Seven's sins and why they matter for the rest of us

This week showed us - again - that the best thing you can do to protect your reputation is not to be an utter arsehole.

That's true for both journalists and for the people they interview.

And what we have seen this week is that the Seven Network is strange and awful. It's as if no one at Seven is exercising discretion or making good judgement calls.

But Friday, April 19, could see the beginning of a shift for Seven.

It will be the first day it operates without James Warburton at the helm.

There's no better time to move the boss on than after a wholesale legal, ethical and moral bollocking delivered by Justice Michael Lee - and that's precisely what Seven is doing this week.

The bosses, managers and journalists at Seven have had quite the time since they've been in the spotlight, the show which boosted former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann and tried to undermine his colleague Brittany Higgins.

Despite Channel Seven's media maven Neil Shoebridge telling me that there has been no announcement about the last day at work for Seven's CEO James Warburton, it had been common knowledge for weeks that his last day would be April 18.

Meant to be June 30 but who could possibly wait to get rid of a bloke who sat and watched this entire Lehrmann fiasco unfold.

That's not Seven's only problem. On Sunday, it decided to name the Bondi murderer on Weekend Sunrise, first by cohost Matt Shirvington and then journalist Lucy McLeod.

Except the person named was just Benjamin Cohen, a uni student who had nothing to do with the horror.

Two hours later, "Seven apologises for any distress caused by our earlier reports."

That wrongly accused young man is now suing with the assistance of top barrister Sue Chrysanthou, who also worked for Lisa Wilkinson.

By the way, Chrysanthou's success rate is looking pretty hot right now. Wilkinson, sure, but also soldier Heston Russell, Pauline Hanson in her case against Brian Burston; the Chelmsford doctors, John Barilaro. I don't love all the people she represents but god she's good.

Back to Seven. The list goes on: the suit from "babysitter" Taylor Auerbach, recovery from the Ben Roberts-Smith judgement and, leaning back in time, the sex and harassment scandal involving Tim Worner, its former CEO. That was a wild one and not even 10 years ago.

The culture at Seven is borked, no question.

What's that old saying, "The fish rots from the head"? And who knows what happened at Seven's board meeting on Thursday.

But I have some ideas for future agenda items.

If you want a Sunday night current affairs show, you need to employ more than, what, six people to make it happen.

Stop hiring people as casuals to fill in your staffing gaps and engage and employ journalists with excellent credentials so they are not left trying to solve problems in the minutes before you go to air.

Spend money on journalists, not hookers and blow, as it's described in some circles.

I truly recommend hiring Lisa Wilkinson.

She has a huge back catalogue and Seven needs a grown-up as a flag bearer.

Wilkinson's been more or less vindicated but she's not working as a journalist.

This seems weird to me. She's way too young to be sitting on her jolly behind.

Sure, there is a time needed to recover from the actual monstering to which she's been subjected - but Australian audiences definitely need more capable adult women on our screens.

Short staffing will always put pressure on people trying to do good work and will lead them to cut corners.

If you want to run a news network, then fund it properly.

You've always had a problem with ethics.

Hire people who will help you sort out your values.

That nice bloke and journalism ethics expert from the University of Melbourne, Denis Muller; or maybe ABC journalist Louise Milligan could consult for you.

She understands exactly how hard it is to get a difficult story across the line.

She's done it time and time again - and maybe could get some time off to help colleagues fix what's broken.

You need help and it's hard to see how you are going to do that on your own since it's clear you have no idea.

Mark Llewellyn, often described as a "mad genius", has gone but no word of what will happen to Craig McPherson, current news tsar. You do not have enough people who are actual journalists.

One of their top-notch insiders says: "News reputations are made over years and they are difficult to build but so easy to lose."

READ MORE:

That person says too many Seven journalists are wondering about their futures. Asking themselves if they can keep doing this.

They can, but so many things will have to change.

I also want to give Seven journalists the gift of anxiety.

If they aren't worrying the whole time if they've buggered things up and checking a million times, they are doing it wrong.

That worry won't stop mistakes (I should know) but they do make you second-guess yourself before naming an innocent young man as a murderer.

Seven's sinned too many times and now it needs to atone.