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The Limits of Satire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

John Safran
Affiliation:
television presenter and writer
Catharine Lumby
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Elspeth Probyn
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Summary

How did you feel when the ABC decided not to air your pilot? Did you believe they had legitimate reasons for rejecting it at the time?

Well, at the time they just said it was a creative decision. They kind of put me in a position where I couldn't really argue without looking like I just couldn't wear the umpire's decision. In retrospect, it was a bit, I don't know what the word is, not nice. At first it was just me coming up with crazy conspiracy theories in my head, but then Media Watch did a segment on the pilot. They followed the paper trail and produced a memo from Roger Grant, Head of Corporate Affairs at the ABC, who was also on the board. So then there was actually a bit of circumstantial evidence that there had been some pressure to try to stop the pilot being shown. And I'd argue that I wasn't being totally crazy to have come up with conspiracy theories in the first place because it's not like you switch on the ABC, or any channel, and see topnotch, brilliant entertainment twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I mean, they'd gone to the trouble of filming it, so why not use it?

Roger Grant argued to the Independent Complaints Review panel that the piece was biased against Ray Martin and failed to show the extent of intrusion into his privacy. What do you think he meant by these comments?

I don't know if there's a legal definition of what invading privacy is so I couldn't talk from that perspective, but from a layperson's point of view, I guess we did invade his privacy.

Type
Chapter
Information
Remote Control
New Media, New Ethics
, pp. 243 - 248
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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