Satirist Dan Ilic fired by Al Jazeera for applying for The Daily Show
Australian satirist Dan Ilic has lost his position with Al Jazeera after the network’s youth channel AJ+ fired him for using company resources in a video application for The Daily Show.
“(When I applied for the Daily Show) I literally bought a ticket for the lottery and got fired for it,” Ilic told Mumbrella this afternoon. “That’s show business.”
Ilic is known to Australian audiences as a presenter, comedian and filmmaker who has worked on shows such as Hungry Beast, Can of Worms and other TV local productions, before in December last year taking up the San Francisco based role with Al Jazeera.
“I got an audition for the Daily Show but I was going overseas and needed to get something down on tape, before I went, and so I used the work studio just to knock it out, and I didn’t think it would be a big problem but when I got back from overseas it was,” he said.
Asked what his next move would be after returning to Australia the comedian quipped: “I’ve been thinking about running for the Republican (presidential) primary and so I thought I might have a crack at that. If Ted Cruz is born in Canada then Commonwealth countries must be eligible (to be President).”
Ilic noted that he hopes to return to the US in the coming months. “I’ve got three projects I was going to do before I headed back to San Francisco… hopefully I’ll make my way back to the United States and try to find something.”
Asked if he had heard back from The Daily Show he said he had not, noting it was in the middle of a big “transition” at the moment from long time host Jon Stewart to Trevor Noah.
The satirist was also positive about his time with the international news network, which is headquartered out of Doha but which has been ramping up its presence in the US.
“What AJ+ are doing is really carving a path for what other media organisations should really be emulating. In the last years you have seen that with other media organisations following them.”
Nic Christensen
Moral of the story is, don’t use company equipment to apply for job with another company. It’s simple.
He might think it’s funny. That says more about him.
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Oh that’s a shame. I got onto AJ+ because of Dan.
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Hell hath no fury like a network scorned. You should know that Dan. You certainly do now.
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Ilic and his ABC mates (past and present) all have healthy egos and a solid sense of entitlement. So no surprises that he “didn’t think it would be a big problem”.
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@Dougie. Although, to be fair, a tiny ego in proportion to some of the utter waste of spaces on traditional commercial channels and commercial radio. Ilic would have no issue at all mimicking himself; your lot are far too important to do that.
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@Dougie congratulations on turning a completely unrelated story into a demonstration of the huge ABC chip on your shoulder.
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Why are people so surprised he did this? Walk around any advertising agency and people are using their macs to mock up their squarespace or linkedin profiles. It happens all the time. Only issue is that he got caught.
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@Dougie:
Love the venom mate. Says a bit more about you than it does Dan though.
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Sorry, I can see the outrage in the comments above requires clarification: I’m talking about a specific cohort of people that Dan belongs to at the ABC. Not the entire ABC staff.
So you can all calm down, I don’t want to cut their funding or shut the place down. But I do think some of the millennial crowd over there needs a nice warm cup of “back in your box, show some respect”. Anyone who attended their Storyology session last year would know what I’m talking about.
Sorry. Not sorry…
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G’day Dougie,
In the past 10 years I’ve received pay cheques from Nine Network, Seven Network, Ten Network, The Comedy Channel, Channel V, FBi Radio, 2Day Fm, Fox FM, Triple M, Fairfax Media, The Guardian Australia, The Australian Olympic Committee, SBS, Al Jazeera, Dick Smith and the who’s who of corporate Australia,I’ve even crowd funded my own comedy journalism projects in times of challenging media disruption. I also work at the ABC whenever I get invited. Incidentally I’m unemployed now, if you’re hiring… check out my linked in… I’m a hard worker that delivers results.
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He doesn’t know the correct use of the word “literally”.
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