Alan Jones: Does he deserve a seat at the adults table?
A few years I wrote an open letter to the advertising and media industry asking all of us to boycott Kyle Sandilands and his radio show. It was straight after his infamous reaction to a child disclosing she had been raped on his show. We now see a similar situation ocure with Alan Jones. Like Kyle he has lost most of their sponsors /advertisers as a result of keyboard activists complaining about a very unsavory comment he made. Like Kyle this is despite the ratings staying strong, and his actual listeners not giving a hoot.
Today his station Macquarie Radio Netork announced that 2GB will stop all advertising on Alan Jone’ show and sort this thing out. It reminds me of the reaction of Allan Joyce, CEO of QANTAS. When facing pressure from the unions he called all flights to a halt – to sort it out, and sort it out he did.
I’m amazed by MRN’s Chairman Russell Tate’s decision. He gets a nod of respect from me. The keyboard activist (myself included I guess) will be called to account by this latest move. For it’s the keyboard activist though websites such as www.change.org who organize the pressure on advertisers to pull out of these shows. Without advertising the show cannot go ahead. Therefore, the shock jock / entertainer / boof-head DJ’s now have two masters, a) their listeners, and b) the social media keyboard activists.
So now what now? What does the keyboard activist do? Do they think ‘Wow. We did it’, we pulled someone off the air (or as good as), let’s maintain the rage. Or, do they think ‘Gee. We only wanted to give them a scare’.
You see the issue with extremists (such as Alan Jones and Kyle Sandilands) is that they are there by necessity, not by desire. We cannot have a society without them – that would be homogeneity. So if you take the extreme right shock jock out of the picture, then the person next furthest out becomes the new extremist (lets say it’s Neil Mitchell). Do we put pressure on his program to fold as well? And if we do, and we win who’s next Steve Price?
This scenario is played out in a fantastic movie called ‘The Last Supper’, where left wing intelligencia invite a right wing fanatic to dinner and then kill him, chop up his body,a nd bury him in the tomoato patch. They keep doing this until one of the left wing people actually becomes the most right extremist. You get the point.
So yes it’s censorship I want. I want to live in a society that is accepting and civil. Yet I always want maimium diversity of opinion as well. So to that end I suggest we treat Kyle and Allan with the respect they deserve.
Treat them like naughty boys who have broken societies rules. Send them to the naughty corner for a while so they can learn to behave. Once they have proven they can sit at the adults table invite them back. If however, they keep reoffending, then we keep on modifying their behaviour until they understand. Right now, I for one am happy if neither of them has a seat at the adults table.
Fritz Bachen is a Consumer Psychologist and Founding Partner at Naked Communications. Fritz can be seen, read or heard at; The Gruen Transfer, ABC Radio (Sunday nights), Adnews columnist, as well as The Australian, Cleo, Mumbrella, Shop Till You Drop and so on. He speaks at numerous conferences on marketing, ideas, contemporary culture, and consumer behaviour. Fritz has degress in clinical psychology and commerce (marketing). A registered psychologist and has worked in private practice, forensic settings, advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi) and marketing consultancy (Added Value). He was also state under 12 chess champion on WA, and has a board game called The Analyst selling well in the Benelux countries.
Comments
Dave F
Oct 15th, 2012That all sounds very nice Fritz and under the scenario you draw all would seem reasonable.
BUT
How many people making a living in honest media would now feel free to ask Mr. Jones any questions they like without the threat of his legal machine cutting them down? Destroying them.
Tell us what questions you would like to ask Alan?
I think Mr. Masters has been the bravest of them all. And the ABC found it to …. to …. lets say problematic.
NO. Mr. Jones still has his machine in full gear. Look at the usual suspects coming to his aid. They know he’s not dead and buried over this. He still has deep meaningful control over sections of groups that want or want affiliation to power.
The naughty boys corner….. GET real. This is still a dangerous person who will reap vengeance.
This fight is NOT all about him, but it is a fight that must go on to every spokesman like him.
Good luck brother.
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