This week, Mediawatch on the ABC was a cracker, bundling the stories of Sal Gover (of Giggle v Tickle fame) and Karl Stefanovic’s abrupt departure from Nine. It was so good it bears repeating.
On Grover, Mediawatch took their host broadcaster to task for not giving the conservative defender of biological women’s rights a run on the ABC: “Sal Grover offered her op-ed to the ABC in May after Auntie had run a piece by legal scholar, Paula Gerber, which claimed the appeal decision was a win for trans rights and women’s rights. So why did the ABC ultimately reject Grover’s piece? There were certainly genuine attempts by the ABC’s religion and ethics division to publish.”
They detail several rounds of Grover and the ABC Religion and Ethics website editor, Scott Stephens, working on Grover’s piece. Grover was remarkably amenable to making changes and recasting her piece.
Gerard Henderson’s Mediawatchdog blog reported there were 37 emails in the exchange.
Finally, Stephens told her a version was “Very, very good. I’ve made a few editorial changes and I’m checking with a couple of senior editors.”
But then the decision came back, the ABC would not run her piece, citing “Pervasive inaccuracies and overstatement about the extent to which changes to the Sex Discrimination Act present a threat or danger to women. I’m afraid our decision is not to publish your piece.”
So Grover sent it to Holt Street, and The Australian published it.
Mediawatch quoted Alan Sunderland, a former ABC editorial director, “Given the substantially refocused and restructured nature of the most recent piece and the apparent willingness of Ms Grover to make further changes as required, it is not clear to me why the ABC was not able to find a way of publishing the article.”
And Editorialised: “As challenging as Grover’s arguments might be to sections of the community, we really see no reason why a version of her article could not have been published in the first place. Not least because the businesswoman had made very plain her willingness to do what was necessary to meet the ABC standards. Indeed, her campaign to change the law is now a public conversation and the ABC should not deny its audience the opportunity to hear from its central player.”
Karl
The takedown/exposé of Tommy Robinson, the conservative populist agitator from England who was the interview subject on Karl Stefanovic’s new podcast that led to his breach with Nine. Can we just add that, being Australian, there is a new nickname for Karl Stefanovic’s attempt to milk populism: “Joe Bogan.”
“Why the outrage? Because Tommy Robinson is far from lovable. A violent criminal with multiple stretches behind bars and an anti-Islam anti-migrant zealot. Convicted of using a false passport in 2013 and shortly afterwards defrauding a bank, interfering with a criminal trial in 2019, given a fear anti-stalking order in 2021 for harassing a female journalist. He’s also fond of assault done for bashings in 2005 and in 2011. His aggression was sometimes captured by cameras, like in Ascot in 2017. In Italy a year later … And in Portugal the year after that. Once a member of the infamous British National Party, long associated with Neo-Nazis and skinheads, Tommy Robinson, who uses a nom degure, borrowed from a notorious football hooligan, also founded the far-right English Defence League in 2009, a rabid anti-Islam movement.”
Media Watch also reported on the case that causes some conservative commenters to see Robinson as a free speech martyr. A Syrian teenager, Jamal Hijazi, who was filmed being attacked at a school in 2018, was falsely accused by Robinson of attacking a girl. Robinson’s Facebook videos went viral, viewed by nearly one million people. A wave of death threats meant the Hijazi family had to leave home, and Jamal had to leave his education behind. Robinson was found guilty of defamation – here is the judgment.
Media Watch updated the story “When in 2023, Robinson repeated his false allegations against the teenager in a film using hidden camera footage called Silenced, Robinson was found to be in contempt of court and was jailed again. So how did Carl Stefanovic tackle Robinson’s treatment of the teenager? With naught but a big smile.”
As a clip of Rafael Epstein, Melbourne ABC morning host, noted, “This is not a freedom of speech issue. This is a zero journalism issue.”
You might need to watch it – the montage of images of Robinson assaulting people is worth the time.