Matthew Johns

The response to The Age’s decision to sack Catherine Deveny says a lot about the Australian media and Australian media audiences. In particular, it shows how selective both can be depending on whether they like or dislike the person — and whether it’s a man or woman at the centre of a scandal.

Soon after Deveny’s sacking was announced, some of her supporters in the Twittersphere claimed that she had been a victim of censorship.

It makes Deveny seem heroic, but it’s hard to see this as censorship.In the first place, Deveny wasn’t prevented by The Age from expressing herself. On this occasion at least, they didn’t spike her writings.

Continue reading "Deveny, Kyle, Matty Johns and TT’s rank hypocrisy" »

At the Walkley Awards last Thursday night one of the biggest cheers of the evening was reserved for Tracy Grimshaw, who won the gong for broadcast interviewing.

As the A Current Affair host made her way to the stage, the big screen behind the presenters played an excerpt from one of the interviews Grimshaw was being honoured for - her excruciating chat with former NRL star Matthew Johns.

There 10 times larger than life was a visibly distraught Johns, flanked by his wife Trish, responding to explosive claims about group sex in the NRL contained in a 4 Corners report - another Walkley winner. Half the media executives in the country were in the room watching Grimshaw accept the well-deserved award.

About the same time, according to yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, Seven and Ten were engaged in a bidding war to see who can sign Johns to spearhead their NRL coverage. These network bosses sure do have short memories.

Continue reading "Johns bidding war: our TV networks are run by goldfish" »

AIN’T rape a hoot?

It seems like the good old boys at Carlton Football Club just can’t stop laughing about former president John Elliott’s claim that at least four women were paid not to pursue rape allegations against players in the 80s and 90s.

``We just sort of said, `Righto, here’s five grand, off you go’ and they’d leave,’’ Elliott told a charity event in Hobart last week. ``There’s some very ordinary people out there.’‘

Onya, Johnno.

Continue reading "Carlton legend John Elliott’s after-dinner rape gags" »

There’s an extraordinary piece of journalism in today’s Daily Telegraph by “Coogee Cougar” Charmyne Palavi where she takes more positions than the Kama Sutra on the questions of sex and consent.

Palavi, who among other things has blown the whistle on the sub-culture of predatory women bedding sports stars as “scalps”, shot to prominence last week with her morally ambivalent star turn in the Four Corners report on the Matthew Johns sex scandal.

In today’s Tele Palavi speaks of her disappointment that many of her apparently positive experiences have been sullied by the white-hot debate over the Johns affair. She introduces a handy new term to the sexual lexicon - the concept of “mostly consensual” sex.

Continue reading "Sex-mad league bimbo takes women down dud route" »

UPDATE 7.20pm: Willie Mason has been fined $2000 and ordered to do extra work on his club’s programs that help the homeless.

It’s just a pity it was Willie Mason. Unbelievably, this picture was taken just over 24 hours ago, with Mason deciding the best way to conclude the worst week in NRL history was to piss all over the footpath on a public street outside a Sydney nightclub.

The morning newspapers were squeamish with their use of the photo so we thought we’d run it in full here. It wasn’t a sidestreet or an alleyway either - it was bang in front of dozens of youngsters at the Golden Sheaf Hotel, one of Sydney’s busiest pubs. It wasn’t like Mason deserved a drink anyway - his team the Roosters had just been flogged 38-6 by the unfancied Newcastle.

If only because he brings nothing other than headlines such as these, Mason should be punted from the game. How many lives has this boofhead had? How much contempt has he shown for the code that pays his salary? Follow the furore throughout the day here.

In a week when the nation was confronted with a $58 billion budget deficit, when more than a million Australians were stripped of their private health rebate, when plans were unveiled to push the pension age to 67, there was obviously one story in town - Matthew Johns.

Knocking the federal budget off the front page of a major newspaper in budget week is no mean feat. The last people to do it were called Todd and Brant. They hijacked the coverage of Peter Costello’s 2006 Budget by spending the previous 14 days buried alive in a tiny air-pocket in the collapsed Beaconsfield mine.

While Costello was frustrated by his own burial on the inside pages, Wayne Swan might have been faintly relieved that, just two days after sheepishly unveiling our biggest-ever deficit, replete with some fingers-crossed growth forecasts which may have us not on the path to surplus but bankruptcy, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph devoted its first three pages to Matthew Johns affair.

Continue reading "Male silence at the core of Matthew Johns scandal" »

JUST because she bragged about having sex with a lot of rugby players doesn’t mean, under it all, she wasn’t traumatised.

Sure, it kicks on the story a bit by playing to a view which doubtless many believe - that the woman enjoyed the whole sordid incident.

Nine tracked down someone in New Zealand to have a go at the woman who told her heart-wrenching story to Four Corners. It ran on the 6pm news last night and this morning was the lead story on Australia’s biggest news website, ninemsn.

Continue reading "Make up your mind, Nine: Is she a victim or a tart?" »

UPDATE 1PM: Matthew Johns has been stood down by the Nine Network.

This time last week we were saddling up for NRL sex scandal #847. Commentators were jogging to their designated positions on the pitch, limbering up to churn out the usual for/against Rugby League diatribes, this time about League favourite Matthew Johns, who was about to be outed as a fan of group sex by the ABC.

Then Sarah Ferguson’s incredible report went to air on Four Corners on Monday night and for 36 hours most people were speechless. It was so much worse than anyone could have imagined after Johns’ inadequate explanation on last Thursday’s Footy Show.

I don’t know if it was the vivid way the two young women featured articulated the damage done, the glib comments to Four Corners from the players involved, or the sickening sight of Fatty Vautin slapping Johns on the shoulder after his preemptive strike, but the usual barrage of analysis paused.

Last night Tracy Grimshaw broke the awkward silence.

Continue reading "The bravery of Grimshaw and Wilson over Matthew Johns" »