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Code of silence: the murky mix of stars, sex and sports writers
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At its annual golf day several years ago, a leading NRL club invited players, sponsors, coterie members, officials and sundry media types along to farewell the recently completed season. But this was a golf day with a peculiarly rugby league twist: topless models handed out cans of beer to the golfers; on one hole, women dressed only in bikinis bent over and put teepegs in the turf, while standing astride players who had been instructed to lie on their backs on the ground. It’s unlikely the golfers were expecting that sort of hospitality, or view, when they turned up to the event. It did, after all, involve one of Australia’s leading sporting clubs, and was being held at a top-notch resort course. And, of course, this was the 21st century. Even by rugby league standards, the “entertainment” was considered by many to be overdoing the concept of looking after your sponsors. The club’s marketing people, the brains behind the idea of topless models and bikini-clad caddies, were told in no uncertain terms that they should ditch the soft porn and come up with something more appropriate for the following year. The story is told in light of the Matthew Johns-group sex saga, when he and several other Cronulla players had sex with a 19-year-old woman at a Christchurch hotel in 2002, which has once again trained the spotlight on rugby league, and its very idiosyncratic, working man’s culture. While the rest of the sporting world has moved, at differing speeds, with the times, league is starring in its very own episode of Life On Mars, stuck in a time-warp from 35 years ago. Perhaps that is not surprising. League could well be the toughest sport of all to play. It is brutal, almost gladiatorial, and requires of its combatants enormous courage. It follows then, that the players who make it to the elite level are very tough, macho, unreconstructed blokes. That’s not to say they’re all blockheads, because they’re not, but neither do many of them get manicures, have their poodles shampooed or their kaftans dry-cleaned. Nor do they have a hissy-fit when they can’t find their blowdryer. Roy Masters, the former NRL coach and now Fairfax sportswriter, says league players exist in that “golden triangle” where they have celebrity status, a lot of money and too much time on their hands. In his 2006 book, Bad Boys, Masters writes frankly about how group sex was a way to create closer bonds between teammates. As well as bringing into focus that culture, the Johns affair also raises questions about the sometimes murky relationship between sportswriters and their sport. According to The Australian yesterday, Channel Nine News sports reporter Danny Weidler has admitted he has known about the Johns story for years “but didn’t consider reporting it”. The logical assumption is that the TV newshound did not want to rock the boat at Nine by outing one of his network colleagues and, presumably, mates. Weidler does pieces for Nine’s Footy Show, of which Johns (aka Reg Reagan) is the star. Either that, or Weidler’s news judgment needs a major recalibration. This is how the symbiotic relationship sometimes works between sports reporter and athlete. It’s not just “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”, but “I’ll protect your back if you give me some good stories in return”. Those journalists who upset this delicate ecosystem by being hyper-critical of players can expect to be cold-shouldered, or worse. In 1990, the American sports reporter Lisa Olsen, while covering the football beat for the Boston Herald, was sexually harassed by New England Patriots football players in the team’s locker room. Olson sued the National Football League and the players involved were punished, but she became such a pariah in Boston — her tyres were slashed, she received hate mail and death threats and was the victim of burglaries — that she wasn’t just frozen out, she was driven out — of town. Olson was eventually transferred to Sydney by the Boston Herald’s then owner, News Corporation, where she worked for The Daily Telegraph and then the Sydney Morning Herald. So who else knew about the Christchurch gang-bang? Just Weidler? The incident gives rise to suspicions out there in readerland that journalism is not the fearless trade its practitioners would love to have us believe. That it is sometimes a closed shop, where contacts are protected, deals are done and truth in reporting is just an abstract concept spoken about in journalism school lecture theatres. Charles Happell is a former sports editor at The Age |
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18 Comments
Charles I really liked your article except for the following. Please rethink what you have said here…
” That’s not to say they’re all blockheads, because they’re not, “
- ” but neither do many of them get manicures, have their poodles shampooed or their kaftans dry-cleaned. Nor do they have a hissy-fit when they can’t find their blowdryer.”
I can assure you neither of those two descriptions are worthy of a real man.
But how are you to know that , you are only a man.
Hear! Hear! The spin implicitly condones the behaviour of these very immature young men, encouraging the worst excesses, and worst of all it entrenches these behaviours in young immature minds. Without the spin, media minders, and legal protection this behaviour would have been nipped in the bud and everyone would have benefited. There is too much money involved in rugby league to enable the truth to be told. A big thanks to you Charlie for maintaining standards in journalism, and thanks to our national broadcaster for the Four Corners because no commercial TV channel would have the balls to stand up against the advertising dollars, the media minders, and the legal teams. The spin doctors have hijacked the fourth estate, once the guardians of our free speech and democracy.
Um, so this is a piece criticising sports writers’ code of silence which coyly fails to name the club involved in the bastardry it uses an an example of this *confused*
It’s nice to have it confirmed, more or less officially, that footie players are a bunch of wankers.
I wish people would stop referring to this disgraceful situation as engaging in “group sex”?I’ve never engaged in this myself, but I’d have thought it means equal numbers of males and females. The debasing activity in NZ was a gang of misogynists engaging in an unequal power activity - perhaps 6-12 ‘with’ one woman. It’s a disgrace, and any attempt at lightening the situation by some idiot trying to be funny; so called ‘sports writer/s’ only makes the situation worse.
Too many people still miss the whole point. How males interact with girls/women is ‘taught’ before birth, by the waiting parents perception of the roles of boys and girls. For too long, there’s been an unhealthy boys club attitude to girls and women - it must stop, and it must stop now! I haven’t listened/watched a game of Rugby League since the disgraceful situation caused by the Bulldogs - and I don’t intend changing that practice any time soon! The ‘boys club’ attitude is beyond my comprehension, it defies any deserving degree of respect. Matthew Johns had to be almost ‘operated on’ before he even acknowledged the pain of “Clare”? I’m not convinced that his so-called mates who were also in that room ascertained, that “Clare” was in agreement with what was happening to her, or going to. Did each one of them ask her permission?
The laws in NSW are pretty clear - any person engaging in a sexual encounter MUST be 100% sure of consent; and it must be sought if and when anything changes,eg extra male participants. It must also be sought before different activites are engaged in. If the woman is drunk or in shock or ?? then all activity must CEASE! And, putting her in a cab and saying, ‘thanks for that’ is repugnant, and won’t cut it with me, or thankfully the laws of this state.
Matthew Johns was not a kid - he was supposedly a 30 year old man. There’s no excuses, ever. Those so-called ‘mates’ of his are just low life - in every sense! And Matthew, your greatest crime wasn’t being unfaithful to your wife - in the scheme of things, that doesn’t even count. This is not a ‘family matter’? This insults every woman in this country! You failed to recognise this, as do your ‘mates’? The NRL could start changeing things by stopping the use of scantilly clad ‘cheer leaders’. And as for that supposed “senior NRL player” who proudly boasted that this behaviour would continue - he should be forced to show his face, and then sacked - immediately! Start getting the message fellows- it must stop! I’ve had a gutful of the lot of them! Animals have too much self respect to behave in this manner! I’m not convinced, that we won’t be visiting this issue again - probably too many times! Anybody who makes ‘breaks’ for them should resign too!
Are we really to believe this is an exclusively rugby league culture? Do we really believe there are no AFL, soccer or rugby union players or even olympic swimmers who aren’t keeping their eyes down hoping no-one breaks the code of silence about various sexual misadventures while on tour. After all, the code of “what happens on tour stays on tour” is not exclusive to league, but is common to most sports.
Although I can’t see why, these sportsmen are treated with adulation when out socialising. They are commodities traded between clubs for enormous sums and are paid well for ruining their bodies in a short ten-year career. Great prestige comes from being with them socially so they are often seen as notches on the belts of those with whom they hook up. The message to these guys is that they can do anything they like. Where are the usual boundaries and signals of acceptable behaviour for these young men? I think the answers to the angst generated by this matter is part of a wider social issue and really needs to be addressed much closer to home than most commentators find comfortable.
We don’t have many Real Journalists at all in OZ. we have lots of do as your told dont rock the boat ‘reporters’. They report what they are told or what is titillating and status quo.
Shane Warne’s antics pale to insignificance. It’s up to the wheelers and dealers behind League to knock some morals and ethics into their code. Surely John Singleton who’s aiming to start his own team could use his PR, broadcasting and other interests to clean up a game he says he loves.
What does sports players’ private antics have to do with me?
Nothing.
Why is all this being foisted on me then?
Is it an exercise in public morality training? If so, what’s the actual lesson?
This issue is just total nonsense.
Stories like this merely add to the predominant pattern, which is frightening: a pack of amped-up, overindulged and weirdly regressive young men is liable to be dangerous, particularly if you’re female.
So what makes this a desirable situation for a young woman? Is it a lack of sense, education, self-esteem? What is with our culture?
“This is how the symbiotic relationship sometimes works between sports reporter and athlete. It’s not just “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”, but “I’ll protect your back if you give me some good stories in return”.”
You’ve got to be kidding? Surely this pales into insignificance when compared to the outrageously corrupt relationships between political reporters and politicians, financial reporters and their subjects etc on exactly this basis. Surely this is the LEAST important and/or destructive class of corrupt relationships in the media? Not saying it’s good in any way but come on!
I am pleased to see that others found this line ill-considered, “That’s not to say they’re all blockheads, because they’re not, but neither do many of them get manicures, have their poodles shampooed or their kaftans dry-cleaned. Nor do they have a hissy-fit when they can’t find their blowdryer.”
This is my problem with all the discussion regarding this mediaevent, it’s all so moralistic and the assumptions about sex and men/women are so outmoded: Sarah Ferguson doesn’t bother to explore the failings in the justice system that led to the women’s allegations of abuse being unsatisfied and instead puts up young male players for ridicule; Jesse Fink denounces groupsex as leading to “depression … mental anguish and trauma” and “relationship break-up[s]”; and Charlie Happell seems to believe that using a hairdryer is a sign of effeminacy incompatible with the masculine courage required to play rugby.
Individual instances of abuse which have arisen, it seems, out of a culture which was/is extant in the NRL are deplorable, but moralising in general about sexual practices and forms of masculinity/femininity is distracting and, I believe, destructive.
I’m sorry, but is this article news to anyone?
As in any industry, especially one as sensational as the media can be, there will always be information that is kept between individuals for any number of reasons. They may not always be the right reasons, but I doubt the public are naive enough to believe that everything the media are told is reported on.
For instance, not everyone agrees that was has happened in the Johns case is a fair way of dealing with this situation. Naming one player involved, who has done nothing illegal, has ended up destroying a career. It has also left the woman who participated a ‘nameless’ victim?
I completely understand that some of what the NRL allows and the conduct of clubs and indvidual players may be considered unsavory from time to time. A professional level of conduct needs to be established as we all know these sorts of sports people are role models to a lot of people, especially young people.
Have we though, gone and named the woman involved in this? Why shouldn’t we? She has been protected by a veil of anonymoty Mathew Johns hasn’t had the privilage of. The woman involved in this does not have to face any questioning for her actions, which so far have been reported as being a willing participant of an age to conscent to sex.
Now the can of worms has been opened, should the media not talk openly with this woman and ask some of the same questions Mathew Johns has had to face?
Scoogsy, I’m happy to go along with that as long as you agree that when you are intimidated and sexually assaulted by a dozen footie players you agree to have your name revealed (your real one and not your scoogsy nom de keyboard) and answer whatever questions the media might want to throw at you.
Are you up for that? If not, then you can take your lousy misogyny and shove it.
The most interesting aspect of the gang-bang, league smut-story is Christian groups are all in a tizz! Not overtly concerned about a major sport and its debauched reputation but incensed a former player Matt Johns got sacked for his self-confessed sleeze-bucket behaviour and the league’s gender advisor didn’t. Twisting the old eye for an eye biblical credo is utterly thin, reprehensible and hypocritical particularly when its canvassed by Andrew Bolt with back up from the Christian Lobby Group, embellished by - wait for it - Alan Jones. Long-term memory loss for the latter?
Prof Catharine Lumby in an ABC interview she gave in 2004, when the NRL first took her on as its gender adviser:
ABC reporter: There have been stories of a culture of group sex in rugby league. What do you think of group sex? Do you think it’s OK if it’s consensual?
Lumby: Speaking as an academic, I think that there’s no problem with any behaviour which is consensual in sexual terms.
And further in respect of accusations of group sex involving the Canterbury Leagues players at that time:
“The idea that group sex is abhorrent is a very particular view”
“What matters is that we avoid asserting moral beliefs as moral truths.”
As the $1 million ‘Playing by the Rules Project’ that Lumby and her team developed for the NRL proclaimed, all that players really needed was:
“ongoing education about how to negotiate sexual encounters in a way which ensures informed consent is always obtained”.
Indignant ‘Chris’ Johnson: ‘The cheek of those outrageous Christians….how dare they express their extremist views…’
Leftists are hypocrites seemingly now by definition……
David, I’m completely behind you when it comes to protecting and educating people from the pitfalls of alcoholed fuled sexual encounters, especially with potential partners you’ve never met.
Did you watch the 4 Corners report on this though (if not it’s up on their website)? At one stage the report focused on women who deliberately target football players, ask for pictures of them and organise, in group meetings with other girls, to go and have sex with them. They do this as a one night fling, and move onto the next guy. Judge that sort of action as you will, but it highlights womens role in this as well. They have a choice and it would appear can be just as preditory as men if they so choose.
The instant protection of the woman at the centre of this saga confuses me? What are we protecting her from? This has never been a question of sexual assalt, so we aren’t protecting a victim of crime. Is it that we feel this woman has too much to loose by being named? Why do we not afford this same protection to Johns?
Isn’t this a blatant case of double standards?
Scoogsy, your reply is obtuse. The woman is alleging intimidation and assault so yes we are protecting a victim of an alleged crime.
You have avoided dealing with the central issue here: if you alleged that you had been sexually assaulted by a dozen footballers would you think it is fair and reasonable to have your name published and face interrogation from the media?
As, of course, the answer is no then one can only conclude that your belief that a traumatised woman should do so is indicative of the kind of heartless misogyny that is prevalent in a significant part of Australian male culture.
As for Johns, he admits that he put her into an extremely degrading situation. That is enough to justify his naming. For those harping about a rather legalistic view of consent let me ask this: did Johns inform this naive starstruck 19 year-old, before or after she entered the room, that there was going to be a gang-bang with up to a dozen burly men? That some of these men would be ‘invited in’ through the window? That all would be watching and some masturbating? Did he as a ‘mature’ 30 year old advise this much less worldly young woman that the experience might well be humiliating and degrading?
No, I don’t think so either.
Was this kind of ‘event’ a one-off?
No, I don’t think so either.