Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston is like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When he’s good — skewering the pretensions of an Australian bizoid — he’s very, very good. But when he’s bad — vindictive bordering on plain nasty — he’s horrid.
And this week, in a “dreams do come true” Christmas present for half of corporate Australia, he’s in the witness box at the Federal Court in Sydney, copping a flogging. As more than 200 people logged into the live feed of the case, a happy feeling of schadenfreude settled over the city. Joe was finally getting his comeuppance.
Dr Elaine Stead, former head of venture capital at fund manager Blue Sky Alternative Investments, is suing the AFR and Aston for defamation over a series of columns between February and October 2019, plus a tweet sent by Aston in October that year.
Yesterday, Stead’s counsel Sue Chrysanthou SC was holding the rubber hose, questioning him about his description of Stead as a “venture capital pyromaniac” and a “feminist cretin”.
Aston, top dog at the AFR, possessor of the largest expense account in Australian journalism and someone who possibly hasn’t caught on that “cretin” is ableist, was asked what sort of columnist he was.
“Not a very popular one,” he laughed. “What kind of columnist am I? I’m lost.”
The counsel asked, did he sometimes use “shocking language”?
“Shocking is, I think, harsh,” he said. “Colourful.”
“Do you think that you’re fearless?”
“Yes.”
“You need to push boundaries to sell papers?”
“No, that’s not an imperative of mine, no.”
Aston agreed that he sometimes targets individuals, often over months or years, and that he occasionally goes out of his way “to take people down, using the Rear Window column”.
Mockery was part of his arsenal, he agreed. He had at one point referred to Stead as “Brick Tamland”, the dimwitted “gaping moron” from the Anchorman series. Aston said he was not intending to insult Stead.
“I did that to be amusing,” Aston said.
One of the problems for Aston is that Stead now works for M.H. Carnegie & Co, the investment house of Mark Carnegie. The venture capitalist has been calling out the poor treatment of women in corporate Australia for some time, penning a column in The Sydney Morning Herald last year entitled “The witch hunt against women in corporate Australia must be stopped”.
In his characteristically blunt fashion, he asked, “Why is it that women struggle to get more than 5% of chairman positions at major Australian companies, but are asked to consume a much higher proportion of the shit sandwiches handed out for corporate governance missteps?”
Regarding Stead, Carnegie wrote, “the one investment we made together went to hell, through no fault of Elaine. Yet throughout that sorry tale she was nothing but a star.
“I’m planning to hire Elaine to help me with a series of investments where I’m convinced she will do as good a job as a top decile man …
“We are cowards when we don’t stand up and speak the truth about this. We need more courage and the lynch mob targeting women at the highest levels of business in this country needs to be stopped.”
If Stead wins the case, many of Aston’s previous targets could follow suit, proving the adage that revenge is a dish best served cold. In which case the LA-residing Aston — whose Instagram reveals a never-ending series of trips on James Packer’s boat, stays at the Chateau Marmont and the view from 1A on Qantas’ flights to the US — may come to an abrupt halt.
Deep down, I have a sneaking admiration for people like Aston. The most important quality of all journalists and gossip columnists in particular is not wanting or needing to be liked.
In a world of fame-seeking “influencers”, there are few old-fashioned journos who still write like Aston; without fear or favour. As famed Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper said: “Two of the cruellest, most primitive punishments our town deals out to those who fall from favour are the empty mailbox and the silent telephone.”
Hard to conjure up a more supreme encapsulation of the chickensh*t state of the Australian investment management ecology, the allegedly ‘grown up’ financial journalism that’s supposed to cover it, and Oz capitalism in general. Here we are in the middle of a once-in-a-century grand economic pivot zone – we could crash into poor white trash of Asia branch office servitude, or we could step up a multitude of heavy lifting quantums in the global economic great adventure – and apparently the most riveting ‘main game’ in the world of Aussie big bucks is a fourth-rate expatriate pretty boy’s tyre-kicking bitchery directed at an obscure not-especially-noteworthy ticket clipper working the Ponzier end of the VC pump-n-dump beat. All playing out in tacky defo court, drenched in gender politics and cynical self-interest from already-too-well-remunerated-for-their-zero-value-adding born-to-hustle private school oiks, to the condescending commentary-drone of some faux #metoo mansplainer.
Welcome to Australia Capitalism, circa late 2020. Seriously, don’t be seduced by this cr*p, folks. It’s sandpit tanties and nappy-soiling.
And with genuine exasperation…no, Margo: Joe Aston is ‘not’ a journalist to admire. Have some goddamned vocational self-respect, please. You’ve hard-earned as much. Right? The guy’s frankly a bit of a tool, but more pertinently: he’s just another fast-talking, vinyl-shiny impostor, in a profoundly threatened journalistic age now drowning in them.
Jack, I do wish that you would not hold back.
Come on, let it all hang out and tell us what you really think of this terminal society, its remora and the discarded by-products, aka its citizenry.
A blurting diatribe, much of which had nothing to do with the article. Explosive even. Furious typing followed by a conflagration of skin, bone, and typewriter keys. I have no idea what you are talking about, but was provided with much entertainment.
‘Furious’…ah, no. ‘Disdainful, exasperated, bemused, dismissive…bored’…sure.
As to not knowing what I’m talking about, it’s not my fault if you’re a bit thick.
Thank you, Jack. I wonder how sexist Joe Aston would react to the statement that female passenger airline pilots are highly respected professionals when considering their huge responsibility index?
A number of these barely recognized women are our world’s most exemplary commercial airline pilots. Fact.
Never having heard of anyone in this piece I nonetheless found it an interesting read.
I ponder how one writes gossip about this country bizoids from LA.
You are not the only person who has asked that question…
Aston writes ‘without fear or favour’….?
Apparently, not on James Packer – about whom there is a plethora of material. But Aston never touches that particular treasure trove. Fear or favour…
‘…not on James Packer…’
Exactly. ‘Fearless’ my ass. Just another strategic meeja bum licker.
Like a wise person once said “never bite the hand that feeds”, this is the problem with having such a small media fish pond…
Without fear or favour is good. But it’s best to attack people more powerful than yourself, not less so.
Not sure if Elaine Stead counts as part of the downtrodden though.
i don’t know the people mentioned here. I was just commenting on Margot’s att5itude.
You really think Joe Aston is copping a flogging?
Wishful thinking, and quoting Stead’s current employer’s praise of Stead won’t change that. The truth is that Sue Chrysanthou hasn’t laid a glove on Aston.