painful story”.

“I wanted to say how proud I have been at the professionalism you’ve all displayed in the telling of this incredibly painful story last week and how you’ve handled yourselves since the release of the report,” she said in the memo.

“You have continued to deliver high-quality journalism despite what we are going through as a team and a broader business.”

The email followed a bombshell independent report made public on Thursday that revealed a melting pot of sexism, racism, bullying, misogyny, mistrust, ambition, drunkenness — and managers covering it all up.

More than half of staff said they had been bullied or harassed in the past five years. A third said they had been sexually harassed.

The words of staff members, quoted in the report, spoke even louder than the numbers.

“Channel Nine … destroyed me as a human being. They ghosted me out of a job. I lost my career. This was the price I paid for speaking up. The minute I spoke up my life was over,” one said.

Nine’s publishing boss Tory Maguire also sent an email to staff on Monday afternoon about the report, saying “the headline findings in the report are distressing to read”.

“Nine’s leaders are working through what needs to be done to embed the changes required to ensure everyone at Nine is guaranteed a safe, respectful and positive work environment,” she said.

“The first step was an unequivocal apology from our chair Catherine West on behalf of the board, acknowledging the prevalence of inappropriate workplace behaviours, the harm to our people and the inadequate response in the past from Nine to those behaviours.”

Ms Dear is yet to schedule an all-staff meeting to discuss the findings of the report, according to The Australian.

Nine Radio managing director Tom Malone also met with stations this week, including 6PR in Perth on Monday.

Mr Malone’s visit followed the announcement of a sudden overhaul to its broadcast schedule off the back of poor advertising revenue last week, described by one dumped host as “Sydney swooping in like an angry magpie”.

The station backflipped on the start time of its Breakfast show after one day, with it now airing from 5am to 10am.