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Mark Robinson: Words without meaning
Les Zig
Roar Guru
4th June, 2017
14
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2857 Reads
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Les Zig
Roar Guru
4th June, 2017
14
2857 Reads

By now everybody would know about Mark Robinson’s ridiculous tweet concerning Collingwood’s Alex Fasolo.

In case you missed it, journalist Glenn McFarlane tweeted a picture of Alex Fasolo training with Collingwood captioning it, “Fantastic to see Alex Fasolo back on the track for CollingwoodFC just days after news he was battling depression and taking a break from the game”.

It was a great tweet – positive, constructive and supportive. People who live with from any form of neurosis would be buoyed by seeing an attitude like that.

Chief football writer for the Herald Sun, Mark Robinson, retweeted McFarlane and added, “Good drugs – clinical depression on Tuesday, training Thursday”.

I tweeted Mark Robinson that this was appalling, and I wouldn’t have been the only one. I’m sure he was bombarded, and rightly so.

For me, it was very personal. Over the last 35 years I’ve battled with issues such as depression, anxiety, and OCD, and I’ve done talks on such issues for Beyond Blue and SANE Victoria, so to see somebody like Robinson trivialise depression angered me so much that I had to take a step back to compose myself before penning any comprehensive response.

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On 11 April I wrote an article on The Roar about the ugly side of journalism. This tweet from this twit epitomises the cavalier regard journalists such as Robinson have for football and footballers and the disconnect that they have from real people and what they’re going through. It all seems to be little more than fodder for public consumption, whimsical gods delighting in the recreation their disposable playthings offer.

We can talk about players being bad or about coaches being off, but we have no insight or understanding into what they’re going through at any given time. Like us, they’re people who have things to deal with. That we rarely see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. When it does emerge, it certainly doesn’t deserve this despicable attitude, particularly from somebody with as widespread a profile as Mark Robinson.

Why would you share anything if this is the way you’re going to be treated? Why would you make yourself vulnerable? So the schoolyard bully can make fun of you?

About 15 minutes later, Robinson deleted his tweet and issued an apology, but he should not under any circumstances be allowed to get away with such a glib response.

He should be held accountable. Words are too often easily offered, and when they arrive, we accept the subject’s been chastised and move on. But we should ask: are these words are offered as a genuine form of contrition or because it’s what’s needed to get out of a bad spot?

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Let’s first look at some truths about Robinson’s initial tweet. ‘Good drugs’ – does anybody truly believe that Robinson was genuine here, however poorly phrased? Or was there a snide undercurrent given he ‘broke’ the Collingwood drug scandal in the 2016 pre-season. I might be reading too much into it, but all I see here is a sly dig.

Even if the sly dig isn’t there, the suggestion remains that the ‘good drugs’ have gone above and beyond so, hey, what’s going on there?

He then writes, ‘clinical depression on Tuesday, training Thursday’.

Robinson seems oblivious to the fact that Collingwood did state Fasolo would continue to train with the club. This is great from Collingwood. One danger with depression is the subject’s proclivity to withdraw both within themselves and also from their social and professional circles.

We often hear clubs talk about their personnel as ‘family’. This is what Fasolo needs – support from the club, from the AFL community and from the public. As a journalist, surely Robinson should be aware of the facts before speaking and writing.

However, his ‘clinical depression on Tuesday, training Thursday’ marginalises depression to little more than a cold, as if you wake up one day depressed and a couple of days later you’re good enough to get on with your life.

Robinson also ignores that Fasolo has played for Collingwood the whole season while trying to soldier through this, so he shouldn’t be marvelling at Fasolo’s training in any context.

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As far I’m concerned, though, this isn’t even the worst of it.

Let’s look at Robinson’s apology. “Insensitive tweet about Alex Fasolo. Apologies to Alex and the fans. Wrong choice of words.”

Wrong choice of words? Perhaps Robinson can elaborate what the right choice of words would have been? There is no right choice of words given the message Robinson set out to deliver. He made a joke that he should never have made. He joked callously about a serious condition and then uttered a questionable apology.

It seems little more than lip service.

Driving home from work on the night in question just before 5:30pm, I heard Robinson on SEN again apologise for the tweet. All I could think of was how disingenuous it sounded. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Or cynical. Or both.

But given I’m one of the fans Robinson’s offended, no, I don’t accept either of his apologies.

As people, we should forgive, but both Robinson’s apologies sounded like words without meaning.

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