SBS ‘acutely aware of the sensitivities’ around parody mocking redundant News Corp journos

Trying to find the tiniest shit to give that News corp is offended by something. Still trying.

Ummm… Do people lack the comedic literacy to see the humour is aimed at the biased editorial policy of the newspaper and practically makes a point of not mocking the journalists? Faux outrage.

Not a big fan of dancing on graves.

This is really disappointing conduct from SBS. I expected better from that organisation. Yes, it has been criticised by some elements of NewsCorp, but that doesn’t mean they should gleefully stoop to its level. There are plenty of good journalists facing the chop now. They’re “acutely aware of the sensitivities”? Then why publish this at all? What a blunder. How does writing a crap comedy piece contribute to multiculturalism? Whoever approved this is either not across their brief or just doesn’t care. Either way, that’s awful. I’m surprised that their top boss hasn’t stepped in. Australia’s ethnic communities are chronically underreported and money is going to this dross.

The journalists from competitor outlets on social media expressing solidarity with the axed News Corp journos could never expect the same in return. News jumps up and down with glee at every Fairfax misfortune and they let their readers know it.

Wow. Just wow. SBS is so out of touch if this is what passes for humour. Who gave this the green tick? Wasn’t it only a few months ago that SBS cut some journalist jobs? Short memories, guys. Hope they move quickly to address this. In the meantime, their credibility and leadership has taken a hit in my eyes.

Well done SBS. You managed to get on the wrong side of all the journalists in Australia. Just after upfronts, too. Slow clap. If you had a skerric of editorial insight you’d know that this subject is taboo. Worrying that SBS management don’t remember Tina Aldis. No, saying “it’s satire” doesn’t get you off the hook. Keep digging up, B Team.

And herein lies the central problem with Newscorp. The fact that there are many great journos doing much great work is completely tainted and ruined by the political and sensational stance of the mastheads – and that position is eminently piss-takable.

Oh get f–ked!

This coming from a section of the journalistic community who treat the general public like cretins with biased and inflammatory stories on issues that are of serious social, economic and political concern? Righto.

Sure, no-one deserves to lose their job, but that shouldn’t cancel out the opportunity to serve up a bit of dark satire to a group of people who have dished out far more damaging words.

Cool, so just slapping “it’s satire” on a piece is a get out of jail free card? Let me try!

SBS MANAGEMENT SHOCKED, CONFUSED THAT SBS COMEDY NOT WIDELY ACCEPTED AS FUNNY

Senior leaders at SBS have been left in a state of bewilderment after a satirical piece mocking the job losses in the media industry was not uniformly received with tears of laughter.

The joke article, with no byline but probably written by somebody who waits tables in Newtown, and published on a taxpayer funded website that receives less traffic than your niece’s Tumblr, poked fun at journalists losing their jobs 31 days before Christmas.

“It’s clearly satire,” said an SBS spokesperson. “You can tell by size 8 font words that say so at the bottom of the article.”

When pressed if the satire was actually funny or appropriate, or people actually read to the bottom before abandoning the wannabe Onion tribute page, the SBS spokesperson shrugged and mumbled something about not being able to cater for all tastes.

SBS added that it was also “acutely aware of the sensitivities” around publishing such a parody article, but decided it was going to do it anyway.

“Look, it’s no farting Struggle Street promo,” said the SBS spokesperson.

“But we’ve learned our lessons from that. You just say that you were aware of the sensitivities after you’ve punched someone when they’re down.

“If there’s a big enough backlash, *then* you apologise. We think our audience really respects this kind of behaviour.”

I don’t seem to recall a lot of sympathy from News Corp’s journalists for SBS journo Scott McIntyre when he was sacked for his ill thought out tweets on ANZAC day. Instead I recall an awful lot of grave dancing from them.

News Corp and it’s employees are well known for their glass jaws. Seems its a prerequisite for getting a job there. Hopefully these won’t be the last redundancies. Eventually Murdoch will be forced to close down this loss making business by his shareholders. That day can’t come soon enough.

Na na na naa, na na na naa, Hey Hey Hey Goodbye.
Na na na naa, na na na naa, Hey Hey Hey Goodbye.

With the way News Corp operate, it’s always good to see it thrown back in their face once in a while.

Aaah, the blind double standards never cease to amaze. Majority of News Corp journos spend their working lives arrogantly calling for others to lose their jobs.

Yet another example of why taxpayers should not fund a service that is already adequately supplied by the private sector…

I find it a bit weird that the Government owns media operations – a little like living in Vietnam or China really.

Ian – Not sure what your logic was there… fighting middling satire with even less funny satire? Don’t quit your day job, mate.

Its true and its funny. Nothing nasty or ‘wow’ about it.

“Click here for 21 reasons that any good journalist wouldn’t be caught dead at News Corp in 2015 – number 17 will SHOCK you”.

“Please pay $4.95 a week to read this article”.

Yes because ‘they did it first’ is always the best defense for poor taste. That’s not leading by example. That’s just following. Sad that SBS feels it has to do this.

it is true and it is funny

good on you SBS

Is this satire ?I’ve seen better under graduate crap. Perhaps they may lose their job for not being satirical enough. No one losing their job anywhere is a laughing matter or fodder for satire. It is about the editorial executive not the grunts on the ground that should be targeted.

Backburner has always been distasteful (not as much as the Daily Telegraph, of course). I often read it and think, that’s in really bad taste, but it’s funny. That’s the thing with edgy comedy, it pricks the conscience and coshes the pricks. Not that the tele journos are necessarily the bad guys, they just work(ed) for an organisation that used its market power to run a campaign against SBS and the ABC in an attempt to increase its market share, with the result a lot of people lost their jobs in those organisations. Just because they did it without any humour (including the excruciatingly unfunny front page puns) doesn’t give them the high ground.

Congratulations SBS!

Lets be honest, Newscorp is not the bastion of independent journalism – have a look at title pages of the telegraph prior to the election where Abbot one. That election was about one thing, putting someone into power that would completely bend over backward to Rupurt Murdoch.

A journalist working for the Murdoch empire is hamstrung, there is no about about this. Thus what SBS has stated is the complete and utter truth.

Wow. How many people have News called to be sacked in their papers, then gloated about it, now they get angry?

Dear SBS – it’s time for you to go back where you came from… The past.

Another Turnbull intervention on free speech in the wind?

This is pretty damn hilarious – not just SBS’s bit, but the reaction from a bunch of sooks who are so personally wounded by something that is absolutely accurate.

If you’re a journalist who has lost your job, and this has upset you, I think you need to revaluate your career choices. Toughen up.

I love a good laugh, SBS.
But your satirical article on News Corp journos losing their jobs didn’t do it for me.
You might try getting your writers to brush up on their skills.
Good try, though.
Oh, and a by-line is always a good idea. Anonymity implies the author is a little ashamed of their words.
Don’t you think?

Elizabeth Fortescue
Visual arts writer
Daily Telegraph

Do they even understand the concept of a satire at NewsCorp?

Nothing like waiting for the axe to fall right before Christmas, and having the SBS mock you for it. These redundancies don’t hurt the corporation, they hurt the coffee-swilling, free overtime-working, pen-stained, stressed-out rounds people behind stories that wouldn’t otherwise be told in Australia. It hurts the media industry to lose these people, and their experience, and to mock them is vile.

I enjoy reading the BackBurner every day, seems to be the only news that speaks the truth in Australia, even if it’s cloaked in satire.

I think anyone who works for Rupert deserves to be shamed.

@Ian’s comment is much better than the original article. SBS has made a gutless anonymous attack but that’s not their real crime. Their real crime as “satirists” is the fact that they can’t write and aren’t funny.

@Jay. If there were any sub-editors left, you might have used one on your post.

I wish News Ltd had a disclaimer that their reporting wasnt actual news and should not be taken seriously

I highly doubt the journos on the front-line at any media organisation have much say about what stories they are asked to research & write from conference each day. It’s those higher up in all media organisations who call the shots & I bet they are not part of the 55 people going into Xmas without a job. Can anyone name a News Limited journo who has been responsible for the anti SBS and ABC yarns that is among the 55 who have lost their jobs? It’s just about respect people. We may all not appreciate the tone of News Limited’s papers – so don’t read them. Just show some respect for people.

Playground bullies are always quick to pick on everyone else, but when the tables are turned they can’t take it.

Some sympathy for the journos involved (I bet it’s not Blot, Kenny or Devine getting the chop) but no sympathy for News.

“These redundancies don’t hurt the corporation, they hurt the… stressed-out rounds people behind stories that wouldn’t otherwise be told in Australia.”

Like stories about how programs designed to address gay bullying in schools are actually indoctrinating children? Or how immigrants will destroy us all? Or some made-up nonsense about Clover Moore and bike lanes? It seems the only stories that are worth being told are being told in the Fairfax press – political/union/corporate corruption is just one that comes to mind.

The idea of a mainly taxpayer-funded organisation mocking a private enterprise competitor should be distasteful and mocked itself.
And yet, the snobby, out-of-touch left that frequent here can’t detect even a hint of irony in their own ignorance.

Why not just shut down all private media, and have ABC and SBS only?
A grand, green Utopia awaits us all!

Idiots.

Jeremy, BackBurner speaks your version of truth, not THE truth.
Please don’t confuse them in future.

You haven’t lived life as a real journo unless you have been retrenched.

It’s encouraging to see the Daily Telegraph has a Visual Arts section left. Don’t they usually go first?

Am I the only one who noticed the glass jaw here?

Newscorp has spent the last 30 years trying to get everyone at the ABC and SBS sacked, not to mention Fairfax. Dish it out but can’t take it?

It would be better if everyone could play nice but its a bit rich for News to play the victim.

Newscorpse “journos” have been responsible for some of the lowest, meanest, nastiest, fabricated trolling of Australia for decades.
So karma.
Karma can be a bitch.
Schadenfreude ……

You can dish it out, but nup, yer can’t take it.

Has A-Bolts head actually for real exploded yet. Surely this will send him right over the edge I to another inter-galactic dimension of spittle and hate????

@I wonder… I agree that dancing on graves is poor form, yet i find it interesting that all too often journos scream foul when their privacy is invaded, when half truths are written about them, or when, as in this case, a certain inappropriate delight seems to accompany their misfortunate, yet sadly, all too often it is these characteristics which are the hallmarks of so much of the modern 24/7 news cycle.
The difference is they’re on the receiving end and they’re feeling aggrieved.

Oh, dear lord, who will write all the Staff Writer articles now???

There’s nothing funny about losing your job in an industry that’s bleeding out! It’s easy to take cheap shots as, no doubt, a 20-something at an industry you’ve been in for five minutes, especially when you’re suckling on the taxpayer’s teat. If you don’t care about the journos who are being retrenched in time for Xmas, then weep for the cost-cutting lack of quality and diversity that’s killing journalism in Australia.

I think SBS Backburner need to take their own advice. It’s especially irksome ‘satire’ coming from a tax-payer funded public broadcaster which less-kind people could call a ‘sheltered workshop’.

@Andrew (comment 47) Get over yourself. News Corp do not pay any tax, who do you think lines their seniors exec’s pockets with gold? Yes, you are correct, us taxpayers do.

@ Andrew

http://www.afr.com/news/policy.....510-ggy6cf

@Not a right wing troll

The basis of yours and everyone else’s defense of this ‘satire’ is that “it’s News Corp so it’s OK”. I understand that argument. But News Corp aside, it’s a sheltered workshop slipping the boot into a private enterprise and that’s why more than just The Right are annoyed. I really like SBS – until they start speaking English – because then they couldn’t find an audience if they streaked at the Royal Easter Show and resort to gutter tactics like this for attention which is beneath the standards I expect for my tax they spend and speaking of tax, the fact you raised it is a furphy which is typical of people attempting to defend the indefensible and if your monicker is an attempt to suggest that I’m a troll then I suggest you compare the tones of the SBS defenders with those who are airing a legit grievance and tell us who the real trolls are. So get back into your sheltered workshop, keep dreaming of the day when the government is the only one telling us the news because you are clearly not comfortable outside a group-thinking echo chamber.

Andrew Bolt would like to see all ABC staff sacked and replaced with his like-minded colleagues. News Corp journalists can’t expect to receive sympathy when they get fired.

Move on NARWT, nothing to see here…

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

(Now where did I get that from ?)

Robbo asks, “Why not just shut down all private media, and have ABC and SBS only?”

Many a true word spoken in jest, Robbo. Tony (No. 11 above) even thinks the day can’t come soon enough. He looks forward to shareholders forcing Rupert to close down his newspapers.

When and if that day comes, we’ll probably be glad we still have ABC and SBS. At least we know they’re Australian.

55 editorial jobs = 55 much-needed content writers.