Last week it was 2GB’s Alan Jones. This week, 2UE’s Michael Smith. Media Watch just loves to take a shock jock to task. But while Jones and his masters – no, backers – remain defiant in the face of criticism, Smith failed to appear on air today in his midday slot, his place taken by Clinton Maynard following last night’s withering attack by MW presenter Jonathan Holmes.
Smith has been identified by MW as the catalyst for a story by Glen Milne that adversely implicates PM Julia Gillard in shady dealings through her relationship with a union official some 16 years ago. Ms Gillard has vehemently denied any involvement on her part since the story first surfaced in 2007.
The Milne story was taken down from The Australian’s site almost as soon as it went up. Subsequent stories by Andrew Bolt have also been quashed by News Ltd. But 2UE’s Michael Smith persists – or at least he did until today when management took away his microphone.
2UE GM, Tim McDermott says, “Michael’s done a lot of good investigative work on this story. And he’s made a lot of claims he wanted to put to air. We just want to make sure that we’ve got all the facts.”
Given the timidity of News Ltd’s legal team on this matter there’s little doubt that powers higher up the food chain at Fairfax Radio were getting nervous. Says McDermott, “It’s a pretty serious issue and we’re erring on the side of caution.
We got slammed on Media Watch last night and we want to be 100% sure of our facts before we go ahead with it.”
Who can blame them. But it doesn’t explain why it was necessary to take Smith off air.
Says McDermott, “He was going to be off on hols anyway because it’s a non-survey week. But he decided to stay to do the story.”
So why take him off air again? Says McDermott, “He’s helping us to investigate the matter before we make a decision.”
That’s still no answer and it leaves the door open to speculation that Smith wouldn’t be silenced and has had to be dragged off air. Or, like Bolt did for a day or two at News Ltd, has gone off in protest because his bosses wanted to gag him.
If Smith is looking for publicity, and you can bet your house that he is, then he’s got it. He can expect a fair bit more.