Australia: TV comedy boss demoted over cruel program
Posted on June 11, 2009
I am glad someone has gotten the bullet over this horrible affair. How could any decent person laugh at terminally ill children and tell them that they “are going to die anyway?” The ABC (Australia’s major public broadcaster) is of course heavily Left-leaning and this episode was yet another example of the Leftist emotional insensitivity that I discussed recently. More background on the story here
The ABC has demoted its head of TV comedy, Amanda Duthie, over last week’s controversial Chaser skit about sick children, saying her failure to stop the segment going to air was an error of judgment. Before yesterday, Ms Duthie was one of the ABC’s most powerful executives – today her once dazzling career prospects are in limbo, The Australian reports.
ABC managing director Mark Scott announced Ms Duthie had been removed as the head of ABC TV comedy following the airing last week of the sketch on The Chaser’s War on Everything that satirised the granting of wishes to terminally ill children through the “Make-a-Realistic-Wish Foundation”.
ABC management’s decision followed a review of the processes that led to the screening of the segment, causing the program to be suspended from broadcast for two weeks.
“The segment should not have been broadcast,” Mr Scott said. “We recognise that it caused unnecessary and unreasonable hurt and offence to our viewers and the broader community and we have apologised for this.” Mr Scott said Ms Duthie should have referred the skit to the next level of management as was clearly set out in the ABC’s editorial policies. “Where staff are concerned about the potential for satirical material to cause harm they should refer the matter to the next level of management. “In this instance, (Ms Duthie) reviewed the segment and did not refer it up. This was an error of judgment.”
A spokesperson for the Chaser team last night responded to Ms Duthie’s demotion saying: “We are sorry we put the sketch forward and we think it is a harsh call on Amanda who had, and has, our full support”.
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
» Filed Under Moral Relativism, News, Psychology, Satire, Stupidity, liberalism
Trackback URL
Comments
One Response to “Australia: TV comedy boss demoted over cruel program”
Leave a Reply
I find it frustrating that the question at the start of this post (and the other article like it) is “How could any decent person laugh at terminally ill children?” Which is completely missing where the humour in the sketch was. The repeated use of this in the media skews the whole public perception of the sketch to be ‘laughing at dying kids.’ Which of course would have very small opposition. Watch the clip for yourself and name one joke where the punchline lands on a dying kid. The jokes are all about a low cost version of the charity. Anyone laughing at dying kids is completely misinterpreting the sketch. We shouldn’t censor satire for misinterpretation, and people should definately not lose their jobs over it.