The Australian blames ‘production error’ for attack on Noel Pearson added to reader’s letter

A reader of the Australian was left “horrified” after a letter she sent to the newspaper was printed with the addition of two sentences defending the masthead and criticising Indigenous leader Noel Pearson as “shrill” and “prejudiced”.

The reader told Guardian Australia she was shocked when she saw her letter printed in Monday’s edition of the paper with paragraphs inserted that she had not written.

The reader had sent the letter in response to Pearson’s article in the Weekend Australian, in which he reflected on the masthead’s coverage of Indigenous affairs.

Pearson wrote: “The opinions in this broadsheet are more numerously antipathetic to the voice than not.

“They are mostly obscurant and borderline casual racists in their views. Just read the comments at the bottom of this piece.”

In an unusual move, the Australian’s editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn pinned an editor’s note to the article: “We reject Pearson’s characterisation of our readers as ‘borderline casual racists’.”

After reading Pearson’s thoughts on the voice, the reader wrote to the letters page: “I was disappointed that Noel Pearson generalised me as a ‘borderline casual racist. I have long admired Pearson as an intelligent, well-educated and wonderful Australian.”

But when she opened the paper on Monday she saw a very different letter.

The words Rupert Murdoch’s national broadsheet inserted were: “I am at a loss to understand how Pearson thinks that his increasingly shrill denunciations of those who have voiced opposition to the [Indigenous voice] model will win over those who may still be undecided.

“To casually dismiss ‘the boomer readership’ of The Australian as ‘mostly obscurantist and borderline casual racists’ displays a prejudice that would be rightly dismissed if it were directed against any other group within our society.”

The reader, who the Guardian has chosen not to name, said she was a regular purchaser of the Weekend Australian.

“When I saw it I was absolutely horrified because I thought ‘my God for them to actually do that in this day and age’,” she said of her changed letter.

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She tracked down Pearson to explain she had not written the harsh words, and she contacted the Australian for an explanation.

“I wanted to speak with Noel and apologise for what I did not write, and we had a nice discussion on the phone,” she said.

For his part Pearson emailed Gunn on the reader’s behalf, saying he expected the paper to correct it.

The Australian called the reader to apologise on Wednesday and put a correction on the letters page on Thursday: “Because of a production error, a section from a separate letter was included. The Australian regrets the error.”

“I am happy with that apology,” the reader said. “Whether it was deliberate or not it was nipped in the bud and they cannot afford for [it to go] public.”

Pearson declined to comment.

Gunn has been approached for comment.

Holiday hype

When ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland told viewers he was taking a break, the tabloid press smelled blood. Coming so soon after Stan Grant stepped down as Q+A host, Rowland’s break was interpreted as a new crisis for Aunty.

News.com.au sent out a breaking news alert about the “shock announcement” and the Daily Mail headline was: “ABC in damage control as News Breakfast host Michael Rowland delivers sombre ‘farewell’ only for panicked bosses to say he ISN’T quitting – a day after he hit out about Stan Grant’s trolling ordeal.”

But Rowland told Weekly Beast he was simply going on annual leave. No one had called him to check first.

Bit of RESPECT

After news of Tina Turner’s death of Thursday, rightwing commentator Prue MacSween joined in the social media tributes posting: “RIP the amazing Tina Turner. Thank you for the joy you brought us. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.”

Was she confusing Turner with Aretha Franklin by adding RESPECT to her tweet? Many thought so and her tweet went viral.

“Aretha Franklin owned that one. Don’t recall Tina covering it, but I might be wrong. Now, Simply The Best will work for you,” one tweet said.

But MacSween insists she was just paying respect to Turner and did not mix them up.

“I have so much respect for how Tina overcame all the hardships in her life and she ranks up there with Aretha as one of the top two rock and soul singers of the 1960s,” she told the Daily Mail.

Too much force

Two US police officers used “excessive force” against Seven reporter Amelia Brace and cameraman Tim Myers during a 2020 riot, an investigation has found, according to the New York Times.

Video footage from the scene showed Brace and Myers broadcasting live on a street when riot police approached to clear the area and hit Myers with a shield.

The pair are then seen trying to leave the scene while another policeman swings at them with a baton.

Brace later told a US congressional hearing how she was shot at with rubber bullets and beaten by police near the White House during protests after the death of George Floyd.

The Australian crew was in Washington DC’s Lafayette Square on 1 June 2020 covering protests when park police began aggressively clearing the area.

The government investigation found that the officers violated police policies when one pushed Myers’ camera with a shield and struck a reporter with a baton.

Brace and Myers won a 2020 Walkley award for for their coverage.

“Brace and Myers showed not only outstanding camera work but also outstanding courage,” the judges said.

“They were live on-air outside the White House when riot police violently moved in, assaulting both Australians. Myers was struck in the stomach by a shield and punched in the face; Brace was struck in the back with a truncheon and gassed with a chemical irritant. Both were hit with non-lethal rounds from automatic weapons. They displayed composure under stress, continuing to broadcast live as they made their way to safety.”

News Corp gets defensive

News Corp devoted a lot of resources this week to claiming it had not in fact overreacted to the ABC’s coronation coverage and bombarded readers and viewers with negative stories.

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Stan Grant stood down from the public broadcaster citing a mainstream and social media pile on that led to racial abuse.

News Corp Australia’s chief executive, Michael Miller, said the ABC “needs to stop passing the buck and blaming others for its own internal problems” and that the company only published a “modest number” of articles on the ABC’s coverage.

But anyone who glances at the Australian or watches Sky News will notice the Murdoch stable is obsessed with running down the ABC in general, and Grant in particular.

The media section in the Australian this week is a case in point.

After the Q+A host said he was stepping down and was visibly anguished they didn’t step back, they piled on.

The commentators Janet Albrechtsen and Tom Switzer dismissed Grant as a “celebrity activist”.

The problem with Grant and the ABC, they wrote, is that they regard Australia’s British heritage “with shame” and have made it virtually impossible to suggest that colonialism “had no beneficial effects at all”.

Peter van Onselen jumped to the defence of News Corp, painting the company as victims of the ABC.

“Stan Grant accuses ABC management of providing him with inadequate support in the wake of vile social media attacks concerning his role in the public broadcaster’s coverage of the King’s coronation and the head of news at the ABC lashes out at News Corp,” he wrote. “That’s obfuscation 101.”