Alan Jones

The price of outrage

Australian Politics, Media / / 4 minutes of reading

Sometimes a story moves so fast it’s hard to keep up with. Such has been the case with the saga of Alan Jones. I wrote an open letter to 2GB on Saturday evening, shortly after news of Jones’ intemperate remarks to a gathering of Young Liberal students in Sydney broke. I then slept in on Sunday, prior to working my night job.

By the time I’d woken up, I’d already missed half the fun. Jones’ press conference yesterday, purportedly to apologise to the Prime Minister, has already been much discussed, and derided, for its transparent insincerity. To say Jones “doesn’t get it” doesn’t cover it. I shook my head, went to work, and after getting home at six in the morning, I slept late again.

While I was blearily shoving cereal down the hatch at midday, a petition launched by change.org to remove Jones from his duties was collecting over 30,000 signatures. I would guess that very few of them listen to 2GB, but that didn’t stop sponsors from withdrawing from Jones’ program: luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz; supermarket oligarchs Woolworths; tea-makers Dilmah; Freedom Furniture; the list goes on. The moral question for them now is whether or not they’ll resume their support for Jones when the opprobrium abates.… Read more..

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Dear 2GB: an open letter regarding Mr Alan Jones

Australian Politics, Media / / 4 minutes of reading

Dear 2GB,

First, an apology for wasting your time. I don’t listen to your radio station. I don’t even live in Sydney. And no, I’m no fan of Alan Jones; have even had a pop at him in print on the odd occasion. Given the respective size of our audiences, you could safely accuse me of pissing in the wind there.

Still, I feel compelled to write to you. And maybe I’m not even being fair, because Mr Jones didn’t suggest our Prime Minister’s father “died of shame” in his own daughter in the normal course of his duties on your radio station. He was freelancing, as it were, speaking to a gathering of about 100 Young Liberals in Sydney. Apparently they thought it was a brilliant speech. Perhaps I should take it up with them.

But the fact is that 2GB employs Mr Jones. He represents you – and your advertisers. And, as you would well know, he has form. It wasn’t that long ago that he suggested – repeatedly – that the Prime Minister be put in a chaff bag and dumped at sea.

I know, I know. The Australian Communication and Media Authority decided we shouldn’t take Mr Jones seriously there.… Read more..

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Misogynists and nut jobs need to turn down the volume

Australian Politics / / 4 minutes of reading

Last Friday, I saw something that disturbed me greatly: a young man wearing what appeared to be a home-made T-shirt featuring a caricature of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. She had a bullet in her head.

That sort of thing, unfortunately, will be of little surprise to Gillard, who the day before had called out the “misogynists and nut jobs” on the internet, where calls for her assassination, both veiled and overt, proliferate.

They proliferate on talkback radio too. And it’s not just the callers. Alan Jones infamously suggested – on five occasions last year – that Gillard ought to be “put in a chaff bag” and dumped at sea.

Mysteriously, the broadcasting regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, found in June that Jones’ comments did not incite violence or hatred – at least, not violence or hatred based on the PM’s gender. That was a relief, wasn’t it?

Let’s now look at the reality of last week’s events.

At the beginning of Gillard’s presser – the same one where she poured scorn on the nut jobs bent on her destruction – one of them strolled past security, entirely unchallenged, to personally deliver her a message on the dangers of “mind control”.… Read more..

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Baiters, haters and spivs

Media / / 4 minutes of reading

In the online edition of Melbourne-based publication King’s Tribune last month, editors Jane Gilmore and Justin Shaw came to a radical decision. They resolved – after a few months of earnest consideration was capped by one post of anonymous, misogynist bilge too many – to turn comments on their website ”off”.

Given the magazine deals mostly in robustly expressed opinion, and not wishing to discourage debate, Gilmore and Shaw made an even more radical suggestion: letters could be sent by email or Facebook, or even (are you sitting down?) by post. The most cogent, topical and witty of them would be considered for publication.

It’s important to note the Tribune is a small venture. It began five years ago as a newsletter for a St Kilda bar and became a ”real” magazine last October, extending its reach through newsagents into Sydney and Canberra. Its circulation is less than 1000; Gilmore and Shaw keep day jobs.

There are practical reasons for a small publication like the Tribune to disable comments: neither the editors nor individual writers have the time, energy or inclination to monitor and moderate, much less reply to them all. There are more pressing things, such as getting out the next issue.… Read more..

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