Ray brings silence to the house
Friday night saw the who’s who of NSW journalism turn out at Randwick Racecourse for annual Kennedy Awards.
However it does appear that journalist Ray Martin, who was helping MC the event, appears not to have learned his lesson about providing public commentary about the ABC and “lefty lynch mobs” while he is in the midst of conducting a review of Q&A, on behalf of the public broadcaster.
Ray did a shoutout asking the room if there was anyone here from the ABC which was met with tepid applause. Undeterred his subsequent calls for anyone who worked at Q&A, and then host Tony Jones, were met with a very awkward silence.
Dr Mumbo wonders if perhaps ABC staff were worried he’d do the Q&A review interviews right there on stage as the next part of the comedy routine?
Martin tried to quickly recover noting that Tony Abbott was also absent, as he was busy “deciding which minister from the federal government he has got to choose Monday”, before wisely choosing to move on to the awards show.
The MC’s comedy flop was not the only awkward moment of the night after the Daily Telegraph’s Andrew Clennell, who won political reporter of the year, thanked “all those who leaked to me.”
Premier Mike Baird was up next to present the final award of the night and appeared to take aim at one of his own ministers, from stage, telling the room: “It’s great to leak to Andrew Clennell, but you will end up photoshopped in the front page if you leak to him.”
The comments were widely interpreted as a swipe against Education Minister Adrian Piccoli who was this week given the full photoshop front page treatment in the Tele over missing the first day of parliament, due to be being on annual leave in Italy.
Jeffrey accepting his award
And finally the speech of the night goes to the The Australian’s James Jeffrey who won columnist of the year and not only thanked The Oz for “giving him such a wide leash” but also came out with this plug for the national broadsheet saying: “If you’re right wing then you probably read us already, and if you’re left wing then Andrew Bolt hates us.”
Jeffrey was referencing this week’s stoush between his title and News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt over the newspaper’s treatment of his statements on Adam Goodes and booing in its Cut & Paste section.
Dr Mumbo congratulates all the winners and the Kennedy Awards organisers on a good night.
