Please Enjoy The ABC Dragging Chris Kenny For Not Understanding Words
*World's longest sigh*
Conservative commentator Chris Kenny has done it again — and by “done it”, we mean wowed us with the superior command of words that explains why he’s currently Associate Editor of The Australian.
Specifically, Kenny has managed to publish a column in The Australian and broadcast a segment on Sky News, criticising the ABC for joking about murdering conservatives. That criticism would be well deserved, except that the ABC radio excerpt Kenny refers to was a discussion about a murder mystery novel featuring the murder of conservators, not conservatives.
As the ABC communications team tweeted today, “‘conservators’ are responsible for the repair and preservation of things such as art. ‘Conservatives’ are something else entirely”. Oops.
Hey @chriskkenny @SkyNewsAust You have confused the word “conservators” with “conservatives” in @RadioNational light-hearted chat about art forgeries. “Conservators” are responsible for the repair and preservation of things such as art. “Conservatives” are something else entirely https://t.co/yDm4f4FkEB
— ABC Communications (@ABCMediaComms) April 1, 2019
It’s been two days since Kenny published his column on the issue, which casts the joke as an indicator of the ABC’s ideological leanings. “Listening to ABC radio recently I was shocked to hear a casual joke and shared laugh from a presenter about a wistful absence of conservatives being murdered — but ‘not through the wont of trying or wishing'”, he wrote.
“It was a joke in poor taste but it reveals much. I’ll broadcast it on television tonight before they delete it from their files.”
And here again @chriskkenny and @australian: The word used was “conservators”, in a light-hearted chat about a murder mystery book set in an art museum. pic.twitter.com/XlHyxvyE7j
— ABC Communications (@ABCMediaComms) April 1, 2019
And broadcast it he did — on Sky News, Kenny played the audio excerpt from the program, which very clearly refers to conservators, and then continued to sigh deeply and tell readers that “yes, they joked about wanting conservatives murdered”.
A day later, he’s shown no sign of correcting or even realising the error, so the good people at ABC Communications have taken it upon themselves to helpfully tweet about it. Turns out our public broadcaster does actually cater to conservatives after all.