Death by tweet: the Deveny dilemma faces every media practitioner
|
We in the media are decidedly inconsistent when it comes to supporting free speech — and not just when major media companies take extended legal action to suppress inconvenient information. The problem of supporting free speech is that it only really counts when it relates to someone you violently disagree with. We’re all up for fighting the good fight when we like the individual concerned or the views they’ve expressed are ones we endorse. Previously I’ve criticised the incarceration of Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben (whom the Australian media, with the exception of 4BC’s Michael Smith, ignored) and the treatment of ex-LNP galoot Nick Sowden. Now I have to defend Catherine Deveny, who could perhaps be the first columnist in the world sacked for her tweeting. I feel like I’ve taken a dive into an abyss of meaninglessness, having started with Holocaust denialism and racism, and ended up with… Bindi Irwin jokes. I’m not from Melbourne so I don’t know a great deal about Deveny. Apparently she’s a left-wing comic. I don’t find her amusing, and her views remind me of my dire International Socialist SNAGgery when I was 19. But I thought her notorious tweets about Anzac Day reflected an inability to understand the complexity of how we celebrate that occasion, rather than some profound insult to the spirit of the Diggers, Australian values, etc etc. But those didn’t get her sacked, oddly enough. It was her tweeting about another event of national significance, the Logies, that did that. I can’t figure out the logic of that either, except that Bindi Irwin is somehow more important than the Diggers. I mean hell, who knows, maybe some people actually think that. That her tweets, in particular about Irwin, but also about Tasma Walton, were lacking in taste, is a matter of universal agreement. Her justification for the crack about Irwin getting laid — about the connection between raunch culture and the objectification that is an intrinsic part of the Logies — is laboured but I buy it, sort of. But in any event, by sacking her The Age has set a new standard that neither Fairfax nor, certainly, other media are ever going to meet. The Australian media is rife with race-baiting, and homophobia, and misogyny, all of which are far worse than the asinine jokes Deveny offered the other night, and as far as I can recall sackings for those offences are few and far between. Deveny appears to have been singled out because she’s a mouthy woman who refuses to play nice in the mainstream media. The timing of The Age’s actions appears difficult to understand otherwise. Deveny herself appears to have failed to grasp the significance of Twitter, comparing it to “passing notes in class.” Not that she’s the only one at The Age in that position. Gordon Farrer, the paper’s technology editor, ponderously opined today “it’s sobering to think that her now-infamous postings will become part of the vast collection of historical material held at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.” “Sobering.” Thanks Gordon, the queue for the Kevin Rudd impersonators is over there. Everyone in the media is still coming to grips with Twitter, because the more it is used, the more potential it has. Twitter is to the Internet what the Internet was to the MSM. It is the Internet on steroids — faster, shorter, more immediate. It is a broadcast platform, when traditionally the internet has been seen as facilitating a move away from the traditional one-to-many media model. Even if you don’t have many followers, you can be retweeted to potentially vast numbers of people. It is a common room, where you select the guests by deciding whom you follow, a space you populate and a conversation you take part in, depending on your tastes. And it is a media aggregator. You can already replace smh.com.au or abc.net.au as your main news site by following journalists, commentators and newsfeeds. In effect your twitter page becomes the front page of your own news site, removing the necessity of clicking through the front page of a mainstream media website. In time that, I suspect, will do a lot of damage to our already-ailing mainstream media. It is all those things, but it looks and feels like the safer, more personal spaces of yesteryear. It can feel like one big lounge room or pub, where you can snark it up with your mates. That’s what Deveny was doing at the Logies. Problem is, of course, it’s not any sort of safe space. It’s the entire world, and everything you say is broadcast and stays out there for good. Out there where there are plenty of people just waiting to be offended. Some of us are wise to that, or try to be. Bloggers know the dangers of posting an article or comment they might later regret. The smart ones self-filter to ensure it doesn’t come back to bite them. They know the feeling of anonymity and safety is an illusion. But at least a comment on a blog awaits someone clicking through to read it. Twitter doesn’t wait, it pumps it out there, for everyone who follows you to see, and for anyone else who, beyond your control, might see it in retweeted form. Twitter has vast possibilities, because it is so many things at once, and that’s why it poses a problem not just for media companies but for commentators and journalists. Until we work it out, there are going to keep being casualties. Deveny was the first but she won’t be the last mainstream media figure to get caught out. |
|
|
|
87 Comments
I still don’t really get Twitter. I think it will probably go the way of button-up shirts and orange juice.
Snarky asides are great, but shouldn’t be said into megaphones.
I don’t think there are any significant issues raised by this series of events at all.
Deveney was gratuitously offensive and didn’t understand the technology. She was also keying away during a social function which is also needlessly poor manners.
This is value-subtracting journalism by an attention-seeker, not at exercise in free speech. Other industries refer to it as incompetence, but journalists try to see deeper significance in everything. There isn’t one.
“Person gets sacked for unprofessional behaviour”. Why, it’s not even newsworthy.
This leaves the way free for The Age to bring back Gerard Henderson to a weekly slot.
Does The Age also get two slices of Miranda Devine a week? If not, they could be brought up to speed immediately. Fantastic news, all they’d need now is Paul “Miracle Water” Sheehan and the cup would be overflowing.
Poor manners??? By a journalist???……at the Logies!!!!
Good grief! The sky is falling.
“Twitter is to the Internet what the Internet was to the MSM.”
Twitter is a self absorbed platform for inane garbage coming from those who believe they are more important, and influential, than they are.
Case in point; Ashton Kutcher is the world’s #1 Twit.
One day the hubbub and the ridiculousness of it will hopefully see it disappear up it’s own ass. If the self absorbed ‘Journalists’ (used loosely) would get over themselves and stop telling us who said what on it, we’d all be better off.
@ Paddy
According to a newspaper quote by Deveny she is not a journalist but ‘a writer, a polemicist’ which means she is absolved from the usual high standards of social behaviour set by Oz journos.
This is a case of tasteless twitting by a twit.
Such tweet, tweet sorrow.
Bernard does that mean you will not be savaging the deli counter woman in future?
One more tweet about the misery of being served pitted olives could lose jobs both of you your jobs.
The take home message for me in this has been that businesses are still coming to grips with how someone’s internet/public profile reflects on them, and where one’s duty to work begins and ends.
They were not official Age communications. Yet the Age has taken umbrage and sacked someone. I don’t see how this is any different to intemperate comments in the pub after a few.
There seems to me to be a need for some ‘guidelines’ on how exactly one’s internet profile affects their work or reflects on their work. I’ve had some personal experience with this and find the current arrangements vague and useless. More of a cautionary ‘yeah, well don’t try anything and you’ll be fine’ than a rigid guiding stance.
Roberto Tedesco, you could be on to something there. Perhaps Gerard was at the Logies, egging Catharine on, knowing full well the ‘Guardian on the Yarra’ would have him back in a flash.
EP - Neil Mitchell on Sunrise this morning reckoned that The Age had had a gutfull of her anyway and this just provided them with a convenient excuse.
Malcolm, yeah, I’ve since heard that rumour too. Surely then they could have just sacked her citing ‘artistic differences’? Would have been better than this public and odd kangaroo court.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
It’s OK BK, there’s value in paying attention to issues in a comparative way and expecting fairness and equality.
I am launching into a project with similar dilemma status.
Impressed with the Queensland Libs for throwing out of their organization a young up and coming star for transmitting electronically (insecurely of course) a disagreeable, racist was the label given, comment about the US President I have mounted a campaign to have the Libs throw the Right Honourable John Howard out of the Liberal party immediately and instantly for having called the US President ‘the al-Qaeda Candidate’.
John Howard said that as PM of Australia, not as a young inexperience dude a bit overfull of himself as a young medical doctor flattered by party membership.
The people of Australia, especially those of his electorate, threw him out, not just demoted him, don’t confuse throwing out his government, threw him out but his confused party throws out a loud mouthed young Lib who could be forgiven for his youth and inexperience but is in denial that its once crummy leader is and always was more obnoxious.
Action Plan - punish those deserving for their really ugly mouths (usually means ugly minds) John Howard out of the Liberal Party today.
Is the deli counter woman a member?
Yes, quite right Bernie, as usual. A female journalist hoping for the statutory rape of a minor is something that should be rewarded with a pay rise, not the sack! Idiot.
Deveny was paid to retail bad taste.
What she does in her own time is her business.
Bad taste demands bad taste. What could be worse taste than the Irwin franchise? Yes, you’re right- the Logies: Cocaine. Bling. Carpark vomit.
Fairfax is still Camberwell.
BERNARDK: To be frank (as in candid) I’ve always thought Catherine Deveny to be as funny as a funeral. Nothing personal, CD.
You say you are not from Melbourne? You certainly seem to have captured the way the natives think.
No where on the earth, planet, solar system, Zog beyond Pluto times the speed of light squared; does Anzac Day with a greater smug, self-satisfaction than a Melbourne born great, great, grand-nephew of your best mate’s aunt. So full marks to the lady for telling it like it is.
She sure has a point about the revolting Bindi Irwin. Only an American could have produced such a cringe-worthy off-spring. The ‘little girl’ from hell, squared.
It’s an interesting point you make about being fired for something you didn’t do whilst under the aegis of your employer.
I wonnder what the late and great Graham Perkin would have said?
MALCOLM STREET: You do have a point.
PS: I think the problems associated with twitter should be looked at via the mobile phone itself. They have become analogous to the side-arm of the American West.
Something to be checked in at the door, and re-claimed at the door when leaving.
Bernard is absolutely right.
Deveny was unbelievably gauche and stupid, but why should this disqualify her from a newspaper column? In gutter-standard Australia, of all countries!
I’ve yet to understand what it is with comedians who slate (a) children and (b) the elderly (how well I remember The Glass House’s spiteful remarks about those over 60,even though I wrote impassioned pleas to preserve it). And if I were Mr and Mrs Rove I’d be seriously pissed off with Deveny. Death of a loved one shouldn’t be a joke, in any context, though I heard her febrile attempts at personal exoneration on Melbourne’s 774 today.
But Bernard is absolutely right.
We’ve given up on The Herald Sun because it’s become politically rabid and nonsensical and basically relies on silly gossip and sport; The Australian has, sadly, and surprisingly, eschewed any journalistic responsibility towards considered opinion; and now The Age, which has been fairly sloppy, recently, has sacked a journo for ‘bad taste’. Bloody hell!
All that’s left is The Fin Review; the New York Times, The Independent (UK), and (you gotta luv it!) Crikey.
Bernard was absolutely right.
ABARKER: This is an Australian publication. In Oz we say A R S E, not the word used by the Americans, ‘Ass’. This is an insult to a fine animal and a euphemism for a fine Shakespearian word.
Fairfax Journalists led the bloodlust in Deveny’s demise via … twitter. All organisations need to have a socia networking policy in place. I know the BBC does, and I think the ABC does too.
Also Aphra means Will Anderson not ‘The Glasshouse’ except that Mr Anderson has gone unharmed and undamaged for his logie tweets which were personal targeted and also not funny.
Aren’t we smart enough to distinguish that Bernard Keene’s tweets are not Crikey’s tweets and Divine’s tweets weren’t fairfaxs? Are we that idiotic as an audience?
Also written satire is so very very hard to get right. Nobody does written satire well at the moment except for the Cartoonists who have the visual images to support their text.
If Catherine was a man she would have been patted on the back and told “job well done”. I personally didnt like her twitter comments but I loved her satirical opinions in the Age - Catherine has a great wit and a grasp of the English language that delights the intellectual senses, makes you laugh out loud and her columns in the Age will be missed dreadfully - by the way has Will Anderson lost his job????
@Venise - Thankyou for pointing that out.
All this time I thought I was reading a Spanish publication. It seems the upside down exclamation point substituting for the ‘i’ threw me. A name like Crikey was not enough.
OK maybe there are three issues here.
1. Value add?
Can you think of a single tweet that came out of the logies that was worth the retrieval, let alone the reading? Me neither.
2. Gender bias
If it had been a man would he have lost his job? I mean, if she had actually been a male footballer who joined in a little tasteful roasting or simply glassed his girlfriend’s face, hey that doesn’t mean he should be stopped playing football, right?
3. Satire .
Satire IS hard to get right. Private Eye and the Onion have been consistently excellent for decades. Getting the tone right (see the Eye’s cover after the Princess of Wales’ accident, the Onion’s after September 11) is not for amateurs. It cannot be accomplished with an iPhone on your lap at a tenth rate Australian showbiz event.
I think one of the more interesting points Bernard has raised is why did this person not get sacked for the things she twittered about Anzac Day? Why then did she get sacked for the extremely distasteful comments about those at the logies? Is Anzac Day that unimportant whereas actors command all attention and action?
And does anyone know why the Abblett (I probably spelt that wrong) is in so much trouble for going to the After Logies Party? What the? He did not disgrace himself (did he?). He tells us he only drank water. (Is he in rehab or something? Why would he need to do that?). And yet he is in BIG trouble for going to the party. The media is really scratching the bottom of the barrel for stories…
And it seems that I have clearly missed some deeply significant sporting gossip….
ABARKER: ¡¡¡¡¡¡ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ Olé
Refer today’s First Dog http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/05/waltzing-matilda/ for a good take on this hypocrisy.
I can’t figure out how you did all those characters Venise, so I hope this one works
@Deccles,
No, I didn’t mean just Wil (sic) Anderson. Corinne Grant joined in sneering at the golden oldies, too, and the entire panel doubled over in laughter. I remember it all so very clearly. Sadly, I won’t be around to laugh at them in their old age.
The point is that Deveny published a silly and offensive, to many, opinion. I merely questioned whether this should have been sufficient to sack her. I strongly disliked her comments, but I find it objectionable that those who propound attitudes and beliefs, designed to inflame and prejudice the population against each other and even engender civil unrest, always, not sometimes, but always, get off, scot-free.
ABarker: It did!
Try ‘:’ = roll + ‘: =
and ‘:’ = cool+ ‘:’ = 
Jim Reiher - she was sacked because she dared to say mean things about Bindi Irwin. For God knows what reason all things Irwin are sacred to the average Aussie bogan, even more so than Anzac Day. Criticise any of them - except Grandpa Bob who none of the fans care about - and see what happens. Outrage galore.
The comment that referred to Belinda Emmet might just have got past the umpire, but Bindi is more sacred than a Hindu cow. Catherine just had to go. I am not familiar with this woman or her work, but being sacked for making a distasteful comment about an almost-teenage girl on Twitter hardly seems fair.
@ Diana
Do you really believe Deveny would have survived had she made that comment about any 11 year-old girl?
Sure, a degree of obsession with the Irwins exists but, as Skepticus Autartikus pointed out above, there’s the matter of statutory rape being floated as a subject for jest.
Actually, Frank Campbell (3.35pm) summed-up the Logies superbly.
[Bindi is more sacred than a Hindu cow. ]
Damn it Diana. That’s the second keyboard I’ve destroyed today.
You could probably get a job at Fairfax as a satirist.
I hear there’s a vacancy.
Deveny’s not funny. She’s never ever funny.
Her main claim to fame seems to be just how extraordinarily in bad taste she can be and get away with.
She said “I do so hope Bindi Irwin gets laid”.
Apparently according to your man Keane that was riff on the plasticity of a tv awards ceremony or somesuch.
Hmmm… deep….. but at least Keane gets it … “sort of”
She’s also probably mentally ill Bernard.
Do ‘ya get that?
How’s ‘bout even “sort of”?
Censorship at The Age: Interestingly, I posted a comment (twice) against an article on The Age website that slammed Deveny. I defended her and was critical of the direction The Age journalism was taking, signing off by saying that I was cancelling my subscription. Neither of these comments has been included at the end of the article. It seems that The Age is censoring comment on their own commentators, and they are become harder to differentiate from the Herald Sun every day!
Do you mean to say that The Age censored the commentary on its censorship of it’s commentator! I CAN’T believe it! Nevertheless, keep the subscription, it’s cheaper than toilet paper.
SHADOW: I had a v similar experience to you. Only I got in first and terminated the relationship.
A hundred years ago, under the all powerful Graham Perkin it used to be a great paper. (I say this in spite of him having had me for breakfast on one occasion) There have been a couple of other good editors. Lately it has been strictly downhill.
PADDY: She looks like one too.
JAMESK: I can’t speak for Bindi’s mental condition. But that ambitious American troll of a mother is the pits.
denise allen - “If Catherine was a man she would have been patted on the back and told “job well done”.
Indeed! I heard her explaining her comments re Rove and Tamsyn, and thought it was in poor taste, and regardless of whether Bindi Irwin is or is not your ideal child, I thought the comment was a bit rough, but to be sacked for it? Wow! Now the newspapers are taking on the ‘nanny state’?
Pity she wasn’t working for corporate TV and a rugby league player. She could make a fervent apology(only for upsetting her family - not the alleged revolting behaviour) and then sit low for a few months, and pop up on another network with her own show! That’s how it works for the blokes, doesn’t it?
@Venise.
Agreed.
Liz and Denise I consider your comments pointlessly sexist.
The fact that one football player, who almost everyone thinks is a dickhead, managed to do what you describe does not mean that men receive some special treatment and nor does it have anything at all with the Deveney situation.
Best if you are conscious that sexism works both ways in future.
I think Liz and Denise were right about there being an element of sexism in this, but I think the greater cause is “political correctness gone mad” - any right-thinking comedian would have been defended with a sneering ‘don’t you lefties have a sense of humour?!’, but a leftie gets both barrels of righteous indignation.
I wasn’t even aware of her existence and don’t think she’s very funny, but the comments were nothing more than offensive. Being a leftie greenie scumbag, I find privatisation and strip logging very offensive, but I don’t demand that its proponents go into purdah.
And Eponymous, you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, mate. I know us men suffer absolutely terribly from sexism, but it does actually run one way far more strongly than the other way, and yes, it’s us blokes that have it easy in that regard.
First of all Twitter is the perfect name for the twits that use it. We don’t have anyone remotely on a par with Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert here in Australia. We have a lot of unfunny try hards and Deveny is one of them. Where Deveny missed the point is, the Logies are a joke these days anyway, no need to make crass jokes about 11 year olds and deceased celebrities. She had enough material there last Sunday to last her a month without resorting to the level she did. She desreved to get the arse!
@JOHNFROMPLANETUSA
Sacked! Lucky she wasn’t hung, drawn and quartered for these crimes against humour (or is that humor?).
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, with their legions of scriptwriters, are mildly funny, but I can’t imagine anyone except an American (with accompanying damaged humour genome) holding them up as paragons of humour. A chuckle sometimes at their laboured jokes, but funny? No way.
And what’s this with thinking people should just be sacked (sorry, fired) summarily? I’d be the last to use that despicable expression ‘unAustralian’, but…..
I don’t disagree John that in general men have a better rub of the green; there are plenty of statistics and tonnes of evidence that support this claim.
But, there is no evidence in this case that it was in any way sexist. I think you, Liz and Denise would all be outraged if this was Wil Anderson we were talking about (who also said some stupid things about the Logies) and I commented that ‘he would have got away with it if he was a chick’.
I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about this really; I’m opposed to all forms of discrimination and I think it’s important to remember that it works both ways.
Disagree on Jon Stewart, Bob, I find him piss funny and witty. Helps that he shares some politics with me too.
Well, humour is in the ear of the behearer!
My instincts aren’t centrist liberal, so I find his politics irritating, although I agree he’s done some pretty cool things and can at times be funny.
Deveny is no edgy Bill Hicks and both Colbert and Stewart know exactly how to do this sort of humour and pull it off, Deveny doesn’t.
Remember though Deveny was twittering in a private capacity (regardless of the fact that it is essentially public, it was still done as a private individual), whereas our US friends have a huge team of writers as well as legals, etc., etc. and they’re doing something for broadcast on a large corporate channel.
We shouldn’t be judging her on her humour (it seems shit from the little I’ve seen) or taste - this is about someone getting sacked for having a bad sense of humour or being slightly offensive.
As First Dog pointed out the right-wingers say far worse (i.e. suggesting that greenies be hung from lampposts soon after devastating, fatal bushfires) but barely an eyebrow is raised.
Eponymous - I disagre! And sexism is not dealt out in equal proportion at all! There’s heaps of examples to prove this in many aspects of life. For example, the woman from a TV station once was “boned”(ch 9) you’d hardly hear that term used against blokes.
On a more serious level, a jury let an alleged rapist off because the victim was wearing “skiny jeans” that were considered too ‘difficult’ to rip off without her help??????Thought we sorted the clothes aspect out 30 yrs ago re mini skirts and other ‘provocative’ attire!
There’s lots more - on a daily basis!
Goodness Liz, please read my comments again.
I do not disagree that there is plenty of sexism against women.
But, there is no evidence that any has occurred in this case. If there is I would like to know about it.
And no, examples of sexism that occurred to other people in other situations are not evidence that sexism is occurring here.
Eponymous - As if there’s a ‘fly over’ when sexism takes place. You can’t prove that there isn’t any sexism can you? I’m not the only one who raised this aspect, not the first either!
“I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about this really; I’m opposed to all forms of discrimination and I think it’s important to remember that it works both ways.”
In order to be “opposed to all forms of discrimination” you first have to recognise that someone is being discriminated against?
Your final sentence implies that it’s present in equal quantities, and it’s not! There’s a different mindset, usually by males in relation to what’s considered ‘acceptable’ by both sexes, and generations of examples of anti-female bias or using a separate set of references re women. You also use the word “chick” which I find frivolous and demeaning! We’re women!
Hi Bernard
There are big legal issues involved with Tweeting which are yet to be fully appreciated. In particular defamation suits can be sheeted back to the Age as Deveney’s employer. However, comments in “bad taste” are not necessarily defamatory. I agree with you that the sacking of Deveny when the Australian media is “rife with mysoginy” smacks of hyporcrisy. We posted a legal analysis of the Twitter phenomenon at http://www.fortnightlyreview.info
I don’t understand why everyone seems to think Deveny was AT the Logies. She was watching on TV like the rest of us.
Of course she had to go! Deveny herself says she hasn’t done anything wrong. Given that, her brand of ‘humour’ and right to ‘freedom of speech’ could/will? repeat itself.
It’s irrelevant whether she did it on twitter,twotter, two face or wherever. How could they continue employing a writer? journalist/ at the Age if she is building this kind of following elsewhere?
There was little choice.
However…., it would be interesting if she took a case for wrongful dismissal…
I would be interested in the outcome of that.
As for the ‘what she does in her own time…’ rationale, weeeellll…., perhaps. But how far do you stretch that one?
As long as a pedophile doesn’t touch the children in his care..??
(YES! Alight it isn’t anything like that. But the principle is the same).
You obviously want to be offended by something here Liz. I’ve gone to great lengths to make my point and you don’t seem to be interested.
Just answer this for me if you want to help; what evidence is there that Deveney has been sexually discriminated against? Is the fact that she is a woman and has been sacked proof?
“Deveny was … watching on TV like the rest of us”.
Wow! That’s lifted the level of this debate.
Also Liz, it is totally impossible to prove that something did not happen.
Being snarky in front of the telly is not exactly an uncommon activity. I tend to do it myself when Abbott or Hockey pop up to tell us yet another egregious porky. Almost anything on commercial TV also give me an uncontrollable urge to say something unpleasant.
Clearly though turning snark into tweets should have a warning: CONVERSION MAY DAMAGE YOUR EMPLOYMENT.
@ Elan
You’ve had a brain implosion, mate. The paedophile analogy is completely inappropriate - the principle is not the same at all.
“It’s irrelevant whether she did it on twitter,twotter, two face or wherever. How could they continue employing a writer? journalist/ at the Age if she is building this kind of following elsewhere?”
This remark shows a lack of understanding of how modern media works. The author of this article has a twitter feed and no-one would suggest that undermines Crikey.
Eponymous - Whatever!
Read the comment below, and if interested in researching the level of sexism, how and why it’s ingrained in our society, read Germaine Greer’s ‘Damned Whores and God’s Police’? If you’re part of the problem you won’t recognise it if you don’t want to!
FortnightlyReview.info
Posted Thursday, 6 May 2010 at 12:29 pm
“I agree with you that the sacking of Deveny when the Australian media is “rife with mysoginy” smacks of hyporcrisy. We posted a legal analysis of the Twitter phenomenon at http://www.fortnightlyreview.info”
Eponymous -“Also Liz, it is totally impossible to prove that something did not happen.”
I don’t agree! If I’m accused of committing a crime in Pitt St, Sydney, but there’s images of me on CCTV in Flinders St,Melbourne at that time, that is the proof? There could be telephone records that clearly show that I’m in another State. As it’s still impossible for a mere mortal to be in two places at once, there’s the “impossible” proof!People have been acquitted of serious offenses via this “impossible” method! Thank goodness you’re not a Judge! Are you?
“This remark shows a lack of understanding of how modern media works. The author of this article has a twitter feed and no-one would suggest that undermines Crikey.”
And this remark shows a lack of understanding of what I was saying.
I didn’t think it necessary to add that given Deveny’s attitude, there is a fair chance she will continue on her ‘humourous’ way,-but that that need not be the case in general sheesh..
No-one did suggest that having a Twitter feed could ‘undermine Crikey’.
Perhaps your ‘remark’might have been somewhat more accurate, if you had added ‘in my opinion’, after: “This remark…..”.
One lives in hope..
@ Liz Damned whores was written by Ann Summers.
Whilst I agree sexism was part of the equation here, you are failing completely to engage with Eponymous’ argument (which I don’t agree with either).
Elan, a twitter feed is used by many journalists with the approval of their employer. What makes you think Deveny’s case is different from the thousands of other journalists who use twitter? It builds her profile and most news organisations want journalists, especially of her type, to build their profile and drive traffic to their business.
Instead of getting snarky about it perhaps you should admit you were wrong.
Don’t be so damn stupid DS! We both know that you will simply counter anything I say.
I know it. You know it. So the rigmarole starts.
It has bugger all to do with this topic! Silly man. ‘Snarky’ FGS!!
I obviously don’t agree with your view. HELLO!!
She isindeed ‘building her profile’,-that’s for damn sure! And The Age ain’t keen on the ‘traffic’ she will generate.
That is their right. (And only the IC will decide if it isn’t).
How thoroughly stupid of you to suggest that I admit that I was wrong. Grow up man!
(Back later).
I’m sorry that I assumed you might be capable of rational argument, Elan.
Surely if The Age wanted to unload Catherine Deveny and used her tweeting as the lynch-pin to achieve this, the case for sexism falls a little flat. N’est Ce pas?
The woman was on QandA and, if possible, she was even less funny than in her writing.
It’s hard to hate a woman who loathes little Bindi Windy, and sees through the sanctified garbage that Anzac Day has become.
IMHO she should drop the charade that she is a comic, and concentrate on slaughtering sacred cows.
Thanks for keepin it real Venise.
EPONYMOUS:
Totally horrified to hear what happened to Deveny. She has clearly been set up by a lobby with vested interests, who probably do not like strong female role models.
I’m sorry that I assumed you might be capable of rational argument, Elan.
Not a problem DS; we both made the same mistake.
@ Elan
You’ve had a brain implosion, mate. The paedophile analogy is completely inappropriate - the principle is not the same at all.
Yes BB I suspected my analogy would be considered that way,-I did mention that. However I’ve checked my noggin, and all appears to be intact. I’ll stick with the analogy I used.
Deveny is a stupid itchb. She is no asset to the Age because she gets her kicks by being as witty as a leaky spittoon, “in her own time’. And she likes it.
So those dreadful people with no sense of humour at The Age kicked her out with only a few matches to keep her warm..
Not to worry. There’ll be another issue like this tomorrow and the next day, and we’ll have this conversation all over again.
What fun!
(Will Anderson is of course beyond reproach………)
Who woke up Freihans? S/he was obviously enjoying a long and restful nap. When they’ve rubbed the sleep from their eyes they’ll realise that about half the other 71 comments are about an anti-female conspiracy theory.
Obviously someone who tweets without with or satire about under age sex and death couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong?
@NOT PAUL KEATING
I agree wit, wif, whith…. oh, this spelling thing! eniway you know what I mean, I agree wiv you, this isn’t just a thought crime, it’s a speech crime, I can’t believe anyone would think she should have kept her job. What a mob of limp-wristed, leftie lunatics!!!
BOB THE BUILDER - “@ Liz Damned whores was written by Ann Summers.”
Yes, you’re right! My apologies - to Anne as well!
VENISE - Do we know that The Age wanted to get rid of her?
NOT PAUL KEATING - It’s been said, that ‘conspiracy theories’ are only thus, if they’re not true! Can you prove that sexism wasn’t involved?
Paraphrasing my previous objection Liz; what piece of information could prove that there was not sexual discrimination involved? Can you detail any information that would prove there was definitely not any shred of sexual discrimination?
The same logic can be used everywhere with equal value; can you prove that God DIDN’T make the world? No you can’t, so see, he MUST have.
Eponymous - Because the patriarchal society is entrenched in this country - if you haven’t recognised this before, you need to read more!
God making the world? Oh please, don’t bring religious dogma into this argument?
Okay, we obviously have different standards of logic.
I shan’t pursue this any further.
FREIHANS: Perhaps you don’t read previous comments? Because there is a strong suggestion that the Age wanted to unload the woman prior to her tweeting efforts. And that Deveny herself provided the lynch-pin for her dismissal.
If true all the cries of “I was robbed” and “Sexist pillaging” have been Furphys.
I am not bagging feminists, in fact I happen to be one. It’s just that I like men too much to be classified as an official feminist.
All I am seeking to do here is appeal to the commentariat to wait before weighing-in with the insults.
LIZ45: I am not being a traitor to the cause, but I felt, right from the beginning, there was a logical reason for her to get the sack.
Hi “Venise”,
I read the article and wasn’t interested in the comments. I already knew what to expect. Still, as you mentioned it, I took a look just now and can see that commentary is as rude as ever. Deveny’s tweets were harmless cheeps compared with some of you lot.
FREIHANS: I thought my comments were relatively tame-compared to the way I can get stirred up about religion.
Also, I made the point that I couldn’t get riled up about Deveny, or indeed anyone, who loathed Bindi Irwin.
I fail to understand why you replied to me if you merely wanted to shaft me.
Extraordinary!
LIZ: No, I admit that I don’t have the kind of proof which I probably should have had before saying this might have been the case. But I know a couple of scribes who have been moderately correct in the past who seem to believe that this was what had happened.
Also, it has a certain ring of accuracy, in that it isn’t easy for editors these days to fire people who genuinely dislike an employee, or dislike the work of an employee, without having a bona fide case against their wrong-doing.
This, IMHO, was what Catherine Deveny handed to the editor.
I don’t believe she was the victim of a sexist manoeuvre, in as much as she would have been given the job in the first place because she was good at stirring up public apathy. To me this smacks of a professional hit man/woman who strayed beyond the boundaries laid out for her/him.
As I already said I am partial to people who attack sacred cows. However, I didn’t like her writing and I said so.
Hoping this Friday night finds you warm, fit and well. I’m off to bed right now.
Lotsa luv
Venise.
PS: Para 5. Should read “it isn’t easy these days for an editor to fire an employee they don’t like, or whose work the public don’t like, without having a bona fide case against their wrong-doing.”
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something”
Not sure if Deveny has brushed up on her Plato recently, she certainly hasn’t brushed up on her history of the Anzacs ( without whom..) or how not to make sexual wisecracks about 11 year old girls or jokes about former colleagues dead wives? No one should wonder why she got the arse here!
VENISE - You may be right about her dismissal. I can recall male journalists committing bigger ‘mistakes’ and keeping their jobs - even if they lost a court case for defamation for example. Recently, the decision against Piers Ackerman brought about by Mandouh Habib was overturned, and now Habib will justly receive compensation for the alleged stand taken by this excuse for a journalist. Ackerman probably won’t even be sanctioned? There’s lots more occasions over the years! I recall the horrific front pages re Dr Haneef also, and there’s been many pretty grotty incidents. Like you I find Bindi a bit hard to take, but I blame her mother for not allowing her to live the life of a little girl - very sad! Even after her dad died, I thought all the media attention and her being so public was insensitive at best, and I believe she was exploited, but I’m not her mother, so? - she was only a little girl!
(I aggravated my back/arms/neck etc moving some furniture around doing my ‘thorough’ cleaning - doesn’t take much, as I fractured my coccyx yrs ago, and also had problems prior to that with the RSI! Feel better now that I’ve been ‘clicked’ back together again! (the hired help are never around when you need them are they???I wish!!!)My chiroprator is used to putting me back together - bless him!
I’ve now purchased some “Slide Guides” to put on the lounges - don’t know why I didn’t do it years ago? Now I just have to be careful putting them on? It would help if I was a decent height? 5’ 1/2” is just not ‘good’ enough! Most frustrating? I want to organise my ‘easy irrigation’ setup re my plants for the same reason - all involves ‘body work’? - Slow and steady is the secret here? Not conducive to a ‘I want to finish it now’ mindset?)
I’ve got to move around more frequently - sitting too long is hell when I stand up!
Ed: WTF are you bird-dogging me for? What gives? Does the machine now take one look at my name and arse me off?
It happened at First Dog yesterday. A whole comment wiped. And there was not a contentious word in the comment. Not unless the word ‘whale’ and the words ‘Kevin Rudd’ have suddenly become verboten.
Jes*us chr*ist WTF is fu*cking going on?
My opening comment was LIZ: You should get up from the computer every twenty minutes and take a few steps-not that I practice what I preach-ditto when watching television.
HELLO WORLD: Look at these infamous words.