No replacement for Latham on Sky News Outsiders, with guest ‘basket of deplorables’ instead
Sky News’ controversial political commentary show Outsiders has opted not to make a permanent replacement for presenter Mark Latham, who was sacked 11 days ago.
The new format instead sees co-hosts Spectator editor Rowan Dean and former politician Ross Cameron joined by a different guest each week.
Today’s guest was Johannes Leak, son of The Australian’s cartoonist Bill Leak who died a month ago.
After the sacking of Latham 11 days ago, Sky News took Outsiders off the air, saying only that it was in “in recess”.
Outsiders: Cameron, Dean and the now-axed Latham
The show – which drew comment about the lack of diversity in its lineup of three outspoken middle aged white men – first went on air for one episode late last year which rated an average of just 22,000 viewers.
After Outsiders’ brief return, Latham in particular caused a number of controversies through his on-air attacks on public figures. He made a number of potentially libellous comments about the likes of Sky News presenter and former NSW premier Kristina Kenneally, Sky News presenter Peter van Onselen and ABC broadcaster Wendy Harmer.
The final straw came when it emerged that on an earlier show Latham had questioned the sexuality of a schoolboy, which was then labelled as bullying behaviour.
Today’s return to air was low key. Unusually, van Onselen, who was presenting the show immediately before The Outsiders did not tell viewers what was coming up next.
The first 20 minutes of Outsiders was dedicated to discussing Latham’s sacking.
Dean told viewers that there would be a revolving lineup of guest presenters, who he described as “a basket of deplorables”.
The phrase “basket of deplorables” was used by Hillary Clinton during last year’s US presidential campaign to describe supporters of Donald Trump.
Both Dean and Cameron paid tribute to Latham. Dean argued that the reporting of Latham’s comments about the schoolboy’s sexuality had not communicated its context. He said: “The reporting of the Sydney boys video was a disgrace. This was not about bullying.”
Cameron added: “Mark used to say ‘trigger warning, trigger warning, you’re entering an unsafe space’. It turned out to be most unsafe for Mark Latham.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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You would never know where you are with Sky as they move their programmes around so much. I don’t know who makes decisions about this. We all make mistakes
and as Alan Jones says you only have to say one word wrong and your in trouble.
I think they should take another look at themselves before they do things.
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Well, if as Margaret has claimed, Alan Jones said that, then it must be true, because nobody would know more about the subject of trouble and wrong words, than Alan Jones.
I must say that nobody has contacted me, which leads me to think that they (Sky News) may be considering a woman for the role, either that or they simply don’t know that I am available.
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the best thing about the show is that you all “bed wetters” get so upset all the time, the truth does hurt and we are all different. your uni education does not make you superior when you all sit around having a latte and let the real people do the real work in the world. We can think for ourselves and know the price of everything from power,food and rent going up. We are not protected from the real world as your comrades are. Change is coming.
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