Media heavyweights question sacking of SBS journalist Scott McIntyre
L:R Belshem, Morrison, Goodsir, Weisbrot
Media heavyweights have questioned the sacking of former SBS sports journalist Scott McIntyre following his Anzac Day tweets, with ABC head of current affairs Bruce Belsham noting McIntyre did not suggest his views were those of SBS.
Speaking at last week’s Mumbrella360 conference session on free speech and free press, Belsham said he would have “had a conversation” with McIntye around the tweets which included describing the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japanese cities Nagasaki and Hiroshima in the Second World War as the “largest single-day terrorist attacks in history”.
Belsham said: “I would have certainly had a conversation with him, it was a pretty silly thing to do.
My father, one of the most decent men I have ever met, served in both World Wars and was not a thief, a rapist or a murderer. So of course I found McIntyre’s comments appalling and offensive. Because of men like my father he lives in a country where he’s free to express these views. Had I been SBS management I would have cringed on reading them. Was it a sackable offence? That was up to SBS to decide.