On Sunday Glenn Milne wrote a steaming heap of largely self invented innuendo about Kevin Rudd and he keeps his job. Today, Herald blogger Jack Marx posts a clearly fictional account of Kevin 07’s night on the turps and ends up fired by Fairfax.
Leaning into his ear, she’d have told him her ‘name’, which would not have been Sharon or Therese, but Cheyanne or Loquita, or any number of exotic concoctions designed to hide the girl’s true identity. The Australian politician representing his country would have told her his name was “Kevin”.
I read through this quickly in the morning, had a short laugh and moved on the true lies contained in the many missives of the press gallery reptiles on Rudd’s night in NY, Marx’ piece was by far the best of the day on this because while his absurdity was intentional, theirs was not.
Happy birthday Jack.
I used to work for Jack at Australian Style, and he’s a genuine original. There isn’t room for that in Australian writing, and hasn’t been for a while.
It will be interesting to hear from those who loudly condemned News Ltd when they pulled a post at Tim Dunlop’s blog. And his post was critical of those who paid his salary.
Marx’s post was hilarious satire of an actual event involving a politician in a strip club.
Which news organisation showed the better judgement?
Buggered if I can make any sense out of the so-called practice of media “ethics” these days.
I thought Marx’ piece was a great piece of imaginative satire.
Tony, are you playing the game of “moral equivalence”? Quite clearly Marx shouldn’t have been sacked for this. It’s ridiculous. Like I said, if anyone can articulate some consistency in what passes for the ethics of journalism according to media management these days, I’d be quite amazed.
No, Mark, but I do find it interesting that an undeniably left-leaning paper would sack a talent like Marx for a humorous article like this.
It is impossible to believe that the quality of Marx’s work didn’t measure up. The only logical conclusion for his sacking is that Fairfax deems it unacceptable for its writers to show such disrespect towards Kevin Rudd.
It was not the content of the article which was the problem, but the subject of the article.
And yes, I agree with you about ethics in journalism, particularly in relation to what is well known in Canberra but cannot be published because it would break the code of silence for that particular Club open only to the Canberra press gallery types and federal politicians.
I seem to remember that we were critical of News for pulling Tim’s post, I’m similarly outraged that Fairfax has done this.
Meanwhile Milne continues with his unreadable crap, but of course like Akerman and the others he’s a useful fool, Marx is nobody’s fool.
I think the use of the term “left leaning” with regard to Fairfax is inaccurate, Tony. Their op/edders are usually what I’d call small l liberals - yes, they do target a sort of inner urban professional market, but there’s very little substantive critique of anything there.
Ken Parish reproduces Marx’ post at Troppo, and also suggests some other reasons for his demise:
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2007/08/20/slack-hack-jack-sacked/
“It obviously sucks to be sacked without notice, but it sucks more to be sacked without notice on your birthday.�
First time I have seen his photo. Jack Marx, you are an insouciant adorable god!
Jack Marx’s piece on Russell Crowe was beyond praise. This souffle on the adventures of Herr Kevin Rudd is a drop dead masterpiece of truth, observation, wit and sensual appreciation. Embrace the jail break JM.
We’ll have to differ on Faifax’s political leanings, Mark, but I think Ken Parish might have nailed it. Marx’s odds are 4/6 and shortening to turn up on a Murdoch blog.
The game is to somehow control the blog empire.
Watch for intimidation and censorship and also control of content.
How come there’s only 37-odd comments on Glenn Milne’s blog, yet hundreds of comments on Matt Price’s blog?
I still can’t get over Milne’s version of basic journalistic ethics. You just can’t say: “One version of a piece of gossip is this, while another is this….”. That’s about the standard of an grubby internet celebrity gossip site. Either you have a very reliable source - preferably more than one source - who you trust implicitly on a story of this gravity, a story that involves someone’s basic reputation, or you don’t print the story. Versions of a piece of gossip just is not journalism, any kind of journalism. Full stop.
I feel very, very sorry for Kevin Rudd. I thought Mark Latham was dragged through the mill, but that was nothing.
P.S. I feel sorry for anyone who loses their job, but the piece he wrote was pretty tawdry. I’d much prefer a paper like the SMH spend their money on serious journalism - there’s precious little of it around these days.
By the way, Phil, is the Chilean Sea Bass comment (currently the last one) over at your first thread about this story going to be allowed to stay there?
As for Marx: I don’t like Rudd and I think his dissembling on this issue of what he can and can’t remember on the 7.30 Report tonight should rightly be seen as putting him in exactly the same league as John Howard on a bad day. I also think the claim of victimhood is yet again going to succeed and do him no harm. But having said all that, Marx’s column just goes too far gets a bit “off” for what I call reasonable taste for an upmarket newspaper.
The column deserved to be pulled. Whether he deserves the sack is, I suppose, a different issue.
Yeh, happy birthday Jack. If he was fired for the harmless piece on Rudd, then I’d appreciate somebody hacking “Sam & The City” & “All Men are Liars” to insert a pollie’s name into their offerings. Fire ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.
…maybe tawdry’s a bit harsh, but what’s the point of it at a serious newspaper? He’s probably got a funny novel in him, though.
steve from brisbane : If Marx’s piece had been slated fer the print edition, I’d agree with you. But given the salacious nature of the smh online front page these days - anything but “upmarket”, and the crap they are willing to upload, I’d say Marx’s bit aint so bad.
Yep, Phil, it’s absurd that someone like Marx gets the boot while slimy weasels like Milne survive.
One has written obvious satire with a blatant dose of literary fiction, while the other writes what is pretty much equally fictional (the “kicking out” of Rudd from the club seems to have come from pretty much nowhere), but is sold as truth.
The contrast, frankly, is about as stark as that which Bob Brown pointed out today:
Hear bloody hear.
Oh, I don’t know, Steve. I’ve been drunk once or twice over the last thirty years or so since I came of age, and haven’t recalled what I did on occasions. Is it dissembling to acknowledge that?
On the other hand, pretending you didn’t read your emails and didn’t know about the AWB bribes to Iraq; pretending you hadn’t noticed when your advisors told you that no, the children weren’t being thrown overboard; only noticing decades of warnings about the abuse of Aboriginal children when an election’s around the corner and you want to wedge the Labor states because you can’t manage to wedge the Labor Opposition; pretending you hadn’t heard the dissenting voices about Saddam’s alleged WMD…. WHEN YOU’RE STONE COLD SOBER….
Honestly, this sanctimonious shite about Rudd’s behaviour makes me want to vomit.
Howard-huggers taking the high moral ground this late in the game is beyond belief. Suddenly their ethics wake up? Well, sorry. I don’t buy it. And I find feigned moral indignation in support of the most unethical Federal government we’ve had the misfortune to suffer about as vile as it comes.
I thought the interview was preposterous on the part of Kerry O’Brien, personally. Hopefully he doesn’t enjoy trying to find fifty different ways to ask “did you see any lapdancing”?
From Bob Brown via Lomandra
“Four years ago Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club. Four years ago John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war. I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm.”
Channel 7 here in Adelaide chose to show Bob in a sound bite that excluded the first sentence.
Saved 4 seconds they did.
As someone who vigorously criticised the Murdoch press for censoring Tim Dunlop (and Dunlop for meekly copping it sweet), I am inclined to also deplore this decision by Fairfax. But on a closer reading of Marx’s blog post, I do not believe it was fit for print, and it certainly cannot be compared to the (mostly excellent) post which got Tim censored.
Marx says “an erection would have creaked to life in the trousers of the future Australian Opposition leader” and then goes on to describe Rudd either “gently humping” his pillow or jerking off by hand. That’s not fit for print, certainly not in this context anyway. If Marx was trying to pillory the media’s pithy obsession with this story, he didn’t pull it off (excuse the pun).
I haven’t followed Marx’s work since his days at Web Diary (they killed that too, remember). I know he is capable of some good stuff, but this wasn’t it. Marx’s post would have been excellent on an online blog, BTW, it’s just not fit for print in a national daily newspaper like the SMH.
But isn’t it terrible that we have come down to an either-or choice between Fairfax and Murdoch? Yes, the GG’s credibility is going down the tube, but News Ltd profits are doing fine, and in many parts of Australia (eg SE QLD where I live) there is simply no other alternative to Murdoch (Teh Oz, Courier Mail, Gold Coast Bulletin and even the free weeklies) except the Fairfax SMH trucked up from Sydney. The media ownership laws (ie, lack thereof) have done exactly what the critics said they would, which is exactly what the pollies wanted.
It’s hard not to compare this Murdoch-Fairfax media duopoly with the Liberal-Labor duopoly on power in Canberra. Far too cosy altogether.
Undemocratic, in a word.
We bloggers have a role to play in providing an alternative voice. But if you want to write about politician’s erections, don’t expect anyone to pay you for it.
It was online, gandhi. I can’t help feeling like you never actually lower yourself to reading other people’s comments. Try it sometime.
I disagree on a couple of grounds, gandhi.
First on the Dunlop issue - we don’t know he “meekly” accepted it. In fact the most recent thing published about the episode (which I haven’t seen linked to anywhere) is here:
http://www.creative.org.au/webboard/results.chtml?filename_num=170330
Margaret Simons wrote it, and I know she’s spoken to Tim in the past, both for Crikey and other writing projects of hers.
I’m pretty sure her understanding comes from Tim, but she can’t directly name him as the source because it’s about his relationship with his employer.
Turning to Marx, maybe it’s unsuccessful satire - though that’s going to be in the eye of the reader. But remember those Pickering cartoons that very prominently displayed a lot of pollie penis? I didn’t find them remotely funny, but still. The whole point of blogging, even on a pro news site, should be to try stuff out, and not to have to expect everything to reach “polished” standards. (In any case, for a variety of reasons, a lot of stuff that gets out these days from newspapers both online and in print isn’t that polished.)
And as alluded to by a number of other commenters, Fairfax online’s whole strategy is hits, hits, hits. Hence not just the execrable Sam and the City, but also endless stories about Paris Hilton, etc. I can’t be bothered checking, but I’d bet you anything they covered the Britney/Paris no undies photos stories.
So it’s not as though Fairfax online is the home of quality!
Actually, Anna, I did read every comment before posting and yes, I noted that it was only published online.
Perhaps i should not have used the words “fit for print” (sigh) but personally I don’t think the SMH or any other paper should differentiate on such matters.
I believe the word “tawdry” was used earlier. Sounds about right to me.
Mark,
On Dunlop: it’s been how many weeks since he got spiked, and he’s STILL waiting to speak to management? And he still hasn’t posted anything about it? And that’s not meek?
On Marx: I guess when it comes to lewdity, everyone has their threshhold of what’s acceptable and what’s not. Fantasizing about Rudd’s possible erections seems more indecent to me than reporting on Paris’ latest sex tapes, even if neither is really newsworthy. I would think that if the SMH published an article wherein a writer (even online only) fantasized about Paris fingering herself, it could well be liable to legal action. But what do I know - I am neither a lawyer nor a journo, just a miserable blogger.
gandhi, I’m sorry, please read Simons more carefully. It’s obvious from what she writes that Dunlop has spoken to News management, and decided to stay on but will reconsider if editorial interference happens again. As to his statement that he would post about it, perhaps that was not countenanced during the negotiations. I’d have thought that was the obvious interpretation anyway given his silence on the matter. You appear to be determined to put the worst possible construction on the events. That’s your right, but I hardly think you’re being fair.
GB on 20 August 2007 at 9:00 pm
How come there’s only 37-odd comments on Glenn Milne’s blog, yet hundreds of comments on Matt Price’s blog?
Good question GB. I posted two comments, one slagging Milne and the other virtually word for word for what Bob Brown said before he said it but neither were posted.
Obviously “Sugar Ray” Milne copped a pasting and they wouldn’t print them all
Mark,
Well, depends how you read it. He said that he was having “talksâ€? with management, and then he complained somewhere later about how long it took the “bureaucracy” at News Ltd to deal with such things, and that remains where it stands, so I guess we can make our own assumptions about whether that is “meek”.
Personally, I get the impression that he wants to escalate this up the News Ltd chain of command, maybe to whoever gave him the job in the first place, which is why I suggest he is still “waiting” to speak to someone in upper management. Either way, it looks pretty “meek” to me.
I am not determined to put the worst possible construction on events, just increasingly pissed off at the morally equivocating state of our enfeebled plasma-screen-loving nation.
I mean, I think it’s great that a maverick like Jack Marx rocks the Fairfax boat - maybe he knew he was sticking it to Fairfax and fully expected the sack. Doesn’t mean Fairfax were wrong to spike it. Make of that what you will.
Jack Marx is too good to be in Fairfax anyway. No doubt they’ll fill his void with another mind-numbingly thick columnist like Deveney or Hutchison.
One thing that isn’t coming out much in this Rudd-stripper-gate non story, is the curious symbiosis of journos and strip-clubs. I’ve no doubt that Col was the architect of that little visit, solely on the basis that journos I’ve known (of either gender) are always trying to drag people to strip clubs. I think it dovetails with the Chandleresque vision they have of emselves as “hard drinkin’ no bullshit loner’s operating off the radar of comfy folks”. Or maybe they just want a drink at hours when most things are closed.
Mark, you said
Ahem, isn’t there a heavy-duty oxymoron in what you said there?
Craig Mc:
By coincidence, Geoffrey Robertson is reading his book “The Justice Game” on ABC Radio National. He has just told the story of the “OZ” magazine obscentity trial and of how Rupert The Bear corrupted, in the eyes of some, the morals of the young. [It’s probably podcast too]. The irony of it all. L=O=L!!
Milne is a violent drunk little Hobbit in my opinion.
As for Marx, I always enjoyed his writing and am sad to hear this story.
Mark,
If the SMH online is only interested in hits, hits, hits, why would they X Marx? From what I’ve heard, most days Marx had the biggest news-related blog readership in Australia, mainstream and indie, and that’s over Bolt and Blogocracy. Marx was fairly regularly promoted on the ‘front page’ of both the SMH and the Age websites. He pulled the readers, that’s why they pushed him to start posting daily. More hits, more ad revenue.
It all just proves, once again, that blogging in the MSM will always be a limited exercise in writing and thinking freedom. It would be wonderful to see that change, however.
As I wrote up on The Orstrahyun, while news.com.au is more than happy to reproduce Marx’s canned post on Kevin And The Strippers to boofle Fairfax, the question remains whether they would have allowed such a post to up on news.com.au if Marx was blogging for them.
And is Bob Brown THE most quotable politician in Australia today?
He cuts through the guff like a laser. I’d like to see an option available on digital TV where you can press a button and get ten seconds of Bob Brown summing up a five minute load of waffle and twaddle from his Canberra compatriots.
Marx is too ‘tawdry’ for the online Fairfax papers? Half the content is ’sex in the city’, ‘ladies lace’, ’sex toys hit the high street’ etc etc. Please.
Whoa, yeah, Gandhi, if we were in Tim Dunlop’s shoes, we’d show those News Ltd oafs, wouldn’t we, by crikey! We wouldn’t pussyfoot around, would we! And we can mouth off like this because it’s highly unlikely we would find ourselves in that position, innit?
The decision to sack Marx for this piece of innocent frippery is remarkable. So far we have had no explanation from the SMH to give their side of the story. Is it a sign of the increasing Americanisation , evangelical christianity’s infleunce or just the SMH having a brain spasm.
As for freedom of the press well it just means that Marxie goes back to blogging some where else and probably for more money. Vive la intertubes.
Memo to Alex. In the books, the violent drunk little Hobbits save Middle Earth.
“As for freedom of the press well it just means that Marxie goes back to blogging some where else and probably for more money. Vive la intertubes.”
Are you sure Bill?
Where are these big paying Oz sites that will compete for this clever wordsmith?
Jack Marx can be heard here at the Podcast Network discussing his sacking. Jack makes some interesting and valid comments on the MSM blogging business and Fairfax, I think the words he used were the Mongoose and Cobra. Nice.
But the
MilnesSackville-Bagginses ruin the Shire underMurdochSharkey.Please indeed, kymbos.
They’ve been moving into British tabloid territory for a while now, but since their recent design change, there seems to be little pretence of actually reporting news. It’s there, but you have to dig to find it, underneath all the articles about breast implants, drunken starlets and whose marriage is ailing in Tinseltown.
Perhaps they’re trying to push their serious readership back onto the dead tree version of the paper and leave online content to the bogons and bimbos.
Nice work Phil, that interview link with Marx is great. Not sure how he survived the ‘domino effect’, up until this point, anyway.
“Blogs” from MSM are not ‘Blogs’. When bloggers move from blogging to MSM they cease to be bloggers and become ‘columnists’.
Got that?
Got that Joe2, unless the paycheck looks good, then it’s sellout time for me and I won’t even remember your names. Of course that’ll never happen.
No probs Pil !
Censorship seems written large at the moment. Media Watch showed Oz not only refusing to apologise when caught red-handed “verballing” a nuclear expert for the government’s benefit, but then actually rubbing salt in to the wounds in perversely repeating the misrepresentation a couple of days later.
Elsewhere, SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis is being put through the wringer for opposing the dumbing down of SBS news and current afairs by the new brownshirts in charge there.
Phil and Everyone:
What’s say we quantify IRRELEVANCE in journalism with a brand new unit of measurement …. the Stripclub.
For example: Free public transport or preventing back injuries or grocery price rises or mortgage rate increases would score Zero Stripclubs.
Hearings into the use of unseemly words in the middle of a football game - 3 or 4 Stripclubs.
Kevin Rudd’s unremarkable night out in New York = 8 or 9 Stripclubs …. . And …. wait for it …. Paris Hilton’s comings and goings hits the jackpot with TEN Stripclubs.