TV

The ABC To Issue Formal Apology To Chris Kenny For That Whole Sex-With-A-Dog Fiasco

“It shouldn’t be this hard to get the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster to behave decently, but at least it’s finally happened,” Kenny said.

by Steph Harmon  4 June 2014

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It’s been nine months since the ABC broadcast an episode of The Chaser, which contained a Photoshopped image of Chris Kenny — conservative political columnist, and prominent ABC critic — having sex with a dog from behind.

It’s been nine months since Chris Kenny hit back at the program, describing the skit as “crass” and “offensive”, embarking on a lawsuit, and calling for an apology: “My sister and her children, they saw it. And my kids now, when they want to Google my name, they’ll see it in the future.”

And it’s been nine months since one of those kids, Kenny’s son Liam, took to Junkee to defend The Chaser.

“[My father] is a staunchly neo-conservative, anti-progress, anti-worker defender of the status quo. He is an unrelenting apologist for the Liberal Party. He was one of Alexander Downer’s senior advisers at the time of the Iraq War. He’s been known to argue for stubborn, sightless inaction on climate change. He spits at anyone concerned with such trivialities as gender equality, environmental issues or labour rights from his Twitter account on a daily basis. Recently, he characterised criticism of the lack of women in Tony Abbott’s Cabinet as a continuation of the Left’s “gender wars”. He is a regular and fervent participant in The Australian’s numerous ongoing bully campaigns against those who question its editorial practices and ideological biases. The profoundly irresponsible, dishonest, hate-filled anti-multiculturalist Andrew Bolt has recently referred to Kenny on his blog as “a friend”.

And it’s a jokey picture of a bestial embrace that I should be afraid of discovering online?”

At 9pm tonight on the ABC, the network will issue “a comprehensive on-air apology“, as part of a defamation settlement that followed months of legal battles and also involves the ABC paying legal costs and damages. Kenny sees the agreement as an act of benevolence: “Many people didn’t want me to settle — they wanted to see a court ruling against the ABC,” he said to The Australian. “I can understand their point but I think the ABC has been made to see sense, and having forced apologies in court and on air, as well as appropriate costs and damages, it would be intemperate to push on.” Benevolence itself.

According to The Australian‘s intrepid media editor, Sharri Markson, Mark Scott’s “failure to act decisively [has] cast doubt on his tenure as the ABC’s boss and editor-in-chief”. The extent to which this doubt has been cast, and by whom, is unclear.

Tonight’s apology, which will air before everyone’s second-favourite ABC controversy, Jonah From Tonga, comes with its own Ts & Cs. “The Chaser team will not be permitted to republish the mat­erial or make public statements that detract from the settlement,” Markson says, “to prevent a repeat of the way presenter Julian Morrow undermined managing director Mark Scott’s personal apology to Kenny in April.”

She’s referring to this: