SMH boss Darren Goodsir asks columnist Mike Carlton to apologise for being rude to readers

The best advice is just to ignore News Corp, especially The Australian. People give them WAY too much attention, especially considering their readership numbers. It doesn’t compare to the audience SMH gets. What a desperate attempt to gain attention from Sharri Markson.

My family are one of the few I know of friends and acquaintances still subscribing to the SMH. Congratulations Mike you have convinced me finally to give up on a paper that allows you free control to spread unadulterated bigotry, to pursue ideas you call journalism that fuel hatred, animosity and racial disharmony.
I feel for your daughter that you have seen fit to use her in a publicity stunt to disclose her personal choice of a life partner. I wonder how they must be feeling to have been drawn into the vitriol you have unleashed.

Allen Williams – nicely handled. Not rural press now mate

Mike Carlton has demonstrated what an abusive bully he has become to anyone who disagrees with him on any subject!

I haven’t bought the SMH for years because of Carlton. His filthy, unhinged twitter abuse is a liability they can ill afford.

Hadn’t realised how much Carlton had lifted the quality of SMH readership.

I like Mike Carlton, so sad that publishing a cartoon of truth has seen the end of him.

I feel for Mr Carlton. He’s increasingly becoming a lone voice of reason and compassion in media. His article was brave and accurate and resulted int he typical barrage of racist abuse from small minded bigots and news corp hacks. he is one of the main reasons I subscribe to SMH. if the simpletons of the world don’t like it, there’s plenty of other news outlets available to them – most of which owned by Murdoch.

Carlton’s responses were pretty vicious at times, but I want to know what the ORIGINAL emails to Carlton said. Why are we only seeing the responses, not what caused them?
Now, it may be that the original emails were calm and considered, or it may be they were abusive and threatening.
The fact that Sharri Markson has only passed on one side of the email trail is surely instructive. One is left to assume that some or all of the original emails WERE abusive and threatening, and that Markson doesn’t want us to see that side of the story.
And WTF is the Media Editor at The Oz doing compiling a dossier and dobbing on another journo to his boss?
The SMH was correct to demand Carlton apologize, and it’s a shame he’s quit because he is, on his day, one of the best columnists around.

Carlton has passion. Sometime far more than he needs. Without him the Fairfax newspapers will be poorer and it should not surprise anyone if he makes a comeback in a few months.

This is appalling treatment by the SMH hands down the most fearless journo they were lucky enough to have still working for them. Mike Carlton is the ONLY reason I open the SMH. Well, no more. SMH’s relentless toadying to the hard right Jewish lobby has left me aghast, bewildered, appalled. Congratulations SMH on driving away the frankest talent you had left on your books. Nice one.

Noticed SMH has disabled readers from being able to leave comments in response to Goodsir’s statement and all other reporting of this issue. This typical censorship and cowardice speaks volumes about SMH. Utterly shameful.

I cancelled the home delivery of The Sun Herald in 2003 when they published an editorial supporting Internet censorship. I stopped reading the SMH in 2009. It was the terrible cartoons of Moir which provided the tipping point, but I was becoming increasingly concerned over the paper’s savage march further and further to the feral left. I was hoping that the change to tabloid format meant a brighter, breezier tone and an effort to rehabilitate themselves but I bought the first tabloid edition and there was Moir again with another poorly drawn cartoon showing Abbott with the word HATE written over and over.

The problems with Fairfax started in late 1982 when the paper liberalised its attitude to certain social issues, but the rot really began when Fairfax went into receivership in the late 1980s and journalists had a holiday putting any kind of rubbish into the paper. Following receivership we saw “Charters of Independence” and a manic desire to be as left wing as possible solely to go against the right wing Murdoch papers.

There needs to be an urgent cleanout at Fairfax and a desire to get back to the days of the SMH being Sydney’s paper of record and The Sun-Herald being the biggest selling newspaper in Australia. The fact that they have moved so far away from those glory days because of a poisonous editorial culture is one of the great tragedies in Australian publishing.

Appalling treatment of Mike Carlton by Darren Goodsir.

But by all means get your knickers in a knot re ‘inappropriate and offensive language’ and let’s all be so very, very polite at the carnage unleashed on Gaza by Israel. BTW, villagers of Sderot, built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Najd, did, in fact, nestle down in their comfy armchairs and watch the bombing of Gaza.

I hope the Mike Carlton, a funny and principled journalist, finds a better forum than the SMH to ply his trade.

I really loved Carlton’s columns, particularly the way he gave it to Abbott, Howard, Gillard, Rudd, et al. No-one else could send up Abbott like Carlton could. The imagined conversations among cabinet always killed me.

But his last two columns were pretty over the top. He was totally right that criticism of Israel doesn’t equal anti-Semitism, but in the next par he talks about how Jews in Australia are all disseminating the same “carefully crafted” propaganda. Urk. Submit “Asians” or “Muslims” and you’re moving into Bolt territory…

If only the Fairfax newspapers did lean to the left instead of just being a middle of the road right leaning mess.
Sorry Aussie_Austridge but we have far too much right wing bias in the media now without more. But you are right about the Sun-Herald being less than it once was.

A real shame – Goodsir has treated Carlton poorly.

crazy how powerful the Jewish lobby are behind the scenes

I’m not a big Carlton fan (too lefty for me) but I think if the paper published his column they have to stand by him. Journos, like pollies, sportspeople etc have the right to defend themselves in print/on SM when attacked with vitriol and I don’t believe the bile spitting attackers need to be treated with any more respect or courtesy than they have given him…ie none

It used to be called healthy debate. But apparently the SMH no longer cares much for freedom of speech or diversity of opinion. Carlton was the most reasonable and incisive voice they had, in particular on subjects like Gaza and political corruption. I used to read the SMH daily. Lately I’ve only bought the Saturday edition, in part for Carlton’s column. I’ll show my support for him by discontinuing that habit too. Actually, the Saturday edition has been growing progressively weaker. The revamps of Spectrum and the magazine are both terrible. And the news section gets thinner and thinner. So thank you Mike for all the thoughtful columns and the laughs through the years. And for saving me a couple of bucks every Saturday from now on.

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”

Voltaire

Pls advise when & where emails to which Carlton replied are available – especially Yuri’s since he seems to have attracted the most vicious personal abuse from MC

A man loses his job for pointing out the horrors of war and defending his opinion.

No wonder newspapers are dead

@Civilian spot on! Some readers and journalists are learning there are some serious issues out there that can’t be fixed by changing your deodorant or having News Corp analyse (sic) the issue for you.

Very sad to see the polarization a single person with a voice or profile can have on a population. For this reason alone these dangerous people inciting hatred should be exposed and ostracized in our beautiful country. This is not what the rest of the world needs to see from Australia, we are the lucky country lets keep it that way for all of us — Together. Good bye Mr Carlton I sincerely hope you get the help you need.

The SMH is so far leaning to the left it’s a wonder it doesn’t fall over, which is a shame because when they aren’t beating their ideological drum they are a pretty good news outlet.. I won’t miss Cartlon’s bleeding heart lefty opinion.

@Joshua Drayton . The SMH killed free speech ages ago. No articles questioning global warming, and no comments will be published that even hint that it’s not “fact”. No debate, discuss. The agenda is set and that’s it with the SMH !! They frequently don’t open up the comment section on Islamic issues because we might hear some truths or spark real intellectual debate. Instead we leave the comments open on boring stories like finance.

People asserting the Sydney Moring Herald leans to the left must be viewing the newspaper from a long way from the right. It would be a struggle to find much left of centre comment in it. It is also odd when others complain about it not questioning global warming when all the facts show indisputably the world is warming. Next we will get people complaining the case is not being made about black being white.
Carlton was a great asset for the Fairfax newspapers and without him circulation will drop. The editor knows this and so does everyone who loves great writing in newspapers. That is why he was brought back after being absent.
But it should not be forgotten it is not his writing for the paper that has caused the problem. Nor was it his views. It was his way of dealing with narrow-minded people who oppose free speech.

Fairfax absolutely did the right thing. As much as I love Carlton’s frequent and deserving crticicism of News Corp, his responses to his own critics were unhinged. He would go out of his mind and swear at everyone instead of ignoring them. No doubt he was being trolled by plenty of crazies, but when you represent a reputable organisation you can’t talk to people like that. Fairfax had little choice

Good on you Mike, someone had to tell the way things really are, where are the doves in Israel ? Look at the current crop of leaders , they want more living space , funny that I think to remember a guy call Adolf wanting that as well , Israel have been collective punishing for over 40 years , any one that know a little knows that , any way pass the ammunition and let’s build more settlement , american don’t give a shit.

Carlton’s responses were pretty tactless. He didn’t need to even respond at all. It’s a real shame because the article itself was very considered and made some excellent points. The cartoon could have done with a bit more tact aswell.

Mark C, if not a troll from the far right leaning Murdoch press, doesn’t have a compass, he has a GPS. However it is out of batteries.

A poor decision to be rude to readers. Pretty low of a fellow journo (well not really, more a right wing or pen pusher, propaganda tooth in the Murdoch empire cog) to act that way and not publish the incoming email and tweets. Does anyone have the full correspondences?

What are these jewish lobby that people talk about?
is there a muslim lobby? gay lobby? lesbian lobby?cristian lobby? racist lobby?

who are they?
what a piece of bull
just like carlton repeating some words made up by Carr: likudniks, kabuki dancers, cant fly without pijamas and other miscellaneous crap

Mycop,
Mycop,
It’s all bullshit, the Jewish lobbies never ever interfere in governments of nations such as Australia, England or the US for that matter. These nations are pro Israel because she is the only democractic nation in the Middle East and has the most moral army in the world.
How else do we explain to Palestinians and the world, why we openly support the deliberate murder of over 1800 civilians including the thousands injured, homeless, traumatized in this latest massacre? How else do we explain to the Palestinians and the world why we support occupation, torture, kidnappings of adults and children, theft of lands, separation wall, razing of orchards, checkpoints, harassment, humiliation, blockades, freedom of movement, defenseless, imprisoned, infrastructure destroyed, hospitals destroyed, schools destroyed, playgrounds destroyed, zoos destroyed, assassinations, blatant racism, attacks on Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, the continued occupation of lands ruled as illegal under the Genvea Convention, terrorism, sale of body parts, the use of stolen Australian passports in the Israeli/Mossad hit on a Palestinian in Dubai, the use of white phosphorus, cluster bombs on civilians. The list can literally go on and on and on.
So how on earth do ‘enlightened’ nations such as ours, who openly and shamelessly support this criminality can expain why that is and how it is that we as a peoples, nations benefit both morally and spiritualy from such unconditional support?

Civilian

@ Civilian
Sure how else can we explain collateral damage ie civilian death done by coalition forces in Iraq/Afganistan? Total civilian deaths =133000 people
forgotten already?

Exactly.

just out of interest why have my comments been censored/eliminated?

The journalists of Australia, and I might add the respectable ones like Mr Carlton have a duty to the citizens of the New World( Australia).
They must be mindful of the fundamental structure of the peoples of Australia, before expressing any opinions..

I agree totally with the comment from Mr Mark C..

I agree totally with Mr Mark C @ Joshua Drayton