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Popular Australian newsreaders channel Anchorman in epic broadcast battle

The Feed news show on SBS2 gathers some of the biggest names in public and commercial television journalism for violent parody of Ron Burgundy news clash
  
  

Lee Lin Chin
Lee Lin Chin’s violent side emerges in the sketch. Photograph: SBS

Some of the biggest names in television journalism have come together for a bloodthirsty segment on the young people’s news show The Feed, screened on SBS2.

The journalists – including Guardian Australia’s David Marr – brawl and hack at each other in a parody of a scene from the film Anchorman 2.

In the six-and-a-half minute skit which melds brutality with solidly wooden acting, teams from Channels Nine, Ten, ABC and SBS - led by a demonic Lee Lin Chin – battle for ratings supremacy.

Karl Stefanovic, Lisa Wilkinson, David Marr and Sandra Sully all turn up to trade blows, but the ultimate putdown is left for The Feed team itself.

Host Marc Fennell, standing up for “news for young people on a channel young people don’t watch”, is ultimately shot in the head as the ABC’s Annabel Crabb gobbles up an opponent in a zombie-like frenzie.

Launched 18 months ago, The Feed has straddled the line between slick, in-depth productions to make SBS One’s World News blush, all the while peppering the show with lighter pop-culture snippets aimed at securing a young audience.

During the skit, Ten’s Hugh Riminton claims he will hit “harder than Tony Abbott’s budget cuts”, while Chin calls the brawl a “government-funded bloodbath”.

The federal government has confirmed SBS is to lose $53.7m in budget cuts, but in the news and current affairs divisions the principle victim at this stage looks set to be multi-award-winning international current affairs program Dateline, where the jobs of experienced journalists were the result of a very real broadcast battle last week.

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