Shortly after Milligan shared a 30-second promo last Thursday, featuring a bunch of former Seven staffers bagging the media company, the video mysteriously vanished from the 50-year-old journalist’s social media accounts.
ABC journalist Louise Milligan. Source: Instagram.
Diary understands Channel 7 engaged Herbert Smith Freehills in recent days, with the top law firm issuing a stern legal letter to the ABC reminding them to be extremely careful before airing the program, given at least one of the interview subjects featured in the promo is already subject to strict gag orders.
Despite the legal warning, it’s understood that Seven has not requested an injunction to halt the airing of the program.
The now-deleted promo includedAmber Harrison, the former lover of ex-Seven West Media bossTim Worner.
Harrison left the business a decade ago after signing legal documents agreeing not to speak publicly about the media company or her relationship with Worner.
On Thursday, Milligan told her followers on X: “Our next #4Corners program is Monday. It’s been a long time coming”, adding a quote by one of the interviewees that read: “It’s a very dysfunctional family.”
The post reached more than 127,000 people on X, and was reposted more than 450 times and liked by more than 2000 people. But Milligan stripped it from her account on the weekend.
Before removing the post, Milligan told her followers: “Promo only up a few hours and lots of Channel 7 complainants already getting in touch.
“Thank you and bear with us while we get back to you all.”
Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes and former CEO Tim Worner. Picture: Hollie Adams
Another of the interviewees in the now-deleted Four Corners promo,Mark Gibson, is, just like Milligan, a former Channel 7 employee turned ABC staffer.
These days Gibson, who once worked on Seven’s now defunct tabloid current affairs show Today Tonight, is ABC Perth’s breakfast presenter.
In the promo (complete with obligatory spooky music in the background), Gibson says: “Channel 7 likes to portray itself as a family; it’s a very dysfunctional family. I wouldn’t call it a second chance club, I would call it the third, fourth and five chance club.”
ABC Perth breakfast radio presenter Mark Gibson is part of the Four Corners episode on Channel 7. Source: Instagram.
Jacqui Felgate departed Channel 7 in 2022. Source: Instagram.
Gibson is a failed Perth mayoral candidate after running for the top job in 2020, losing to none other thanBasil Zempilas, a former Channel 7 broadcaster and weekly columnist at Seven West’s newspaper publication The West Australian.
Former Seven TV Toowoomba reporterOlivia Babbalso featured in the promo, describing her one-time employer “as one of the most soul-crushing places you can work in”.
“They shouldn’t be in business if that’s what they are doing to young women.
“How do they sleep at night?”
It’s understood Babb was quite surprised to be front and centre of the promo when it was released via Milligan’s social media channels on Thursday.
In recent weeks, as Milligan put the final touches to her investigation, she also posted a picture of herself on Instagram, filming outside Seven’s old Martin Place studios in Sydney where she once worked, referencing her “very old stomping ground”.
That post was liked by former Channel 7 Melbourne newsreader turned 3AW radio host and freebie queenJacqui Felgate.
Felgate quit the Seven in 2022 after reports she was not happy with the recruitment of new on-air talent, including presenterRebecca Maddern’s move to the TV station.
Read Media Diary in The Australian on Monday.
