I often say, “Never apologise — it only encourages the bastards”. I’m only half-serious, of course. There are times when you absolutely should apologise, but only if you mean it. If you don’t think you should be sorry, then say so. There’s nothing worse than the sort of sulky pretend-apology toddlers and teenagers are notorious for — even more so when it comes from the sullen mouth of a high-profile public figure.
ABC chair Ita Buttrose has written to the Australian Monarchist League apologising to those who were disappointed by the national broadcaster’s coverage of King Charles III’s coronation in May.
Except that she hasn’t really apologised at all.
“I do acknowledge that there are members of our audience who had sought to watch the ABC to view and focus on the live feed of the arrivals and were subsequently disappointed,” Buttrose wrote.
“That appears to be the view of your organisation and those who are signatories to your petition. I am sorry they were disappointed with our coverage.”
That’s not an apology, it’s an insult. Made all the more egregious because she doesn’t even have the guts to say what she means. Buttrose is sulking and pouting like a two-year-old who’s been caught out but won’t admit it.
The ABC faced widespread backlash over the coverage that featured a 45-minute segment, focusing on how the monarchy has impacted Indigenous Australians since colonisation […]
The segment featuring Stan Grant, Indigenous writer and lawyer Teela Reid and Australian Republican movement chair Craig Foster plus Liberal MP and monarchist Julian Leeser was part of eight hours of coverage on the May 6 coronation led by Julia Baird and Jeremy Fernandez.
So, the standard ABC “balance” of three rabid lefists and one wet conservative.
The league had previously made several demands of the ABC and Buttrose following the coronation coverage calling for an independent inquiry into the coverage and for the staff members involved in the segment to be disciplined.
As if. This is the taxpayer-funded ABC collective we’re talking about, here.
The Australian Monarchist League are well aware of it.
The league launched a petition calling for the ABC’s board to “apologise for its biased coverage of the coronation of King Charles III” […] national chair Philip Benwell said his group remained disappointed with ABC’s response.
“It wasn’t really an apology,” Benwell told this masthead on Sunday night.
“The ABC had to say something because you don’t ignore 10,000 people who protest a program and there would be many, many more people out there that were disgusted that the ABC put that program not just pushing a Republic but denigrating the King, the monarchy and Britain in general whilst they were wanting to watch what was happening in London, in a historic event that most had never ever seen before, because it’s 70 years since the last coronation.”
AML campaign chair Eric Abetz said at the time, “Knowing there would be a huge audience for the coronation it appears the occasion was deliberately used to pursue an agenda to denigrate the constitutional monarchy which has served Australia so exceptionally well for well over a century”.
For their part, the ABC are putting on their usual show of bewilderment as to why conservatives are reluctant to be used as whipping boys for the collective.
Buttrose noted in her letter that “the ABC approached a range of conservative voices who were invited to appear on the coverage to contribute their perspectives, but they declined.”
Well, would you volunteer to go into the monkey cage and have poo flung at you for hours, non-stop?
But in a response on July 17, the league said it was not among those approached.
“One wonders in those circumstances how genuine and serious the ABC was in its search,” the league wrote.
The Age
I’m sure they searched high and low all the way from Ultimo to Pyrmont*.
*(For NZ readers, substitute “from Grey Lynn to Eden Terrace”).
