Dial-in-Democracy is about to bite Laws – and Bill Caralis – in the bum as GetUp! gets into gear.

Opinion from Peter Saxon

For the better part of 50 years, John Laws was the king of talk radio. He stayed at the top for so long in large part due to the fact that he could sense the mood of his audience and as they changed, he changed too. For a man of 76 he still sounds okay, but that handy knack deserted him some time ago.

He still calls his female assistants “handmaidens’ and insists that they wear skirts to work. Though not suffering his out of date attitudes gladly, they forgive Laws as the product of another era and cut him a little slack due to his advanced age. After all, the world is full of old geezers like him with their old fashioned views. But they don’t have their own radio show and no one pays much attention to what they say.

A generation ago, at the height of his career, Lawsie might have have gotten away with the comments he made to a female caller last week who told of her torment as a rape and incest victim when she was just a child.

Since then community standards have changed but it seems someone forgot to send Laws the memo. However, that’s not the real core of his problem, network owner Bill Caralis’ problem nor the problem of every other announcer that says anything that is out of kilter with today’s community standards.

The biggest change they need to come to grips with is the shift of power from the talk show presenter to the general public.

A generation ago Lawsie and his contemporaries could spruik their opinions, politically incorrect comments and prejudices with little chance of challenge because they held the microphone and controlled the means of communication. Now through the magic of the internet, facebook, twitter and a myriad of social media outlets, the public can strike back within minutes – unfiltered by program producers.

What John Laws liked to describe as ‘dial-in-democracy’ was no democracy at all. It was, as talk shows are to this day, a carefully orchestrated universe with Laws as its king. With his army of loyal subjects to follow his lead, he could bring politicians to their knees.

Although he may not yet realise it, the King is about to go to war with another tribe, with their own army of loyal followers who also believe in a brand of democracy – their own.

Yesterday the GetUp! organisation sent an email to its 620,000+ members saying, We’re working with our friends over at Destroy the Joint to deliver your petition in a way that 2SM management and the media can’t ignore. The full email from GetUp! is reprinted below.

No matter how tempted they are to dismiss GetUp! as a bunch of “dooo-gooders and feminazis,” John Laws and Bill Caralis ignore them at their peril.

As SCA and 2GB have learnt to their great cost, groups like this have the power to warn advertisers off a station, sway public opinion and goad the media watchdog into action.

While Laws has little to lose, other than his microphone, because he certainly doesn’t need the job, Caralis has a lot more at stake. He can ill-afford an exodus of advertisers or licence conditions slapped on his stations while on another front, he battles software giants Microsoft and Adobe who are taking him to court over using unlicensed copies of their applications. 

The full GetUp! ‘call to action’ email to their members …

Talkback radio misogyny reached new lows late last week when 2SM radio host John Laws asked a caller whether the sexual abuse she’d suffered throughout her childhood was “her fault”. He even went so far as questioning whether she was “provocative” at the tender age of six. No child “provokes” sexual abuse.

John Laws’ comments are absolutely reprehensible and – despite a fierce eruption of anger on blogs and social media – his “apology” was far from adequate. Instead, he was back on air on Friday telling those complaining to “go to hell.” He even again suggested it was the victim’s fault “if she allowed it to happen”.

We can’t allow incidences like this to continue. In this case, John Laws was dead wrong and unbelievably insensitive. If we let him and the 2SM station managers and owners continue without addressing the serious nature of this kind of talk we’re sending a message to all Australians that victim blaming and shaming is OK in this country. 

Click here to sign the petition we’ve put together with our friends at Destroy the Joint, calling for John Laws to apologise and for management to address the need for education.

I’ll be honest with you: a campaign like this will typically create an initial surge of rage, but too often dies out as the media cycle moves on.

As Clementine Ford wrote on Friday, “the news cycle works so rapidly that today’s furious tweets are tomorrow’s distant ephemera. It’s what allows the industry to keep men who offend, men who belittle, men who bully, in their comfortable seats behind their powerful microphones.”

We’re working with our friends over at Destroy the Joint – the women’s social media movement that erupted in response to Alan Jones’s comments about women in leadership last year – to deliver your petition in a way that 2SM management and the media can’t ignore. But that change starts with you. Don’t let John Laws move into the next media cycle without feeling the consequences of last week’s vile comments. Now is our chance to come together to build a society where victim blaming is no longer tolerated.

Sign the petition here to hold John Laws to account for his victim blaming: http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/womens-rights/shame-on-blame/shame-on-victim-blame

Whether it takes a week, a month or a year – we cannot allow people who blame the victims of sexual abuse and sexual assault to continue to make their revolting comments on air with no fear of consequences, or any idea about what their words mean to the millions of Australians who have suffered sexual abuse.

With hope,

Erin, for the GetUp team.

P.S. People power has the opportunity to create a scandal so big for radio station 2SM that they’ll rethink ever allowing victim blaming to occur again on their airwaves. 2SM management and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have the power to put Laws in his place. But as of this weekend it’s clear neither have the intention of doing much about this. According to ACMA they have received about eight emailed complaints, which they have referred to the radio station, 2SM. We need both 2SM and ACMA to feel the pressure and take appropriate action. Write to 2SM and submit a formal complaint to ACMA here: http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/womens-rights/shame-on-blame/hold-2sm-accountable

If John Laws’ comments have been traumatic for you and you would like support, please call the sexual abuse survivor’s hotline on: 1800 737 732

GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you’d like to contribute to help fund GetUp’s work, please donate now! If you have trouble with any links in this email, please go directly to www.getup.org.au. To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Authorised by Sam Mclean, Level 2, 104 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010.