Caveman Campo’s mis-step. It’s a question from sport’s dark ages: can women cover a game played by men? The answer, of course, is they can, despite dinosaurs such as David Campese continuing to believe otherwise. The Wallabies legend today lambasted The Sydney Morning Herald for getting a “girl” to write about the game they play in heaven.
In a since-deleted tweet to his 8,204 followers, Campo lamented the loss of 30-year union “jornio” [sic] Greg Growden before taking a swipe at an unnamed female colleague for having “no idea about the game” (we assume it was Georgina Robinson). Twitter user @AngelaCuming managed to take a screenshot of the tweet before the ex-winger erased it:
Plenty of users took umbrage with Campo’s knock-on, which he responded variously by saying he was “joking”, “just asking the question”, and that people need to “relax and see the light side of life”.
In Crikey’s opinion, some of the best journos in sport are women. Caroline Wilson has the best AFL sources in the business, while fellow Age guns Emma Quayle and Sam Lane regularly produce cracker footy yarns (Quayle’s draft coverage has been forensic). Kelli Underwood did a terrific job as the first female football TV commentator, and continues that work on radio.
ABC Grandstand also has some excellent broadcasters in Karen Tighe, Debbie Spillane and Simone Thurtell. Fairfax’s chief cricket writer Chloe Saltau is superb, Rebecca Wilson has a well-read rugby league column in the Daily Tele and Jacquelin Magnay was a star at the SMH before being poached to cover the London Olympics for the UK Daily Telegraph. And then there are the countless female hacks who cover all codes right from the grassroots to the professional leagues. We look forward to seeing Campo try and goose step out of this one. — Tom Cowie
Clarke and Dawe to stay at Aunty. The ABC says beloved comedians Clarke and Dawe will remain with the public broadcaster next year, TV Tonight‘s David Knox has reported. There’s still no word, however, on whether the duo will remain in the prime-time 7.30 slot or will be shunted to a less prominent location. Crikey revealed last week that 7.30 had approached Chaser comedian Chas Licciardello to host an alternate comedy segment next year, but the plan didn’t get off the ground. — Matthew Knott
The Age gets Photoshop happy. Did The Age go overboard in its manipulation of this photo of a Qantas flight attendant who has pleaded guilty to possessing methamphetamine? Here’s the real pic, courtesy of Margaret Gee’s Media Guide blog:
And here’s how The Age presented it on its homepage:
Janet Albrechtsen: licence to dream. Some old school columnists stick to writing about what’s happened in the actual world. Not The Australian‘s resident feminist baiter Janet Albrechtsen, who lets her imagination run wild in today’s piece…
Front page of the day. A former child star on Two and a Half Men has found God and now believes the show is “filth”, according to The New York Daily News.
Video of the day. Sky News host Paul Murray argues the fact at least 45 Australians commit suicide each week should be a national scandal.
This Christmas will somebody please buy Janet the Ayn Rand dress-up kit she so desperately wants.
Anyone doubting that ‘can women cover a game played by men?’ is still answered in the negative by many should have a look at #footyclassified on twitter and see what is thrown at Caroline Wilson there.
Janet’s joined the dreamworld of Andrew Bolt, where she can write things that she imagined should have happened as fact.
@IanJohnn01: If Janet wrote half as well as Ayn Rand, then the Australian might be worth reading. Ayn isn’t pretending that “Atlas Shrugged” is fact, merely an alternative world.
Couldn’t agree more on the brilliant analysis of the AFL draft by Emma Quayle and, yep, Caro has the best whisperers in the business. And Karen Tighe and Big Red Spillane are rippers. But sorry, Kelli Underwood’s work commentating TV made me wish for the return of shockers such as Don Scott, Peter McKenna and Dipper. Sam can occasionally produce the odd article worth perusing, but to include them in the same source of excellence as the other is drawing a very long bow.
One sincerely hopes that the ‘girl’ who replaced the much vaunted male ‘jornio’ has superior grammar, spelling and punctuation to C@mpese. If I had a red pencil handy I’d do the corrections for him.
It’s the second time Crikey has published that photo of Janet A in the past week: a risible cross between Lois Lane and one of the original Charlie’s Angels.