A slightly bizarre thing happened yesterday afternoon on ABC local radio. I was doing keynote speakers segment when the subject turned to the vexed issue of Legislative Assembly Timesheets.
Former Deputy Chief Minister Ted Quinlan, not known for being a huge fan of RiotACT and its works, was gracious enough to acknowledge that he’d only had the benefit of reading the Mcleod report thanks to us posting it.
This prompted someone to contact the station, and the producer to flash it to the presenter Genevieve Jacobs who then read it out on air, that Ted Quinlan was in danger for even having cast his eye upon RiotACT, because we are just a blog and a feral one at that engaged in feral attacks.
I wish I had the exact words.
I played it with a reasonably straight, if condescending, bat at the time. But given the benefit of the internet ,when it comes to giving considered responses, here’s what I wish I’d said.
Now let’s leave aside the use of the word feral to apply to other human beings with all its overtones of racism and xenophobia.
Due to being the only outlet that actually let our readers see the full text of the report being discussed, to the point where a party grandee only saw it thanks to performing that service we’re being multiply abused as feral on the ABC?
Not the Speaker’s office, not the Canberra Liberals, not the Canberra Times, nor the ABC.
Rather than selective reporting (or misreporting as seemed to be the case in one significant instance) we provided the full story in the words of the former Commonwealth Ombudsman who wrote them.
And we that gets us slagged as feral?
Well go right ahead, call me feral. On that standard I’ll wear it any time.