Steve Zemek

Steve Zemek is a News Corp Australia journalist whose recent work follows the protracted legal and workplace battle between radio host Jackie O Henderson, her former co-host Kyle Sandilands and their former employer ARN, turning dense court and corporate material into accessible coverage. His stories sit inside the entertainment TV and radio patch, but they are driven by legal filings, contract terms and psychological injury claims rather than program gossip. He focuses on each new development in the case, documenting how it shifts the balance between the parties and what it reveals about power, safety and money in commercial radio.

Jackie O v ARN legal saga

Zemek’s core run of pieces tracks Jackie O Henderson’s decision to leave the Kyle and Jackie O Show and her subsequent Federal Court action against ARN and its subsidiary CBC.

He reports that Henderson claims her dismissal was unlawful adverse action and that she is seeking at least $82 million in damages after her ten-year contract was torn up. Across multiple stories he explains that her case centres on workplace rights, psychosocial hazards and the employer’s duty to provide a safe environment, drawing directly from her statement of claim. He also follows how her claim has expanded over time, including the addition of a separate allegation that ARN breached a $3 million loan agreement linked to shares purchased on her behalf.

His coverage lays out the chronology of the dispute, from the on-air confrontation that precipitated her exit through to the termination of her contract and the filing of detailed court documents. He shows how internal complaints about Sandilands’ behaviour, letters from her lawyers and responses from ARN fit together, often quoting specific incidents and language from court filings to anchor the narrative.

The emphasis is consistently on what the documents say and how they frame Henderson’s claims about bullying, psychological harm and lost income, rather than on personality-driven commentary.

Kyle Sandilands fallout and radio contracts

In parallel, Zemek closely follows Sandilands’ position as Henderson’s former co-host and as a separate litigant against ARN. He reports that Sandilands initially pursued his own Federal Court case to enforce a ten-year contract reportedly worth $100 million, before reaching a settlement that will see him receive $12.09 million over three years plus a revenue-sharing arrangement and significant advertising support. Zemek sets these figures out clearly, linking them to ASX statements and explaining how they reshape the commercial future of Sandilands’ media ventures.

He also captures Sandilands’ on-air responses to Henderson’s allegations, including his claim that new PTSD assertions are “soul-destroying” and his insistence that he did not realise she felt bullied. One piece describes Sandilands being handed a subpoena live on air, with Zemek detailing the moment and tying it back to Henderson’s ongoing trial and the broader legal context. This blend of real-time radio moments with courtroom developments shows his interest in how legal processes intersect with the performance and business of high-profile broadcast personalities.

Affidavits, exorcists and workplace law detail

Zemek’s reporting is distinguished by the way it mines affidavits and cross-claims for specifics that illuminate the culture and decision-making inside ARN and related entities. He writes about affidavits from Sandilands and his manager, explaining how a Federal Court judge ruled that their statements could be used by ARN and CBC in the case against Henderson, and sets out the legal reasoning in plain terms. He breaks down CBC’s defence, including its claim that Henderson’s bullying complaint was not made for a proper workplace law purpose but instead to secure a different timeslot, quoting passages that show the company’s interpretation of her motives.

One of his more striking stories covers newly released court documents alleging that Henderson arranged exorcists to clear Sandilands’ “demons,” and that this choice affected how a prior complaint was withdrawn. Zemek reports this detail straight from an affidavit, placing it alongside more conventional arguments about duty of care and psychological risk to show the breadth of material that can surface in workplace litigation.

Elsewhere he highlights references to SafeWork NSW, Fair Work processes and psychosocial hazard assessments, giving readers the terminology that regulators and lawyers use to frame radio as a workplace, not just a show. The effect is to ground a celebrity-heavy dispute in the structures of employment law and corporate governance.

Story structure, recurrence and tone

Zemek’s pieces on this saga are serial, each built around a discrete new filing, court hearing or corporate announcement, and their headlines flag the latest turn - “big new $3m claim,” “bombshell statement of claim,” “legal win,” and the “latest twist” in the Jackie O case. The stories sit in the entertainment TV and radio section but read as legal and business updates, opening with the key development before stepping through background and prior stages in the dispute. He keeps the tone factual and restrained, relying on quoted court language, numeric contract and settlement detail, and brief summaries of on-air events rather than opinion or colour.

Across the body of work, the through-line is clear: he treats high-profile radio as a workplace governed by contracts, regulators and courts, and his reporting shows how those systems respond when relationships break down.