Several weeks ago Fairfax media published an article under the heading “Modern Guru” in both The Saturday Age (The Good Weekend) and The Sydney Morning Herald, which was also reproduced on their web site. The article had two parts:
- A short letter from a reader about a domestic incident involving a mother-in-law and a son-in-law. No reference was made in this section to any race or nationality.
- A long response by the columnist in which, for no apparent reason, an ethnic element was introduced, specifically the repeated use of the word ‘Ukrainian’ in relation to pornography, dress code and alcohol.
A large number of complaints were raised in reaction to the racist elements introduced. Several of these complaints came from church and community representative bodies in Australia, such as the peak representative body the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO) and many of its affiliates, and from overseas including the Ukrainian World Congress and the League of Ukrainian Canadians.
Fairfax has belatedly offered a muted apology. The AFUO has issued the following statement:
July 20, 2013
EDITOR OF GOOD WEEKENDER – FAIRFAX – BOWS TO PRESSURE TO PUBLISH PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR SLURRING UKRAINIANS
WE AWAIT FURTHER ADVICE
The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO) draws your attention to the apology published today by Fairfax and Good Weekender for the Danny Katz article of June 1, 2013 which was offensive and a slur on Ukrainians. The AFUO acted immediately and initiated a campaign to demand an apology.
Apart from community members, Minister and other officials supported the campaign and pressured for an apology.
Today’s apology from the editor is printed below – Thanks you to all who have acted to get it you this stage, for your resolve, persistence and prepared to go the long haul and not letting it go. The AFUO obtained advice and awaits some further advice following this published apology.
We have now had Fairfax:
- Send email apologies to select individuals
- and after some continued pressure from many sources within the community and externally the apology (reproduced below in red) was published today.
It has taken 50 days or over 7 weeks to start to rectify something that could have happened immediately .
The AFUO will consider its next steps as the matter has been escalated and we await an outcome on advice from other instrumentalities.
Published on 20 July 2013
Editors Note
We apologise for any unintended offence caused by Danny Katz’s reference to ‘bizarre Ukrainian porn’ and ‘vodka sozzled Ukrainians’ in his June 1 Modern Guru; column. Readers should rest assured that Mr Katz’s comments were meant purely in jest in keeping with his role as satirist and in no sense as slight on the Ukrainian people.
Our note
The apology should have highlighted the fact that what is bizarre is Mr Katz’s humour and satire and that Mr Katz and the editor will think twice before publish material that slurs a community and think twice before what they deem to be jest and satire.
His piece was neither.
