Eddie McGuire apologises for remarks about drowning The Age reporter Caroline Wilson
TripleM breakfast host Eddie McGuire has apologised for remarks made on-air at a charity fundraiser about drowning The Age sports journalist Caroline Wilson.
This morning TripleM breakfast host Eddie McGuire, who is also the president of Collingwood football club, sought to dampen the furore over remarks including comments about Wilson being held under water, which began circulating widely on the weekend as part of the AFL’s anti-domestic violence White Ribbon Day round.
During its breakfast show this morning TripleM replayed the comments, which host McGuire argued were made in jest, telling the audience: “There were no complaints at the time but then later in the week, in the context of (anti domestic violence initiative) White Ribbon Day, clearly people had a look at it, revised it, and made their points.
“I will just reiterate what I said last night to the Herald Sun (that) anything at all that would be seen to promulgate domestic violence is unacceptable. Full stop. That’s the big issue here…
“I said also to the Herald Sun that that was the least of anyone’s intentions and that did not even cross anyone’s minds. In fact the Big Freeze (event) was based on good humour, sledging each other, tomfoolery… the whole thing was about having fun at Gil’s expense, my expense, etc.”
In a later segment McGuire went further telling the audience of the top-rating Melbourne breakfast show: “I have been really disappointed that these comment have led to these feelings from people. I apologise and retract them in the spirit of what we’re trying to achieve.”
The apology came a week after Triple M covered the Big Freeze fundraiser at the MCG on the Queen’s birthday public holiday, which raised more than $2m for motor neurone disease research and awareness.
McGuire had been dunked in cold water and in an segment with former St Kilda captain Danny Frawley, and fellow TripleM host James Brayshaw they joked about next year signing up The Age’s Caroline Wilson for the event.
“In fact, I reckon we should start the campaign for a one-person slide next year featuring Caroline Wilson,” said McGuire, “and I’ll put in 10 grand straight away, make it 20. And if she stays under, 50. What do you reckon guys?”
Brayshaw then said he would be involved while Frawley noted he would ensure Wilson would be held under the freezing water, saying: “I’ll actually jump in and make sure she doesn’t [come up] … I’ll hold her under, Ed.”
McGuire replied: “I reckon we could charge 10 thousand for everyone to stand around the outside and bomb her.”
The Collingwood president also sought to draw in other commentators, with only football journalist Damian Barrett seeking to distance himself from the remarks.
“I’m on Caro’s side now, Ed. I’m on Caro’s side these days, Ed,” Barrett said.
McGuire then took aim at award-winning AFL journalist, Wilson, describing her as “a black widow”.
“She just sucks you in and gets you and you start talking to her and then bang! She gets you,” he said.
Wilson today responded, telling Melbourne talk back station 3AW that she believes McGuire is a bully who is allowed to get away with such remarks because people are scared of him.
“To be honest I think he gets away with a lot because people are scared of him,” said Wilson. “His board didn’t stand up to him over the Adam Goodes business, the AFL didn’t stand up up to him over equalisation, it just keeps happening because he has such power.”
This is not the first time McGuire has been in hot water with the TripleM host criticised in 2013 for comparing indigenous footballer Adam Goodes with King Kong, weeks after Goodes had been subjected to racial abuse during a match against Collingwood.
It is understood that the media watchdog Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is not currently investigating whether TripleM breached the Codes of Practice but may take up the issue if there is a complaint.
Sister Southern Cross Austereo station 2DayFM currently has a licence condition against it for decency, but this condition does not apply to Triple M Melbourne. That condition was imposed after shock jock Kyle Sandilands launched a tirade against News Corp entertainment journalist Alison Stephenson who wrote a critical review of his TV show.
Commercial radio guidelines on ACMA’s website regarding acceptable practice in the portrayal of women include the advice:
“Do not broadcast material which condones or incites violence against women.” The guidelines add: “Ensure that reporting and ‘on-air’ discussions respect the dignity of women
and are non-exploitive.”
Frawley has also since apologised for what he conceded were “insensitive, inappropriate” comments, while McGuire today told listeners he had been in contact with The Age’s sports editor Chloe Salter about the remarks.
“I spoke with Chloe Salter yesterday and she went through the whole situation, and I’m just looking at her texts now, she said ‘I’ve had a listen and I accept it was all jovial but I still find the image of men laughing about Caro being held under water inappropriate.’ So I said ‘yep’ and she said ‘I hope you take that on board’ and then I said ‘I do accept your point of view there, then I said I didn’t see it as in any way, shape or form sexist – I don’t think anyone is saying that now’.
“That was what the original suggestion was – that it was sexist against Caroline Wilson or anyone else.
“But as I said, and I will say it again, anything that can be perceived to promulgate domestic violence is unacceptable.”
“Commercial radio guidelines on ACMA’s website regarding acceptable practice in the portrayal of women include the advice: “Do not broadcast material which condones or incites violence against women.” The guidelines add: “Ensure that reporting and ‘on-air’ discussions respect the dignity of women
and are non-exploitive.””
Why does it need to specify women?
Is it OK to condone or incite violence against men and have discussions disrespecting the dignity of men?
I agree that Eddie’s comments were pretty stupid. How he still gets airtime anywhere is ridiculous.
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This isn’t about gender or women bashing, it’s about an unpopular reporter that everyone loves to hate because of opinionated reporting and often unbacked statements. If anyone listened to 3AW the same day where the same jokes were bantered around by Caroline Wilsons colleagues, with her there laughing and playing along you’d understand the context and perhaps not find this whole story so offensive. The fact that she now is disturbed by such comments by Eddie and Triple M is incredibly hypocritical. Once again, these jokes were not about violence against women, they were about having fun at a reporters expense that happens to be a woman, but gender really shouldn’t be a factor here, I’m sure Caroline’s own colleagues at 3AW didn’t intend to advocate violence against women either, but according to all of this media coverage, they are guilty of the same. So shouldn’t they be held accountable and apologise publicly also?
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That wasn’t an apology – certainly not to Caroline. It was a “sorry you think I am a sexist buffoon, that’s your problem”. Typical Eddie.
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At a time when we are fighting for sexual equality in the workplace this entire furore is damaging the very fabric of the fight. The comments were not made about a woman, they were made about a journalist. Dragging domestic violence into this is wrong; it’s a professional, workplace jibe and one both antagonists freely participate. If you want to carry on down this path where were the domestic violence advocates when Julia Gillard stabbed Kevin Rudd in the back and vise versa?
Domestic violence is abhorrent but it has to be addresses in its own realm, not pinned to trivial and irrelevant workplace banter.
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If you switch out Caroline Wilson’s name and substituted it with, say, Sam Newman or any other male journalist… there would be zero outrage.
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First I in NO WAY condone what Eddie Maguire and the others said.
But there is an interesting background when Neale Daniher (who founded the BigFreeze for research into MND) was interviewed on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 on June 8th, to promote the Big Freeze slide.
It is actually an extremely good interview by Mark Robinson with Danaher. There is a mix of humour, sadness and determination. But the overwhelming take-out is Danaher’s spirit and determination facing a disease that he knows will kill him. I urge you to watch it here … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JvQRJkANqU
Mark Robinson opens with how hard it is for people to talk about killer diseases, and thanks Danaher for what he taught us .. “it’s up to the person (in this case Danaher) to guide us through”.
Around the 8-minute mark, they show video of last year’s BigFreeze Slide. When footage of Mark Robinson in a red lycra bodysuit came up he said he was sponsored $30k by First National for wearing it.
As quick as a flash Danaher said “Look you came up, and there were a few disappointed you came up”. The laughter was long and genuine. And from memory later in the show someone joked that they would have got $100k if Robinson hadn’t come up (but I can’t access the footage of the whole show).
Now that is not a million miles different from the comments made by Eddie Maguire.
My point is that in essence Maguire stole Danaher’s joke.
So what is different?
That the sufferer made the comment? That he made the comment to Robinson’s face? That Robinson is obviously a long-standing mate? That Robinson was a previous participant? That Robinson is male? That it was one-to-one and not a ‘ganging-up’?
So where is the outcry about Danaher’s comment? And I defy anyone who watches the clip to complain.
I also urge people to watch the entire clip and see the inspiringly funny and laughter-packed attitude that Danaher has in face of a disease that will surely kill him.
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If you – or a few of the Eddie apologists below – don’t get the difference between “lightheartedly” threatening to drown a woman and attempting something similar with a man, then there’s no hope for you. There’s a huge societal power imbalance, both physical and social, between the genders that makes these “but if it was a man they were talking about…” arguments utterly pointless.
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How is it that Caroline’s own station isn’t being dragged through the mud for the same comments in which she participated in?
Totally agree with Glenn on this.
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Yes, Mike. That’s rather the point.
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God help Australia.
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But he didn’t say it about a man he said it about Caroline Wilson, a woman he and his boys club target as they just can’t get their head around a woman being paid to have an opinion about sport.
Sam Newman also didn’t stick a male journalist’s face on a male mannequin and humiliate him.
Why? Because these neanderthals think it’s fine to mock and humiliate their female peers, because they think they are better than her.
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I’m of the opinion that being female does not automatically mean that you are suddenly equipped with a criticism immunity halo. It doesn’t help the outrage industry that the media has somehow morphed into, but that is the precept of equality: we get treated the same.
The bottom line is – if you can accept that comment being spoken about a man, then you should be able to accept that comment being spoken about a woman.
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Jay Jay. Please re-read – especially the first paragraph.
I loathe Eddie Maguire and am NOT an apologist. You know the saying – the only good Eddie Maguire is a … (I’d better stop there).
All I am asking is what is the difference (and I am neither defending or supporting either side) between “lightheartedly” trying to drown and man and “lightheartedty” trying to drown a woman? Are not both equal? Aren’t we after gender equality (and yes I realise that is a perverse use of the word equality)?
I am hardly putting forward the “but it if was a man they were talking about” argument. I am saying that two men said basically the same thing – one about a man and one about a woman. What is the difference? Please elucidate.
If you can’t see that (or don’t want to read the possible ‘excuses’ I suggested) then equally there is little hope for you.
By the way did you happen to watch the entire clip?
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This is the start of women getting no equality in this country. If we as Australians have to listen to such rubbish in journalism when the whole issue was about MND then we have lost our way.
I have lost my best friend to MND at 42 years of age and he would be turning in his grave to find out that it became about Caroline Wilson and not the fundraiser for Neil Daniher. Well done Caroline and the backward sympathisers that support you, women’s equality is now another 20 years behind where it should be.
If this was a man who was joked about, there would be no repercussion. Time to report the issues as if we are all equal ABC.
Very disappointed.
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My sympathies and agreement Neil. I watch #9footyconfidential last night and was not surprised it was all about Caro. Was MND mentioned once? In passing perhaps? No, just how hurt and saddened Caro is. For a journalist who brands herself as a hard hitting, no holds barred commentator this hijacking of a wonderful cause and fundraiser with cries for sympathies and support is deplorable.
Caro’s Arrow has just struck her in the backside.
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Apologies to Backgrounder, my reply was actually to “Anonymous” earlier on – methinks there be a few bugs in the new Mumbrella system. The point though is basically the same. You can’t go talking about equality, because right now we don’t have equality. Maybe when we get to a point where women aren’t routinely being murdered by their partners or other men they know, and are actually respected as equals in more ways than just “jokes” among the boys, it’ll be fine to laugh about stuff like this. Until then though, this is in extremely bad taste.
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With all due respect, JayJay – the topic is about violence in general. Last I saw, Eddie McGuire is not in a domestic partnership with Caroline Wilson. Linking this to domestic violence is an very long bow indeed.
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With respect to you too Mike, this is part of the problem, that you can’t see a link here. When you normalise talk of a man – or, in this case, men – drowning a woman, even in an attempt at “humour”, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It affects and represents what goes on in society as a whole. And in our society, more than one woman is killed by a man each week. Not in a joking way. Actually killed. Which, once again, makes any men joking about killing any women really bad form.
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In society as a whole, violence is a much larger problem for men than it is for women, and that includes the admittedly skewed statistics toward females in domestic situations. Twice as many men are murdered as women. The assault rate is also much higher.
So, why is it ok to normalise talk of violence against men in a joking way – as these commentators did, without censure – and not about women?
Honestly, this world has gotten too PC. Manufactured outrage sells newspapers – and it seems it also fills comments sections in blogs as well.
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To be honest mate, if Eddie had casually joked about walking up behind some stranger in the street, punching him in the back of the head and killing him, it would also be a serious problem. But people don’t joke about that, because they have respect for the victims. Get the difference? (No, obviously…)
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JayJay, I’m sorry you got so worked up about this. I have no intention of entering a flame war – I’m not a troll. I just hope you can see beyond the hyperbole and realise that violence is a problem for both genders.
I also hope that you realise that taking offence at every little thing that a person in the public eye might happen to say only feeds the beast that is the outrage industry.
The bottom line is that what Eddie said about Caroline Wilson is something he might easily have said about a man. We should just roll their eyes, continue to think that the guy is a bit of a tool, and move on. This confected outrage is pointless, baseless, and frankly hypocritical.
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Can someone put the saga of Ed.Mcguire and Caroline B Wilson to BED, I am sick and tired of hearing about it, how many times does McGuire have to apologise, I bet I have had much harsher comments made during my lifetime but I don’t dwell on them or tell the whole world, build a bridge MS Wilson and get over it, MOVE ON. I did NOT read where McGuire actually said LETS DROWN Wilson, and as for all you so called do gooders, I notice neither Wilson nor yourselves have given little or no mention to MND,hmmm
Stand tall Mr McGuire, I took what you said as banter/ joke how come some people didn’t get it as such
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