Alan Jones is in a heap of strife for his tasteless and offensive attack on Julia Gillard. He’s suffering the same effects of social media that Rush Limbaugh encountered when he called a student advocate of access to contraceptives a “slut”. Limbaugh’s show has survived, but his leading advertisers are gone, and his power over the Republican Party (so extreme that anyone who criticised him was forced into a grovelling apology) has dissipated. It’s too early to say for sure, but Alan Jones may be in even more difficulty than Limbaugh. Unlike Limbaugh, whose audience and local advertisers are scattered across the US, Jones depends critically on 2GB and Sydney. That makes things simple – until Jones goes, any company that advertises on 2GB is effectively supporting him. Advertisers seem to be jumping ship fast, to the point where the station must be hurting pretty badly.
In both cases, the response to the comments might be seen as over the top, if it weren’t for the track record of getting away with such appalling stuff in the past. Leaving aside his consistent nastiness, of which the latest was just an extreme example, Jones should have lost his job for the cash-for-comment scandal and then again for his incitement of the Cronulla riots. He got away with both of those, but it looks like he might have run out of luck this time.
Of course, as a private citizen, Jones has the right to say hateful and offensive things. But we don’t have to listen to him, or contribute to his wealth by buying the products of his sponsors.
If you haven’t signed the petition yet, its here
John Quiggin 
If gone, and if gone for good, Jones has a bundle of money from his accumulated antics to comfort him in retirement. And as nature abhors a vacuum, his casual vacancy will likely be filled by another vacuous clone of his ilk. Change while normal is also comforting constant.
Jones is done. But people calling him a misogynist are equally misguided. The big loser is intelligent discourse.
Pr Q said:
Jones is toast and I for one won’t be mourning his passing. His incitement helped to turn a local demonstration against gangster thuggery in Cronulla into an all-in riot, with friends like that cultural conservatives don’t need enemies. And of course his commercial corruption of journalistic values gives a bad name to both commerce and journalism.
Still, it is kind of disturbing that it is always seems to be “Right”-wingers who are being run out of town by a Left-wing media-academia mob. I’m thinking Drew Fraser in AUS, Kanazawa in the UK and of course Watson in the US. The actual black list of ostracised conservatives is much longer than that, but who’s counting?
I am just wondering (in a tu quoque sort of way) whether Pr Q or any other Left-liberals are ready to perform similar house-cleaning for their side of politics. Or are they assuming that Left-wing hands are perfectly clean?
Its not as if there are no suitable Left-liberal candidates for a social media lynching. Not so long ago many Left-liberals were infinitely denouncing Howard and his supporters as a “racist” and “fascist” for policies (eg border protection) which are now generally recognised as being right and proper in difficult circumstances. They have gone quiet now, but perhaps they should be “spending more time with their families” rather than clogging up the airwaves.
Also, plenty of un-repentant communists, commie-symps and useful idiot “peace” campaigners from the Cold War days are still floating around the media-academia complex. Will they ever be called to account for their odious philosophy and despicable deeds? By any objective standard their ideological commitments were a million times worse than the lame and puerile offerings of Mr Jones.
Many of these people (no names, no pack-drill) are living directly off the public purse or have the benefit of public broadcasters giving oxygen to their toxic views. Yet they get a free pass from self-appointed guardians of public morality, such as the good Professor.
If boycotts and black lists are good for the Right-wing goose, then they are surely good for the Left-wing gander. We would not want people thinking that a certain kind of Leftist is very keen on hurling the first stone and yet turns a blind eye to comrades living it up in tax-payer funded glass houses.
Ward Churchill and Michael Bellesiles are obviously comparable cases that come to mind when you look at racist frauds like Fraser and Kanazawa.
The rest of your post seems to be based on the idea that your (or your mentor’s) support for the Vietnam War, McCarthyism, the nuclear arms race etc has been retrospectively validated by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Sorry, no dice.
Also, while I’ve tolerated this post, you’ve clearly violated my ban on riding racialist hobbyhorses with your selection of examples. Nothing further from you on this thread, please.
Much as finding myself agreeing with any points from the Strochiverse pains me, I have to agree with the idea of the moral mob as an instrument of not only censure, but censor. We all mostly like to hear but a limited range of views. Consideration that we may ever be in error a burden too big to bear. But wielding the moral mob is not limited to the right or the left.
I’m glad you added that bit John. Yes the comment by Alan Jones is worthy of a shaming and maybe even a consumer boycott but those calling for Alan Jones to be banned, by regulatory means, are being far more offensive. Free speech includes the freedom to say stupid and offensive things. And in these times it is well worth reinforcing the principle of free speech. So well done.
“…if it weren’t for the track record of getting away with such appalling stuff in the past.”
But of course the hate-mongers have ALWAYS got “away with such appalling stuff in the past.”
It is sad that this e-petition in the UK:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38523
Has only 2,917 signatures while ‘Chaff-Bag-Charlie’ gets tens of thousands.
It is also sad to think that, once Jones has been crushed (not putting money on that, by the way), it will be BAU for News Ltd who will be untouchable and laughing all the way to the bank with the advertising dollars falling their way.
As I pointed out in the “Monday” thread, it always pays to ask: ‘Where is News Ltd in this?’
As an aside, Murdoch’s Gold Coast monopoly has decided it will no longer provide any coverage of the mayor. None. No real explanation – just a general dummy spit from a Murdoch factotum. A kind of imperial decree against the elected mayor!
Anyway, if anyone wants to find factual, timely, honest, unbiased coverage of the GCCC meetings they can always still find it on SpringHillVoice!!
@TerjeP
Who’s called for regulation to ban Alan Jones?
@TerjeP
I’m not sure that I completely agree with you Terje.
Public broadcasting is a resource that everyone does not have a free right to use, at least at the broacasting end of things. In that way, it is unlike the internet or the writing and dissemination of some categories of written material. Given that it is a privilege to use the public broadcast system, not equally available to us all, some measure of regulation is justified. Similarly with some other broadcast media that not all have equal rights to broadcast from, for example, the so-called press.
Getting the balance right for the public good is the real question. In the short-term, working out how to equitably get rid of the Murdochs of this world, that is, in a way that does not do more harm than good, is probably one of the most important things that could be done for the public good.
“Not so long ago many Left-liberals were infinitely denouncing Howard and his supporters as a “racist” and “fascist” for policies (eg border protection) which are now generally recognised as being right and proper in difficult circumstances”
And this is total rubbish if it’s being used to justify a bollocking on the same basis as the one that Jones is receiving. He has said, and it is indelibly on the public record, that a man has died because of his shame at the actions of his daughter. You’re a fool to try the equivalence argument.
An interesting thing about McCarthyism is that McCarthy was far more right (that is correct) than his apologist opponents have ever being willing to admit. That said, the best and most effective way to have addressed the then hordes of reds under everyone’s beds was not his approach, but instead was to smoke them out and break their conspiratorial behaviour by exposing their relatively covert and not widely publicised views, beliefs and arguments to public debate.
@Patrickb
Yes. Howard was identified for what he was and still is by many, including his former leader.
But although his policies had some popularity, and have been adopted by the other ‘center right’ party, that is the Labor party, those who knew the policies were wrong have not lost that recognition.
Having signed various refuge treaties, if as a nation we know no longer wish to honour these agreements, then we ought to unsign them. Doing that would be far more honorable than creating some cynical and hypocritical maze for asylum seekers to navigate with the the intent of disenfranchising them from the rights we provided them with when we signed those agreements.
@TerjeP “…those calling for Alan Jones to be banned, by regulatory means, are being far more offensive.”
Fairly typical libertarian argument, as far as I know nobody has called for Jones to be outlawed. In fact, it is Jones who often calls for the Govt of the day to regulate against whatever witch hunt he is indulging in. But feel free to continue being offended.
I agree with Professor Garnaut’s comments on this. The ABC website says;
QUOTE:
“Speaking to the ABC’s Lateline, Professor Garnaut said Jones was a manifestation of the serious degeneration of Australian media and political culture.
“The degeneration’s associated with the crowding out of information and analysis by noise, by abuse, by thuggery,” he said.
“If we don’t correct this degeneration of our political culture, Australia’s got no hope of dealing with the serious problems in the period ahead.
“It’s much more difficult in the last few years to seriously analyse a serious issue like the ones we are talking about … without the thugs and headkickers … Alan Jones and their ilk.”
UNQUOTE.
@rog
It’s dangerous to make such sweeping claims. Perhaps there are people out there who think this, but certainly, as someone who would like to see Jones and his ilk removed from public space, I’ve never come across anyone who thinks this should occur through some sort of administrative, regulatory or legal means.
I began campaigning against Laws, Jones and a now dead broadcaster called John Pierce back in the late 1980s, but it never occurred to me that express state intervention was either ethically defensible or even feasible as a means of making the talk format less vacuous and stupid. Even at the time, my focus was entirely on seeking to prejudice the commercial viability of these shows.
Good on you, Fran. I’ve always had a natural aversion to Laws,…and all of his ilk.
Oh, and I see Garnaut is eloquently on the same page.
@Ikonoclast
Yes, Garnaut is spot on, once again. Perfect characterization of Jones and our future.
TerjeP,
Do you defend the right for someone to yell “Hijack” on an inflight aircraft, or “Fire” in a crowded theatre or stadium, or equally worse “fart” in a crowded elevator?
@Ikonoclast
Well said by the Prof, and good to provide his words here.
I would have no problem with a law that provided for certain individuals to be prohibited from receiving any remuneration for speaking on public radio. That is, a prohibition based on a persistent history of a certain sort of speech.
Of course, this is not an attack on free speech, as it wouldn’t stop them speaking on air. It would simply stop them from profiting directly from their antics. Likewise I have a prohibition on anyone profiting from involvement in reality TV, and a prohibition from such TV being counted as local content.
Maybe that’s the way to deal with the Ruperts of the world? Prohibit them from benefiting from any involvement in public broadcasting, or the ownership of mass circulation newspapers?
One interesting contrast.
The relative silence in relation to a recent yelling of “Fire” in a crowded theatre, that is, the film created for no other purpose than to insult Muslims and create a violent counter reaction around the world and especially in countries where the situation was already extremely volatile.
Many deaths resulted in that case. Thankfully, no deaths are likely to result from Jones’ calculated bile.
‘If we don’t correct this degeneration of our political culture, Australia’s got no hope of dealing with the serious problems in the period ahead.’
Then it looks like we’re stuffed, because I can’t see any sensible suggestions being made by anyone about how ‘we’ are to achieve this laudable turnaround.
A no-holds-barred inquiry by the Rudd Government of the decision-making processes that led up to Australia waging aggressive war, including related matters like the the Haneef affair and AWB bribes to a regime we were shortly to attack; exposure of the true nature of all these outcomes of our ‘political culture’ might have started to change values and attitudes. I wouldn’t have put a lot of money on it working, but it was worth a shot.
Instead, Rudd found cushy jobs for the likes of Alexander Downer and Peter Costello, just to demonstrate what our political culture really is. Forgive me for not being impressed by hand-waving from government supporters like Professor Garnaut.
Rudd was not wise with the largesse. Those he wasted it on simply said: “Thanks!” But did neither Rudd nor the Labor party any favours.
I don’t really understand the comments claiming that Jones is ‘toast’. Sure, he’s had to pretend to apologise and he’s lost some advertising revenue, but his listeners still love him and as long as they show up for his show, advertisers will have trouble staying away. His political influence was always overstated.
John points out that:
“Unlike Limbaugh, whose audience and local advertisers are scattered across the US, Jones depends critically on 2GB and Sydney.”
Why is this? Why does Sydney have a culture of radio “shock jocks” that the rest of the country happily fails to produce? Having listened to a fair bit of radio in Melbourne and with stints in Tassie and the NT, I don’t really understand why the shock jocks thrive in Sydney, and equally why they fail to thrive elsewhere? Am I mistaken?
I don’t see anyone calling for Jones to be banned from the airwaves over the recent remarks. Nevertheless, he should have been sent to gaol for his part in the Cronulla riots. That was a criminal act. He’s lucky that no one was killed after his shameless incitement.
It’s hilarious that the wingnut blogs are trying to disown Jones as an “agrarian socialist” for his self-interested stance on CSG, as if he’s not firmly enmeshed inside the Liberal Party machine as a traditional conservative. They can’t even blame a leftist media conspiracy, since it was a Telegraph journo who broke the story. This story is all bad for the right. There seem to be a fair few of those cropping up lately.
Some think he’s staying put …
http://m.thepowerindex.com.au/follow-the-power/unsackable-why-alan-jones-can-say-what-he-likes?utm_source=The+Power+Index&utm_campaign=4d682d5287-The_Power_Index_02_October_2012&utm_medium=email
@Ken_L
Yep, it was pretty dumb politically, and strategically, placing implacable enemies of Labor into positions of influence and real power.
As for A.J. He is a serial quasi-apologist, and that’s what we have to live with. Interesting that Mercedes-Benz was running advertising on his program though…makes you wonder what the Alan Jones demographic really is.
Great link. Truely I was going to write something like this “If Jones is exposed to a broader audience, he will get a reaction like this”.
It’s not Jones – it’s all the audience. They won’t change.
He undoubtedly will survive.
@Freelander
Unfortunately, I agree with the link you’ve provided on every point………….
Problem with Rudd, and his sad replacement, and far to much of the Labor caucus, and the Labor hierarchy, and the State versions, is that they are like the new clientele that the have tried to “position” Labor to cater to. That is they are “aspirational”. Rudd and the others aspire to the “big end of town”. Hence the jobs for the “big end” boys. But those “big end” boys just laughed. Aspirations unaccomplished.
Doesn’t it remind you of a teenage movie? Sad really.
“Of course, as a private citizen, Jones has the right to say hateful and offensive things. But we don’t have to listen to him, or contribute to his wealth by buying the products of his sponsors”.
I think Jones should be sacked from 2GB. This man feeds hatreds in the community and should not be accorded the support of a major radio broadcaster. I don’t favour sacking him as an act of government but I do support getting the management to sack him because he lost them advertising and degrades their business model. I hope, John, that is close to what you are saying.
Jones incites hatred, tribunal finds
@hc
Exactly what I’m saying. I’m happy to note that VW, the last of his big brand name sponsors AFAIK, has just pulled out. There’s now a list of the people whose ads aired today. I imagine they will have a fair bit of email to sort through. There must be some Jones loyalists who will hang on (eg Candelori’s) but those who care more about their business will be gone within 24 hours, I think.
Be interesting to see if the “power” journalists have some insight, or their claims just more evidence that the journalists’ contributions to human knowledge are asymptotically zip.
Did the crowd boo when Gough was so ill-mannered as to refer to Kerr’s cur? Did the crowd chant ‘manners, manners’?
When Gough was challenged by a voter for his view on abortion, hoping to catch him out, Whitlam replied that in the voter’s case he wished that abortion was retrospective. Everyone laughed and Gough got off the hook.
30 years ago, when public meetings in elections were raucous affairs rather than photo opportunities, being able to give as good as you get was a key political skill.
Public meetings were tests of a politician’s mantle and those that did not fight back were judged to be weak. Stand-up comics had easier initiations.
Wit has lost it place in public discourse. Jones was crass. There was no witty retort?
Robert Muldoon pinged the famous insult “New Zealanders who emigrate to Australia raise the IQs of both countries.”
Consider David Lange:
• Micheal Bassett was a member of parliament and a cousin on my father’s side of the family. My father delivered him and it became plain in later days that he must have dropped him.
• To US Ambassador H. Monroe Browne, who owned a racehorse called Lacka Reason: “You are the only ambassador in the world to race a horse named after your country’s foreign policy
I don’t need to say how deeply unpleasant Alan Jones is – what I ask is why the University Liberal Club wanted to hear him at all. Did he contribute to their understanding of Liberal philosophy? Or speak knowledgeably on some policy area? Is his idea of political debate the highest they aspire to? How seriously do they take the imperative, as putative young future leaders of our country, to engage in objective, rational, productive debate?
Alan Jones is feeling a little of his own heat and shows that he is really just a big, nasty sook who can dish it out but can’t take it. His apologies have been worth nothing and the PM was quite right to not have anything to do with him – after all he may have delivered his apology in a chaff bag.
Fran,
If you go to the Tribunal’s website and read the decision, you will see that the “minor” point was that they found Jones to be a religious bigot rather than an “ethno-religious” bigot.
Again, isn’t News Ltd loving the apparent downfall of their largest commercial rival in the “hate media” game? One at which they both excell and profit. And now appear to have a refreshed monopoly upon.
One for the great timing exercise of “free speech” files…
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSLNE88O00C20120925?irpc=932
Well. Everyone remains conveniently distracted while ‘ell bound in a hand-basket.
Rupert’s commandment…
Thou shalt put no false hate-speech gods before me!
That is a pathetic attempt to deflate Jones’ insult, Jim Rose.
All of your examples were delivered to those who could speak up for themselves. Jones waited till Gillard’s father could no longer respond to deliver his hatefull message. A message that insulted Gillard’s father’s memory, Gillard, the Labour party, and the nation at large. Despite what Jones and Abbott think and would like, the nation does not hate our Prime Minister. Many people may disagree with her policies, but hate does not come into it. And this is why so many companies have pulled their support for Jones’s poison pot show.
Remember the full insult was, according to Jones, that the father died of shame at the “lies told daily by his daughter and the political party that he loved”. Jones and Abbott have turned 2 reversals of intention by Gillard, reversals that Abbott himself has made in very much the same context and let me remind you all again here…read it in full before commenting further….
http://sgp1.paddington.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/political_transcripts/article_1761.asp?s=1
In which Tony Abbott “writes down” his pre-election “chiseled in stone” promise with
“……But obviously when circumstances change, governments do change their opinions, and that is actually the responsible course of action.”
Tony Abbott’s feigned outrage at Gillard is the height of hypocracy and Jones is his masters monkey grinding out the hate message to all those weak minds who will listen to it.
The fact is that Abbott cannot argue the issues of the day because he has got nothing to offer this nation, he is no great thinker, so the only way that he can get into power is through personal attack and thug tactics. So he set his own little minded Goebbels to the task to poison the minds of young Liberals off in a dark corner where he thought he could get away with it.
That is what is so affronting about this to all those not personally connected with the core insult.
This whole thing is getting out of hand.
The closest equivalent to Jones and his show that I can think of on the Labor/left side of politics is the late Bill Hartley and his odious Par Avion program on Melbourne community radio station 3CR. I am old enough to remember the way in which Labor people across the factional spectrum sought during the 1980s to marginalise his influence within the Labor Party and eventualy to expel him. I also remember that at the time of his expulsion, and immediately afterwards, the Communist Party of Australia was negotiating with various other players about forming a new left party, and the various precursors of the Greens were attempting to consolidate into a new political movement. Neither grouping talked to Hartley and his “Industrial Labor Party”. This should provide the benchmark against which the Liberal Party’s dealings with Jones should be judged.
@Megan
I’m OK with News Ltd having a complete monopoly in the areas of ignorance, stupidity, homophobia, misanthropy, misogyny, lying about science and scientists and any of the other major areas in which public commentary can be debauched.
I’d like to “shrink the pie” of course (to borrow and rework the Kelly O’Dwyer banality) but AFAIC News can have it all and make themselves sick on it.
@Roderick
I can’t help explain Sydney “shock jocks” (dirty old town!), but sadly the problem is not confined to there – Cairns has John Mackenzie’s Morning on 4CA, going for close to 30 years and specializing in fawning over LNP pollies, ranting against greenies, warmists and people who are nice to blacks, and featuring the wit and wisdom of Martin Tenni, an octogenarian former Joh minister who repeatedly accuses Labor of buying Aboriginal votes with how-to-vote cards wrapped around stubbies of XXXX. Many of the middle-aged blue-collar male demographic of FNQ love hearing their prejudices confirmed and the program is well supported by local advertisers.
The chaff bag jacket, Jones signing it, it’s apparent popularity amongst would-be future conservative leaders – was at least as disturbing to me.
Burning effigies, “hate you and hope you die” type comments and similar make me recoil; it’s an urging to join in a community of hate, a way to turn thinking people into an unthinking mob and it’s not unique to Jones or to the Right. But it is worse when it comes from someone who’s voice is amplified by their positions of media prominence and public trust.
Interesting article at The conversation today discussing JG’s silence re Alan Jones.
“If nothing else, the past weekend’s events suggest that Jones’ decline as a political force is now considered sufficiently terminal for the Prime Minister to take a principled stand against his foulness.
Where her predecessors may have thrown him a lifeline in the hope of building stronger relations — and therefore guaranteeing more favourable on-air treatment — Prime Minister Gillard has chosen to leave him adrift in the media storm his comments created.
Jones may not be a totally spent political force just yet, but if one of the most risk-averse and media-sensitive leaders Australia has ever seen is no longer scared of him, others aren’t likely to be for long, either.”
Freelander said “If gone, and if gone for good, Jones has a bundle of money from his accumulated antics to comfort him in retirement.”
I’m quite sure that Jones won’t be comforted by his wealth. It is his popularity and his power that sustains him and makes him ‘happy’. Without that ‘drug’, that reassures him of his ‘worth’, he will be an even more bitter and twisted old bastard, spending his life reviling those who did for him and truly believing that they/we are motivated by jealousy and resentment of his ‘success’.
REJ
“love hearing their prejudices confirmed ”
that is a very perceptive comment. It warrants some concideration.
and JT I find myself musing over
“bitter and twisted old bastard”
and chuckling, while I know that I will get there myself in the end.
…..but then I looked up there is joe Hockey…ahhhhhh!