The editor of Spectator magazine, Rowan Dean, has managed to write one of the more offensive columns published in the Australian Financial Review since its former columnist Mark Latham left last year.
Inspired by the Rich List, Dean compiled the “Poor Me List” which he defined as “the wealthiest or most celebrated individuals in Australia who, despite their great fortune and good luck, still bleat on about how hard done by they are”. Of the seven people targeted three are Indigenous.
Dean’s puerile list comprises writers and presenters Waleed Aly and Stan Grant, former AFL star Adam Goodes, Australian of the year and former army head David Morrison, the writer Jane Caro, the outgoing Labor senator Nova Peris and former prime minister Julia Gillard. Each was given a new moniker by Dean – “Adam Baddes” and so on.
Of journalist Stan Grant he said he “shot to long-overdue leftie prominence in late 2015 when, after years of ignoring him, the Luvvies finally sat up and noticed he has Aboriginal ancestry”. Responding to the Fin article on Twitter, Caro said she was “honoured to be in that company”. Dean’s list extends even to people he knows personally. Beast understands Caro agreed to help Dean out last year when he auditioned for a presenting role at Sky News.
Holmes cast off
Former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes is the latest high-profile columnist to be dumped by Fairfax Media as it moves to save on contributors. Wendy Harmer and John Birmingham were also dropped earlier this year and replaced by staff writers. The former ABC journalist was told his column would no longer be regular but he may be called on to write occasionally for the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Fairfax rolls out red carpet for China Daily
Last week China Daily reported it had signed a deal with Fairfax Media to print in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Financial Review newspapers an eight-page English issue of “China Watch” once a month.
“Fairfax Media owns three important daily newspapers in Australia and nine others in New Zealand, which means the influence of China Daily will be spread to cover the two most important countries in Oceania,” the deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily, Kang Bing, said in the China Daily.
Wait. Fairfax is going to publish Chinese propaganda in its esteemed organs? Well, yes, but the relationship is purely commercial.
“The commercial printing agreement between Fairfax and China Daily relates to an eight-page lift-out called China Watch which is pre-printed and inserted in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Australian Financial Review, each month, at our discretion,” a spokesman told Weekly Beast.
“The lift-out is clearly labelled and it is not dissimilar in nature to other agreements we have entered with other clients. This commercial printing agreement is dealt with no differently to other advertising content. Fairfax has a clear demarcation between paid content and content created by our journalists.”
Blue jokes make viewers see maroon
On Wednesday night the State of Origin enjoyed its best ever ratings: 2.7 million viewers in the five capital cities. But the host broadcaster, Nine, had little time to savour its success as one after another tasteless comments by footballers made it to air. On Wednesday Queensland forward Sam Thaiday’s post-match interview shocked some viewers with its virginity analogy but was largely forgiven because, after all, it was live television. But Thursday night’s “joke” on the NRL Footy Show is a different story.
Retired rugby league player Beau Ryan – who has a regular gig doing comedy on the show – made a joke about an Asian woman who was looking at puppies in a shop window. “Picking out which one for dinner?” Ryan quipped.
The regular “Beau Knows” segment was not only approved by producers, edited and put to air, it was tweeted from the show’s official Twitter account too. Viewers were swift to condemn the segment and the tweet was later deleted.
Beau Ryan saying something racist doesn't come as a surprise. The real shock is that people still watch the @NRLFootyShow
— Patrick Lawrence (@patlawrence26) June 2, 2016
How does that even go to air? Forget Beau Ryan, surely even one person in the process of that making it onto TV realised it's not okay.
— Nathan (@NathanMJ_22) June 2, 2016
The executive producer of the NRL Footy Show, Glenn Pallister, told Weekly Beast Ryan’s comedy had gone too far. “We apologise for any offence caused,” he said. “The segment is a comedy one where we have fun with people, but not intentionally at their expense. We clearly went too far on this occasion.”
The NRL Footy Show, which screens only in Sydney and Brisbane, managed just 230,000 viewers. But in the rest of the country the AFL Footy Show show was far more popular, attracting 620,000 viewers in its 8.30pm time slot.
The ABC’s highly anticipated supernatural drama Cleverman was less popular than the footy antics in the same time slot, attracting only 452,000 metro viewers. The most popular show was MasterChef Australia on Ten with more than a million viewers.
Curious case of the missing articles about Ray Hadley
Still on Fairfax, back in April we asked the Herald about a couple of stories on the rightwing broadcaster Ray Hadley that had apparently disappeared from the paper’s website. The author of the stories, Jonathan Swan, has moved to a new job in Washington as national political reporter for the Hill.
@smh Both of my stories on Ray Hadley's ex wife's AVOs and one about The Duck, all give 404s.
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) April 24, 2016
But he tweeted that he hoped the stories – which were damaging to Hadley – hadn’t been removed because of the merger between Fairfax and Macquarie Radio last year. Hadley is a star broadcaster at 2GB, owned by Macquarie.
At the time Fairfax told us the stories were still live and it was just a matter of old and or broken links. But when we checked again this week we found the two most controversial articles about Hadley were indeed missing. Although the headlines appear in a search when you click on them you get the message “Sorry, your page was not found …” Curious indeed.
