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While you may have missed the quiet return of David Morrow to the ABC rugby league coverage, it would be a very unwise broadcaster who ignores the lessons from his tribulation.
Morrow has been off air for three months thanks to an incident during a Roosters Bulldogs game on Friday May 23.
As the game wound down, Morrow’s veteran expert co-commentator Warren Ryan told an anecdote to illustrate a point that players were trying to do each others’ jobs instead of sticking to their own.
He referred to the classic ‘Quitin’ time’ discussion from the film Gone with the Wind and began with, “The old Darky says, y’know, someone says quitin’ time” and then told the rest of the story.
At the end, Morrow chuckles and then moved on to the call of the game. The audio has been uploaded to YouTube if you haven’t heard it.
It became quite the incident. The twitterati slammed them and the ABC.
Labor Senator and rugby league Indigenous Council Chair Linda Burney slammed them and rugby league.
Their ‘colleagues’ Francis Leach and Tracey Holmes came on Offsiders and just slammed them again.
Both men were immediately suspended pending an investigation.
My gut reaction to this was that it was a complete overreaction from the ABC.
Ryan is an old man now, aged in his 70s and he grew up in a generation that had a very different attitude to people from different backgrounds.
‘Darky’ would have been one of the milder descriptions that was thrown at Aboriginal and dark skinned people.
Indeed, I went to school 20 years ago where the expression ‘gay’ was thrown around with abandon to describe anything that mildly annoyed you.
There is no way that sort of language would be acceptable today; society has changed and calling something or someone ‘gay’ as an insult is just not on.
Unfortunately old habits die hard.
Ryan referred the character with a term that may have been commonplace in 1954 but is not acceptable in 2014. I sensed that Ryan recognised immediately he had used a word he shouldn’t and corrected it at once.
After their suspensions were announced, it was made clear that both men had erred previously.
Ryan had previously clashed on air with the new sideline reporter Shannon Byrne. He caustically responded on air to her attempt to challenge his opinion, remarking that he never expected to be told about front row play by a netball player.
Ryan has reached the point of his life where he is happy to talk, but not at all interested in listening.
He resisted any change to his partnership with Morrow and indeed made little attempt to hide his hostility to new team members of the commentary team such as Byrne, and especially to gun former coach Daniel Anderson.
Consequently it was little surprise that he left in a huff after he was suspended, sadly forgetting that there is no shortage of talented likeable former players only too happy to replace him.
But what of David Morrow?
His prior offence was telling a joke about dark skinned people needing to smile in the dark so others can see them. It was an embarrassing old man joke from another era.
He was suspended for it and very apologetic in the aftermath. This offence? Listen to the audio again and tell me that he wasn’t laughing at the story, not giggling at the racial slur.
As the weeks went by it was more and more likely that we wouldn’t hear Morrow on air again, which would have been a drastic overreaction. Fortunately, the ABC internal processes finally finished and he quietly returned to air.
So what are the lessons from this?
Well firstly, an honest apology can perform miracles. Had he apologised, Ryan would still be calling league. Had Morrow apologised sooner, he would have been back on air a whole lot earlier.
Never underestimate the impact of swallowing your pride and admitting fault without condition.
But more pertinently, racism is clearly the only sin that will get a broadcaster off the air.
This year alone, we have had TV and radio personalities swear on air, use homophobic slurs, ask degrading sexist questions, belittle and humiliate listeners and guests, and threaten other people. Yet all of them are still broadcasting.
But racism will get you banned in a heartbeat.
Why is this so? Why do other offensiveness get forgiven but racist remarks get punished so vigorously?
My thoughts are that it is a symptom of the frustration so many Australians have on this issue. We are painfully aware that our Indigenous population don’t do as well in life as non-Indigenous people, and we feel powerless to help them.
We really have no idea how to boost education outcomes, lower infant mortality, reduce violence and sexual assault and improve general wellbeing for Indigenous Australians.
We know there is a problem, just haven’t a clue how to fix it.
So when someone makes a remark like Warren Ryan did and Indigenous Australians condemn it, we feel we are making a difference by taking a stand with them.
Which leaves us here, three months later, both men roundly condemned, Ryan off air for good, and Morrow only just returning.
But whether any of this did any good for Indigenous Australians is another matter all together.
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