Fairfax commentator Mike Carlton resigns after sending abusive messages to readers

Here mumbrella, here’s some correspondence between and individual and Carlton
http://blogs.news.com.au/heral.....ewish_mat/

His whole twitter feed, is you know, public!

Mike Carlton’s behaviour was disgusting, and to even think to discount that on lack of viewing readers’ responses is as low as Mike Carlton.

I think the SMH will come to regret this decision. A lot of people felt that Mike Carlton was a powerful voice for truth and that this decision is merely and excuse to silence him at the behest of a powerful lobby group.

Good riddance

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Darren Goodsir next?

Aside from Carlton’s inability to deal with fairly predictable reader responses, the interesting part of this is the activity at The Australian and elsewhere in News.
Amusingly, Andrew Bolt is going nuts because Abbott withdrew from the 18C game. Bolt of course asserts the right to say what he likes about Muslims and others. A right he has exercised vigorously of late – and one that should be reviewed in light of what he and Chris Mitchell have accused Carlton of.
Mitchell’s pursuit of anything to do with Fairfax is now ridiculous. His paper has no credibility on that or any issue where it has taken sides (a long list).
Sadly, Fairfax under Corbett is sunk too.

Right Alex, my mistake. Please accept my apology

Good riddance. About time.

So Mike Carlton said mean things to people. Boo hoo. If commentators were to lose their jobs for saying offensive things Bolt, Jones, Hadley, Price et al would all be fruit-picking now for Eric Abetz.

It should never be acceptable to abuse people in the public arena. It doesn’t matter if you’re a shock jock from the left, or a shock jock from the right.
It’s disappointing to see journalists supporting his behaviour. He’s a bully, he’s an anti-semite and he’s a scumbag, no different from Bolt or from Jones.

Richard, I am no fan of Mike Carlton but I the words pot and kettle came to mind when I read what you wrote!

Amanda, I’m not a journalist. I don’t have access to an enormously wide audience and I don’t use that platform to launch tirades against entire populations of countries and entire races of people.

I think you’re confusing the iron for a pot. But I’m glad you got to use that pithy saying, I’m sure you’ve been saving it up for ages.

Maybe I’ve got a tougher skin but a ‘fuck off’ from Mike Carlton is almost a badge of honour surely? What did people harassing him with personal insults expect…that he would see the error of his ways and adopt their specific world view? More worrying is why Sharri Markson is dibber dobbing on columnists from rival newspapers.

Glass houses etc.

@SpiderPig

He actually wasn’t silenced at the behest of any lobby group. He actually wasn’t silenced. And there was no lobby group. He was fired for writing abusive responses to reader feedback. The insinuation contained in the phrase ‘powerful lobby group’ gives me chills.

Mike Carlton’s article was courageous because it spoke truth to the power that has for too long silenced that truth. Carlton was one of our few journalists who upheld their profession with the dignity and integrity we readers expect. We are all truly sick of being fed propaganda. His resignation is a true reflection of the behind the scenes bullying by lobbies that profit from war the destructions of people’s lives. We hope despite his resignation his voice will find another forum as we all need to hear the truth about what is happening in Palestine and other occupied and invaded lands
Dr L. Haikal

Carlton tells readers to f-off on a daily basis. Whenever he puts up an article, he gets abused and fires back with abuse. Every single time for as long as I can remember.

And Fairfax does zip….until now.

Why is that?

@ Stevo… I reckon the last of SMH’s advertisers have threatened to pull out. That’s why.

I agree Stevo. He’s always responded that way…to everything and everybody. Not saying it’s the right approach, but I feel very uncomfortable with what’s happened on this and question why his superiors have all of a sudden started reading his email responses.

Only plus is that he’ll pop up elsewhere for certain. SMH not looking good in all this.

Ray Hadley says this kind of thing to his listeners on air.

No doubt JB, Fairfax will be finished within 12 months. Even re-branding as Pravda won’t help.

Hey Brian Mitchell, when did Bolt, for example, last tell someone to “f*ck off”?

Carlton can dish it out, but when challenged is unable to form reasoned arguments. Instead he resorts to abuse, like others of his ilk.

Yes, good riddance.

I thought the cartoon was rather clever. I had a good laugh and moved on.

It’s a shame that the Fairfax Group had this sort of problem to begin with. Standards of writing, argument and identification with the core SMH audience, so as to be able to support the costs of quality journalism, all went once the Fairfax family left, and the Charter of Editorial Independence was introduced. As the greatest Fairfax General Manager since “Rags” Henderson, Greg Gardiner, used to tell me “Every morning the SMH shovels shit into the face of its readers”. One can see the narrow focus where whole wealthy tracts of Sydney are not written to, and where the “Journal of Record” mantle has possibly passed to, of all things, The Daily Telegraph”. This latest saga ranks Fairfax with, and even below , Kyle Sandilands’s antics.

I’m so sick of this ‘lobby’ BS. I wrote critical tweets to Mike Carlton and I’m not a part of any lobby! The implication from Mike’s articles/tweets and some of the comments above is very much down the path of there being this card carrying group of Jews who have influence in high places. This is wrong! The readers that were offended by Carlton’s article, his tweets and the cartoon are not slavishly following some dictum from Israel. These are young, educated Jewish Australians who’ve been passed on stories of their grandparents’ survival of the holocaust and won’t lay down quietly when they see an article (and accompanying cartoon) that incites anti-semitism.

Irrespective of whether you support his views or not, the fact is that Mike Carlton appeals to a silent majority not prepared to be shepherded and herded by the idiot and proliferating shock jocks. Sadly the world is becoming overrun with brain dead dickheads looking to be offended. I’ll miss his witty and clever articles and I am smart enough to separate satire from shite. Its a shame his employers can’t.

Fairfax management have no idea how to run a radio station

its shame lobbys and pubic outcry was stronger over the thousands of slaughtered palestinians and many thousands more now in rubble with israels continued human rights violations rather than a single brave australian journo speaking the truth at risk of the most powerful lobbies financial and verbal attacks. the zionist lobby plays dirty and I can imagine the pressure he as under. I think he can be forgiven for some of his responses. this is a sad day for free speech and journalism in this country. He wasn’t being anti -semetic!

It’s great that he has gone.

For all the talk of journalistic courage and editorial independence, it’s pointless bleating if there’s no company sustaining the vehicle for all the bare chested eloquence. Fairfax shares are down roughly 75% over the past 10 years; there’s no greater measure as to the popularity of Carlton & his ilk. What is a company if not a collection of its assets, in this case its content creators.

Of course, traditional media companies need to re-assess their business models in this digital age lest they lapse into irrelevance as so many already have done. With Fairfax fighting for their very existence it’s critical that journos at least maintain a veil of civility with their customers i.e. readers. If that’s too hard to do on social media due to all the nutters, don’t go on social media. Reading Carlton’s tweets / re-tweets he clearly enjoys the combative exchanges. Old school commentators like Carlton can be as angry and as arrogant as they want – in private.

Again, the pro-Israel lobby have managed to make us feel that they’re the ones being victimised here while the atrocities continue…

I just wish people would stop confusing criticism of the current Israeli government and their actions with anti-semitism and hatred of jews.
They are quite different and separate things.
Just as criticising the Tony Abbott and the current Australian government is not the same as being anti-Australian.

@mikey syd

– in the same way that you’re not being ant -semetic [sic].

BTW what is “pubic outcry”? Is that when groins around the world unite against the the evils of Zionist groinicide?

SERIOUSLY though. Statements like “the zionist lobby plays dirty” are offensive and inflammatory. Statements like “you can’t spell very well” are at least true.

@Loubna Haikal: a one-eyed perspective if I’ve ever seen one. Bias and vitriol does not equate to truth (perhaps your version of the truth – but not the actual truth). And to use words like “dignity & integrity” to describe Carlton is laughable at best and downright ignorant & irresponsible at worst. These ignorant statements expose your bias – especially in light of the published reasons he was sacked. Have you even bothered to read the correspondence with the reader/s that’s been highlighted here? I assume not – otherwise, it would be impossible for you to reasonably defend Carlton in this instance. But I guess that an un-biased & reasonable perspective is not the way you’ve chosen to approach this.
And I couldn’t agree with you more – the truth bout what is happening in Gaza is fundamentally important. The only problem is that you’ve chosen to label your biassed perspective as “truth”. “Palestine” is not “occupied” land. Israel UNILATERALLY and UNCONDITIONALLY withdrew from Gaza in 2005, in an effort to bring about a lasting peace. Instead of a partner for peace, Israel got a war-mongering neighbour, intent on its destruction. What did the Palestinians do in return? Did they focus on building on the infrastructure that Israel left for them & working towards peaceful co-existence? No. Rather, they destroyed the infrastructure that was left by Israel. They voted in a terrorist organisation, that immediately went about spending their money on weapons & terror tunnels, instead of schools, hospitals & infrastructure for peace. Hamas’s own stated goal is the destruction of the state of Israel. Gaza is very far form “occupied” land – its elected representatives are the aggressor, determined to defeat peace at any cost – so long as it achieves the destruction of Israel.
You need to get some perspective, Loubna.

If only we had more journalists prepared to stand up to the corporate media hegemony

I’m a fan of MC, but let’s be clear: he wasn’t sacked because of his column. HE was sacked because he was rude/abusive/highly offensive to readers. SUrely he could have defended his position without swearing at and aggressively abusing his critics. Having said that: the Australian has publicised only Carlton’s responses to his critics, but not what he was responding to. Proper journalistic practice would be to show both sides of the story, but then the Aus have never been remotely balanced when it comes to reporting on Fairfax. Hysterical and Rabid, more like, [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation guidelines]

Memo Guardian Australia: Please give Mike Carlton a vehicle to continue commenting. Australia needs his sort of commentary to balance the rants of Bolt, Hadley, Jones and their like.

Meh – good riddance. The man is rude and boorish. And doesn’t know the rules of Twitter.

Political correctness gone mad.

Richard, my sister just read your reply and her exact words were “looks like someone needs a hug”. ((richard )) consider your self hugged.

To anyone claiming ‘the end of Fairfax’, let me just remind you that the SMH IS THE MOST-READ PUBLICATION IN THE COUNTRY, according to the EMMA metrics. They’re having no trouble attracting & keeping readers, so clearly they’re not doing too badly with their editorial choices.

I hope Mike Carlton gets his old job back at 2UE. Any respite from the blandest drivel ever broadcast (except Brandy and Gibbsy who are terrific) would be welcome.
He can go bak to mercilessly taking the piss out of Gloria

@13 Richard: No, she pegged you accurately. Have another look at what you wrote. You don’t get a free pass from labels because you’re not press and limited your attack to three people. PS: You’re posting “in the public arena”.

@Simon:

English is not everybody’s first language, and it isn’t an easy one to learn. Picking on a commenter’s spelling rather than the substance of their comment is juvenile and an absolute cop-out. As is calling them anti-Semitic for criticising the actions of a government. People can and *should* criticise a government if it does something wrong. I’ll bet you criticise the Australian government – along with the rest of us – when you disagree with something it does and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Israel doesn’t get a free pass. Anti-Semitism is a *real* issue, and using the term to repudiate thoughtful criticism of the Israeli government (regardless of whether you agree with it) just palliates the real descrimination that Jews all over the world are confronted with in many aspects of their lives.

There *is* a pro-Israel lobby in Australia. There are lobby groups for every cause imaginable; they’re are a natural biproduct of democratic society. How much the Israel lobby influenced Fairfax’s decision is probably never going to be clear, but they certainly seemed to have copped a considerable amount of pressure from certain groups like ECAJ and JBD.

@Phil

Hey Phil, you’re completely right. I was wrong to pick on another commentator’s spelling; it was indeed juvenile. It didn’t even cross my mind to think they may not be fluent in English, and I sometimes wrongly make associations between someone’s ability to spell and the coherence and validity of the argument they’re making. This isn’t fair, and I apologise to @mikey syd.

My accusations of anti-semitism stem primarily from the cartoon that appeared with Carlton’s column. While the scene depicted was clearly inspired by actual events, namingly Israelis sitting on a hill watching the shelling of Gaza, the cartoon showed a Jewish man, with a big hooked nose and a kippah, sitting on an armchair emblazed with the Star of David. This representation was not “thoughtful criticism of the Israeli government”. It was a stereotypical depiction of a Jewish man that recalled propaganda published in anti-semitic publications of the 30s and 40s, such as Der Sturmer. There was nothing in the cartoon to clearly communicate that the Star of David represented the Israeli Government and not Jews in general. This is why so many people got upset.

In terms of Carlton’s piece, the most inflammatory thing he wrote was probably: “Call it genocide, call it ethnic cleansing: the aim is to kill Arabs.” This isn’t true. The aim was/is not to kill Arabs. It’s to stop Hamas firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli citizens – Jews, Arabs, Christians etc. – and to neutralise clearly evident plans to invade Israel through tunnels for the purposes of murdering and kidnapping civilians. This is a legitimate reason to attack Hamas. And like any assault by an army on an insurgent group fighting from densely populated areas, civilian casualties will be high. In the 2003 -2011 Iraq war, around 5k coalition forces were killed; 25k insurgents; and a massive 113k civilians. The ratios are similar. It’s an unmitigated tragedy. But the coalition forces – including Australia – weren’t given the same level of scrutiny as Israel is given. Israel is held to a higher standard than the rest of the world, and I suppose Jews sometimes wonder why that is.

Nevertheless, NONE of this has much to do with why Carlton was sacked. He was sacked because he wrote abusive responses to reader feedback. This insinuation that the Israel lobby influenced the Fairfax decision is conjecture, and kind of moot. If a group feels insulted or offended by an article or column, they have every right to make their feelings known. And if they want to bring pressure to bear to get their point across, good on them.

People who point out spelling mistakes etc (that have nothing to do with discussion) to others in public forum, have usually nothing to say

Mike Carlton response to University of Sydney media and communications graduate Allie Pollak, “As a ‘communications graduate’ you really do need to discover the dangling participle. And do something about it.”

She was absolutely right in her comments that he should write something more constructive in regards to the middle east dispute, and he, like other bigots that have nothing to say but support one side of the story was left speechless and pointed on her mistakes in grammar…..

Carlton seemed to live under the delusion that he was a journalist when in fact he was hired to give an opinion just like those men he despised, Jones and Zemanek.

Carlton was so conflicted about his own identity his downfall was inevitable.

When did newspapers stop being about the news and instead stooped to paying people like Carlton to write personal opinions. Carlton’s opinion was no more valid than anyone else’s and even if the readers lapped up his moronic output, does that make it okay ?

Just another sad day for freedom of speech

@Simon:

Yeah I absolutely agree that the cartoon was anti-Semitic, and the Tweets that I’ve seen from him were pretty awful as well. I don’t feel the same way about the actual column he wrote, and had he just published that and left it alone then the outcome would probably have been very different for him.

I also agree that lobby groups have every right to lobby for their cause, but quite often the results aren’t right. Writers should be allowed to publish their opinion without threats of boycotts and divestments, etcetera. But – as you point out – it’s the abusive responses that bit him and, indeed, if Carlton doesn’t respond appropriately to criticism, if he can’t distinguish between thoughtful responses and hate-mail, then Fairfax probably did the right thing IMO.

What happened to democracy and freedom of speech? Mike Carlton did not get offside with management because he told someone to “F…… off”, he does that every day and so do many other reputable broadcasters. Mike Carlton spoke the truth about the Israel’s actions and their hypocritical views of terrorism. We as the people need to know the truth and what really happens in a war of this scale. Apartheid is long dead and hopefully it remains dead, its unfortunate that we only have one real and truthful media source in the form of Al-Jazeera and now Mike Carlton.

What Jewish controlling media needs to understand is that the majority of people are not ignorant of their actions nor are they immune to their propaganda and long term motives. The tirade on Mike Carlton is nothing more than a continuation of their agenda to destroy anyone who speaks the truth or dares to attack the Jews period. They are the chosen race and as far as they are concerned we need to understand and conform.

People like Mike Carlton, Mel Gibson and Cristiano Ronaldo have one thing in common they spoke the truth and expressed their views against the actions of a race and for that they will “pay the price”.

umm @Michael Trad’s comments are racist and antisemitic, with no foundation to their claims
“What Jewish controlling media”
“views against the actions of a race”

A race?! Charming. Where have we heard this kind of sentiment before…

I request that his comment be taken down

@Michael Trad:

What is this “Jewish controlling media” that you speak of? Australia’s largest media company is Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited, which has the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and the Australian as its main newspaper mastheads, along with many online divisions like news.com.au and its NewsLifeMedia magazine business which has brands like Vogue.

Is Rupert Murdoch Jewish? Perhaps you should check your facts.

Even if reports say that Rupert’s maternal great grandmother was Jewish, so what? He still doesn’t in any shape or form practice or resonate as a Jew. He certainly doesnt relate to any minority other than the 1%
Read that http://www.theguardian.com/com.....ws-twitter

Whatever conspiracy you have, you still sound like a racist and you don’t know how to put an argument together

That previous comment of Michael trad should still come down. It’s offensive

@Michael Trad
“Jewish controlling media”
Classic anti-semitic trope. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....rs_of_Zion
If the media is indeed controlled by the Jews, they’re doing a pretty bad job of it!

Mumbrella, you’ve just published to fake/spam comments (above).

As you should know, these are posted (sometimes by robots) to test whether an moderation process is in place.

From all things, good will come. Birmingham’s contribution to all things SMH are most welcome. He’s very clever, indeed much more subtle than MC.

The over-playing of his hand by Mike Carlton, who had a foolhardy compulsion of going too hard too often at all the usual right wing targets, has been well compensated by the stepping up of John Birmingham who still gives it to the same rightist ratbags. To use a boxing analogy … Carlton couldn’t help but always go for the knockout punch, much like his blustering dial-a-quote buddy Peter Fitzsimons, But Birmingham merely keeps jabbing away with style and wit, putting up a much better showing throughout. @Christopher Derrick …you’re right – hail the new champ!