Hey everyone, welcome back to Flashback Friday. Another week of news, another Flashback Friday. Let’s get straight into it.

The big news of the week this week was the ABC in crisis. At the beginning of the week, Managing Director of the ABC Michelle Guthrie was sacked by the Board, with no real reason given for the decision. Chairman Justin Milne, who was gifted the job by friend and former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, refused to give any justification as to why Guthrie was ousted by her colleagues on the board, including himself. But she wasn’t going to go quietly, and made it known that she would be exploring her legal options. And it just got a whole lot worse for the ABC, when on Thursday, after being endorsed by the Board only the day before, Chairman Justin Milne made the decision to resign from his position as Chairman of the ABC, after it was reported by Fairfax that he had previously sent an email to Guthrie requesting that she sack ABC Chief Economics Correspondent Emma Alberici, as well as journalist Andrew Probyn and radio host Jon Faine, in order to appease former PM Malcolm Turnbull. This also brought into question the decision of the Board to support and endorse Milne just the day before he resigned, and there have been calls from many, including Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and members of the Labor Party including Anthony Albanese, for the entire ABC Board to resign. There has also been a lot of talk about political interference in the ABC, with the media corporation and those who support it claiming it is completely unbiased, which is completely untrue. You’ll see what I mean by this in the next Part of my Exposé Series, coming very soon. For the meantime, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield and the Senate have both launched two individual inquiries into the events of the past week and all that surround them. Additionally, Dr Kristin Ferguson has been appointed Deputy Chairwoman and by extension Chairwoman of the ABC by PM Scott Morrison.

Meanwhile, in other political news, and today saw the structuring of the ballot paper for the upcoming Wentworth by election. A draw took place in order to position the twenty participants in a random order. Independent Dr Kerryn Phelps found herself second from the bottom, with Liberal candidate Dave Sharma positioned slightly higher at number 12, Labor candidate Tim Murray at number 5, and the top spot being surprisingly taken out by Robert Callanan, the candidate for none other than Bob Katter’s infamous Katter’s Australia Party. This could be valuable for Katter’s candidate, considering he could pick up a decent percentage of the vote from so called ‘donkey’ votes. Phelps will more likely have to work hard to gain votes, after announcing she would be preferencing the Liberal Party last week. The Wentworth by election will take place on October 20.

To sports news now, and this weekend will see the Grand Finals played for both the AFL and NRL. The AFL Grand Final will take place on Saturday between the West Coast Eagles and the Collingwood Magpies. The West Coast Eagles enter the match off the back of a big win in their Semi Final against Melbourne last week, whilst Collingwood go into the game coming off the back of a slightly closer game which they won against Richmond. Meanwhile, the Melbourne Storm will take on the Sydney Roosters after the Storm beat the Sharks and the Roosters edged the Rabbitohs in last week’s preliminary finals. The AFL Grand Final will have some great entertainment too, with the likes of Jimmy Barnes and the Black Eyed Peas (Will.i.am, Taboo, and Apl De Ap) set to perform at the event. Big weekend in sport coming up.

And in entertainment news, this week it has been confirmed by Whoopi Goldberg that a Sister Act reboot is in the works. However, she will not be reprising her starring role as Sister Mary Clarence, saying rather that she could just be making a cameo in the film. The film is not going to be a sequel to the other two as Sister Act 3, rather it will be a brand new rendition of the original Sister Act. And continuing with films, the trailer has been released this week for the new Dark Phoenix film of the X-Men franchise. The film has also undergone a name change, from X-Men: Dark Phoenix to just Dark Phoenix. The film revolves around a young Jean Grey, and the younger versions of the X-Men. The film is set to be released on February 14 next year.

And that’s it for another Flashback Friday. Join me next week for another edition, and I’ll also do my best to get Part 3 of my Exposé Series out within the next week. It’s a long one, but it’s definitely worth the read. Have a good one!

JJ