Carlton resigns
Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton has resigned following demands that he must apologise for using anti-semitic comments when responding to readers criticising him for an article written in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Fairfax Media’s director of business media, Sean Alymer was interviewed on Sydney radio station 2UE this morning saying ”
“What got him in a lot of trouble is the way he responded to those readers. It’s not the article itself, it’s the way he treated readers.”
“We said we’d suspend him and he’s resigned on the spot,” Mr Alymer said.
“He was apologetic. He accepted he had gone too far. As more emails emerge we kind of figured we needed to suspend him. We need to put the readers first.
“It wasn’t one or two emails, It was several emails. You just can’t do that.”
In abusive emails and tweets to readers, Carlton called one a “Jewish bigot” and told several others to “f**k off”.
It wasn’t so much the F word, Ann, as it was the vitriolic anti-Semitic abuse, as well as deeply personal abuse, directed at readers of the column who had responded to it. As much as the article was unprofessional in its bias and manipulative in its emotiveness,poorly written in fact, it wasn’t in the end about the article. It’s not being ‘too precious’ to refuse to take abuse.
It’s more than his foul obnoxious and unprofessional language that brought him undone in the end.
In the first place it was his biased unbalanced reporting on the Middle East – something not expected of a reporter writing for a mainstream newspaper.
Secondly, it was his failure to recognise that his conduct and correspondence was unprofessional and not befitting a senior journalist.
I also criticise the Heralds management for failing to apologise for a blatantly obviously anti semantic cartoon for 10 days after this was drawn to their attention. It was so obviously inappropriate to publish this that I am surprised that it even needed to be brought to their attention.
No doubt the canard will erupt that Jews brought down Carlton because of his article on 26 July.
Truth is that he was tweeting back in April making these comments about people who crossed swords with him:
“Smug, complacent and irritating”
“Another gutless anonymous Tory tosser”
“Low rent f…wit”
“A nasty snivelling little twerp”
“ridiculous little pissant”
“sinister unctuous creep”
“Piss off”
http://www.news.com.au/national/mike-carlton-resigns-from-fairfax-media-after-intense-pressure-from-antisemitic-backlash/story-fncynjr2-1227014902423
The Herald’s apparent inaction to put out this smouldering fire came back to badly burn it.
Carlton became the architect of his own belated resignation from the Herald.
He no doubt will walk into another job.
He is a journalist who is entitled to express his views but not to denigrate and vilify those who choose to disagree with him.
Hopefully he will be suitably chastened and civil to his critics in the future.
OK Mike Carlton used the word f…k too much, but this comes under free speech. The readers complaining shouldn’t read his article or buy the paper. Simple. The are being too precious by far.
What employer would tolerate an employee that replies to customers emails with “F… off!” ?
It’s not about him swearing that’s the issue. It’s the outright anti-Semitic context that relates to him using these words. Outwardly targeting a group of people based on race or religion is not OK in any standards, even via free speech. Further more, when he is employed to report, it is not free speech in his own home, he becomes a representative of the paper.