Former Fairfax contributor Clementine Ford blasts managers and editors
Controversial former Fairfax contributor Clementine Ford has attacked the publisher and said it is well and truly dead.
Ford revealed on Twitter she had resigned on Tuesday after being suspended for four weeks in September for calling the Prime Minister Scott Morrison a “fucking disgrace” on the social media network.
The then-Fairfax columnist’s September outburst came after Morrison posted a Twitter comment describing teachers counselling transgender children as ‘gender whisperers’ in response to a Daily Telegraph story.
I love Clementine. I’m a 68 year old codger with a wife and daughter and I’m so glad she exists and has had a platform. Her “Boys will be boys” talk was a thoughtful delight; those “men” who are scared of her must be an insecure, sorry lot.
Well said. Both Clementine and Hannah Gadsby contribute to the public discourse in meaningful ways. Of course they provoke and use exaggerated language and extreme honesty. It makes it easier to engage challenging topics.
Gadsby yes! Ford, no she’s toxic and full of hate. The policy seems clear enough.
No one is scared of her. People disagree with her opinion, and her actions. If you are saying that people who disagree with her opinion are an “insecure, sorry lot” then I think that is a pretty ridiculous, petty and short sighted thing to say.
Differences of opinion are what drive the discussion forward, confirmation bias and echo chambers of opinions (which is the vocal minority lately) are harmful to the overall integrity of society.
That’s fucking classic.
Love it
As far as I can tell she broke every one of those social media guidelines every single day.
And her columns were just endless screeds of hatred and fear.
The Age lost me as a subscriber due to her clickbait. It demeaned the organization and indicated they were more interested in clicks than serious journalism.
On this matter, Nine may have wanted to keep their newspaper audiences. As Greg Gardiner, ex FXJ GM said about the post 1987 Fairfax as the journalists ran riot over a 150 + year tradition of quality journalism, and the best GM FXJ had, …” everyday Fairfax throws excrement into the face of its core wealthy readers”.
And that’s why it’s also lost so much market share in circulation share against NEWS competition. If journalism doesn’t cater for a viable audience, its ceases to survive. I suppose it’s better to throw overboard a journalist than throw overboard Fairfax.
True. Now I’m forced to read The Australian because its the only serious newspaper left. But it’s full of right wing bullshit.
There’s that swearing again.
I read it too, but because it has weighty articles, and insn’t full of parochial trivia or click-bait like Fairfax or the HeraldSun.
Can’t say it’s particularly right-wing: more just ‘sensible’ really.
Too shouty, angry, and priggish in her own special, bigoted way.
Won’t be missed at all.
I like her too, and I don’t like Scott Morrision, but she shot herself in the foot by using an expletive in her tweet.
It’s basic common sense.
No media company is going to let their staff get away with abusing someone like that on Twitter, no matter who the recipient of the abuse is.
Besides, there’s no need for it. “Scott Morrison is a disgrace” would have been enough.
The ‘fucking disgrace’ comment was in a tweet Replying to Scott Morrison directly, which amps up the incident a bit.
Glad to see the back of her. It used to annoy me that on-line headlines would suggest one thing or not include her name as the writer and I’d find myself reading something altogether different to what I was expecting by someone I’d chosen to ignore.
Swearing crosses a line from criticism into abuse. It’s that simple. Can’t say I ever find her particularly insightful but it’s good to people who spark conversation, at least. This was just silly, and the brigade of “yass queen” people who respond so positively to what it’s (let’s admit it) toxic behaviour need to have a good, hard objective look at themselves and the public behaviour they promote.
Perfectly said.
People tend to forget in this day where the English language has been so terribly bastardised that there is still a certain way to say things.
Well, she’s right in her assessment of Scott Morrison.
When you’re angry a good swear word is absolutely appropriate, it’s the entire point of a swear word.
Maybe Fairfax needs to clutch at its pearls a little less?
Isn’t it odd, the various impressions we form. ‘Pearls’ and Fairfax: never in a million years!
Fairfax is instead the epitome of cognitive dissonance: seeing itself as the patron of the poor and downtrodden, SJW to all the marginalized; whilst featuring nauseating opulence in its magazine features, pitching 5-figure holiday destinations and imported handbags to the inner city academics and sinecured bureaucrats who are its remnant readership.
Poor Clem had just gone a little too downmarket.
So, if Andrew Bolt had sent the same tweet to Julia Gillard, you’d feel the same way, right?
She only ever wrote one column –
(i) A man did something wrong (said man could be actual or fictional). (ii) All men, due to their having genitalia in common with that man, are to blame for this behaviour.
I love engaging with people with whom I disagree, and on that basis, at one point read many of her columns. But her articles showed no logic, were devoid of analysis or insight, contained assertions that were demonstrably wrong were hypocritical, and (as outlined) made the vile sin of tarring all within a group with the actions of elements within it.
Clementine Ford is a very hateful person. Fairfax were in the right to reprimand her, one of the worst side effects of social media is that everyone has become so accustomed to being hateful and saying such negative things and expecting to get away with it.
This world is already full of enough hate, and it’s only getting worse every single day. Only when we stop the hate and try to understand both sides of an argument will we ever truly move forward as an equal and harmonious society, something which people like Clementine want nothing to do with. They only care about their own opinions and the self-satisfaction they get from spouting their hate on social media while watching the impact it has.
I have been sporadically quarrelling with Ms Ford online for nearly a decade.
Online sparring is one thing, but as her behaviour has become increasingly unhinged, I have become legitimately concerned [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
A remark she made once and then reiterated in a variation was “Kill all men”.
Even if we swapped ‘men’ for any other category or social group, this remark guarantees that she should not be taken seriously. Nor offered space in a forum.