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On Saturday the ninth of June, Phil Rothfield, Senior Sports Editor of the Daily Telegraph, tweeted that rugby league was a code in crisis.
He demanded that head of the Australian Rugby League Commission John Grant be sacked from his position.
The stream of tweets lead to the Rugby League Week Mole providing a simple reply of “chill”.
Rothfield is dead right about something. There is a code in crisis in Australia. The code’s history in Australia does not date to 1908, but more recently to 1944. The code is the Australian Journalists Code of Ethics, from which I will provide some relevant tidbits for your consideration.
“Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence.”
“Disclose conflicts of interest that affect, or could be seen to affect, the accuracy, fairness or independence of your journalism. Do not improperly use a journalistic position for personal gain.”
Since the removal of David Gallop from his position, there have been numerous cutely named ”gossip” columns on the subject from the Daily Telegraph. The Tele is owned by News Limited, the organisation which demanded that Gallop be given a four year tenure as part of their agreement to exit their joint ownership of the NRL.
Rebecca Wilson, the partner of John Hartigan, the former Chief Executive of News Limited, posted one such article. On a previous occasion she felt inclined to (quite correctly) attack Phil Gould for not declaring vested interests in a newspaper column. However, when discussing “Maserati-driving” John Grant (was the car yard all out of Commodores?), felt compelled to tell the people that running in to a new commissioner at the airport her “alarm bells were ringing”.
“The dark forces are back in play and rugby league is once again on tenterhooks.”
Indeed, rugby league will be lucky to survive the winter in my humble opinion, without the gracious stewardship of the media organisation for which Rebecca Wilson provides her expert opinion.
Mr. Rothfield spoke in one particular article about the “control-freak” Mr. Grant. In said article, Mr. Rothfield spoke of the departure of Mr. Gallop and how his “biggest supporter had been former News Chairman and chief executive John Hartigan, who religiously defended him against bitter opposition from ARL powerbrokers.”
Andrew Webster is another valiant columnist at the Daily Telegraph, and hopefully casting an eye over his musings might provide a different viewpoint.
Alas, Mr. Webster fears for the game under Mr. Grant, who has a reputation of someone who “covets the limelight and statesman-like influence his position brings”.
He further lamented Mr. Grants “bizarre press conference”, which alarmingly “sounded more like an economics lecture than anything remotely involved with the working man’s game of rugby league”. One can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth when people discovered a businessman, of all people, would chair the board of the working man’s game.
David Gallop did many things for rugby league, which while having some negative points, were very, very good. However, David Gallop was a conservative administrator who was the perfect rock during the unsettling times following the Super League War.
In a time when rugby league is seeking expansion, and the acquisition of new revenue streams, if a newspaper with such a vested interest cannot find one columnist to provide just one valid reason for a change in leadership, then we have a code in crisis.
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