The veteran TV producer poised to play spin doctor to NSW’s embattled top cop, Karen Webb, has told friends he is the target of a vicious whispering campaign surrounding his links to Bruce Lehrmann and his candid selfies with James Packer’s former fiancee, Tziporah Malkah.
News.com.au can reveal that much of the whispering campaign centres on an Instagram post by Mr Lehrmann featuring a black convertible, boasts of “dirty strategy lunches”, and his selfies with former model Malkah, who graced the cover of Vogue as Kate Fischer.
Steve Jackson, who quit his job at the Seven Network in anticipation of taking on the role, which pays more than $300,000, was the senior producer on the Spotlight program that paid Mr Lehrmann’s rent for a year in exchange for an interview in which he denied raping Brittany Higgins.
Jackson also interviewed Malkah, previously known as Fischer when she appeared in Vogue as a model in the 1990s, for a newspaper profile piece in which she confessed she was sexually attracted to James Packer’s father, Kerry Packer, and claimed that the feeling was mutual.
But selfies taken by the former model during the course of the interview in her Kings Cross apartment have now resurfaced amid reports of Jackson’s “colourful past”.
He has told colleagues it was nothing more than an image of the interview.
It was after he left the apartment that night that the former model claims to have had a romantic interlude with another journalist who was present, who was not Jackson, and who she later also posted photos with on her social media accounts.
Jackson insists he had left the Kings Cross apartment before the night took a more amorous turn.
In a separate Instagram story posted by Mr Lehrmann on his own account in August, 2023, the Liberal staffer titled a clip “dirty strategy lunches in media” and then included a clip of Jackson, known as “Jacko” in Sydney media circles, in the back of a convertible in Chippendale, Sydney.
The clip tags the pub as the Camelia Grove Hotel, which is across the road from Channel 7, and includes an image of a bottle of Dirty Boots Cabernet Sauvignon.
On the day in question, Mr Lehrmann had set up shop in the pub across the road from Channel 7 with his new “media manager”, a man called Mark, who later drove the group around Sydney in a convertible. Jackson accompanied the group during the drive.
Mr Lehrmann was charged but never convicted over the rape of Brittany Higgins, and the charge was later dropped.
He is now facing separate charges in Toowoomba, and is scheduled to have a committal hearing later this year.
Jackson was contacted for comment by news.com.au, and declined to comment on the Instagram posts.
Jackson, who has quit his job at Channel 7 but not taken up the new role, has told colleagues he’s been left shocked by an extraordinary campaign against his appointment, including claims by 2GB radio’s Ben Fordham that it has “raised eyebrows” and may be overturned by the embattled Commissioner Webb.
The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday that NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley had refused to say whether she played a role in the appointment of a new spin doctor to help the Commissioner.
Jackson was named on Monday as the latest executive director for the NSW Police Public Affairs branch, replacing Liz Deegan, who was dismissed last week.
Ms Deegan’s employment came to an end after Commissioner Webb came under fire over why it took her three days to address the public after Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon was charged with murdering Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.
Fordham interviewed NSW MLC Rod Roberts on Tuesday, who claimed that his phone “lit up like a Christmas tree” after news broke of Jackson’s appointment.
“I was getting phone calls from people I know in the media, senior police officers, all questioning this decision,” he said.
“The bloke she has picked has raised a few eyebrows, people at NSW Police headquarters are wondering if he is even going to make it through the door on day one, I don’t think he is going to.
“I am hearing the commissioner is nervous, and it is my belief this morning that Karen Webb will change her mind … and be on the lookout for yet another spin doctor.”
Jackson is a former 60 minutes producer who has held senior roles for decades, including working at Seven’s Spotlight, The Sunday Telegraph and New Idea.
In 2006, he accused Stephen Gibbs, a crime reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald, of calling him a “a poofter” and then shoving a gun in his stomach outside a pub called The Evening Star. The gun charge against Gibbs was later dropped by police.
A lawyer told the Sydney court: “There had been an inordinate amount of drinking, even by young Australian males’ standards.”
News.com.au does not suggest Mr Jackson does not merit the appointment.