Leftist Hypocrisy in Attacks on Alan Jones
2GB radio host Alan Jones is still fighting leftist activists’ latest efforts to deplatform him. Jones apologised on-air and in writing for his comments about New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in which he “wondered whether Scott Morrison’s going to be ‘fully briefed to shove a sock down her throat.”
Of course, an apology was never going to suffice for his critics. The campaign to pressure his advertisers to withdraw from his program, and for his employer Macquaire Media to sack him, continued for a second week. Macquarie has already reacted strongly, stating Jones is on his final warning.
Extra Comments Unearthed
The ABC’s Media Watch program regularly features Jones’s controversy. Last Monday night’s episode was no different, with host Paul Barry opening the show featuring a segment on SockGate.
Media Watch played the full half hour of Jones’s critique of Ardern’s climate intervention in Australia. They revealed he had also said “I hope Scott Morrison gets tough here with a few backhanders” and “If I see her on TV one more time I’ll puke.” These extra comments of Jones had not been picked up by any media outlet until then.
“Backhanders” was widely interpreted as the practise of when a man hits a woman to get her to fall into line; it can also refer to a tennis racket swing. But added to the “sock down her throat”, Jones’s critics where in no doubt that he was using violent misogynist language against a prominent woman.
Advertising Withdrawn Campaign
The advertiser pressure campaign was led by longtime Twitter activist account Sleeping Giants Oz, an Australian version of the original US account which goes after advertisers of conservative networks like Fox News. For this latest pressure campaign, they were assisted by another activist Twitter account, Mad Fucking Witches.
Both accounts posted a list on Twitter of the companies that advertised on Jones’s show and included many of their Twitter handles so that their followers could direct-message and tag these companies to claim they would no longer buy from them, unless they withdraw their advertising from Jones’s show.
The public relations departments of companies are staffed by panic merchants who see a boycott threat on social media and tell their managers that this will destroy the company unless immediate action is taken.
The rise of corporate social responsibility, which contains diversity provisions, has resulted in corporations becoming involved in social justice issues and avoiding association with people deemed hateful and bigoted. This also makes advertising boycotts against conservative media outlets successful.
Both activist accounts, along with their followers, have been successful in having 67 companies pledge in writing no longer to advertise on Alan Jones’s program, according to the Sleeping Giants Oz website.
It should be noted that some of these companies were not advertising on his program at present, but had in the past; some pledged just to withdraw from advertising during Alan Jones’s program, not all of 2GB’s programs.
Regular listeners of the show have noticed that Jones has been forced to spend more time talking to make up for the shortfall in allocated commercial breaks.
But Jones’s audience, which has the biggest market share of any show on radio throughout the nation, have been fighting back. Supporters of Jones have started a Facebook page titled Alan Jones Support – Boycott Virtue Signalling Companies, vowing that they will no longer do business with companies who have succumbed to leftist pressure to withdraw their advertising from Alan Jones’s program.
The page uses the slogan ‘Go Woke, Go Broke’ which came into common use when Gillette razors launched its “The Best Men Can Be” campaign with a commercial denouncing “toxic masculinity” at the beginning of the year.
As a result of abusing its customer base, Gillette’s parent company Procter & Gamble suffered an $8-billion write down. As a result, they recently stated they were launching new advertisements which will return to “representing men at their best”.
Leftist Personal Attacks on Jones
But as is common with the modern left, they cannot stick to the issues at hand; they have to resort to personal attacks. It is certainly valid to criticise Jones’s language and other questionable on-air conduct as a public commentator.
But some leftists have not been able to help themselves and have gone after Jones’s perceived personal life. It is commonly believed that Jones is a homosexual: he’s never been married or had children, his personal life has only been known to include alleged homosexual encounters.
Jones has never commented on his personal life on air, or said that he’s a homosexual. His leftist critics taunt him that he’s in the closet, full of self-hate. Jones’s audience is overwhelmingly conservative and features many conservative guests who would be suspected of not having high regard for the homosexual lifestyle.
However, accusations that Jones is a conservative hypocrite are not justified. He did advocate voting yes during the Marriage Law Postal Survey that led to same-sex marriage becoming legal. He supports the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras as being a signature event on the city’s calendar.
Leftists then turn to attacking the alleged indecent nature of Jones’s homosexual encounters. This was the central focus of an unauthorized biography about Jones by ABC journalist Chris Masters released in 2006 called Jonestown.
The book accuses Jones, while he was English Master at the King’s School in Parramatta in the 1970s, of perving on boys in the shower, having them in his English Master’s quarters late at night, and in what Masters claims is the incident that got Jones fired in 1973, the discovery of love letters to male students.
When Alan Jones was the Australian national rugby union team coach in 1988, while they were touring in the England, Jones was arrested and charged for ‘outraging public deceny’ in a public toilet, though Jones was never tried in court.
It is important to note that Jones has never faced court on a civil or criminal charge related to any sexual impropriety. Chris Masters’ book does not allege Jones has engaged in any sexual offence.
Therefore, the most outrageous slur from the left about Jones, that he is a pedophile, is entirely without evidence, which should be treated with contempt and considered slander of the worst kind.
Leftist Homophobia Against Jones
The left also doesn’t realize that its sexual accusations against Jones are doing the very thing the left has for years railed against, linking homosexuality with pedophilia.
Many leftists also like to reply to comments about Jones on social media by sharing the front page of Sydney’s Daily Mirror in 1988 when Jones was arrested in London.
Their shaming of Jones for his arrest contradicts what many leftist homosexual activists have said about the practise of gay men meeting in public toilets for sex, known either as cottaging or a gay beat.
Activist have said that in the era when men like Jones were arrested, many gay men were forced, due to the circumstances of that era, to meet anonymously with other men for sex – as they could still remain in the closet – and not in a residence, where they could be identified.
One might suspect they would have never sought to shame someone like the late George Michael, who in 1998 was arrested for the same act, but unlike Jones was found guilty of it by a court.
Sexual innuendo, gay jokes, speculation about repressed sexual feelings and references to Jones as a ‘bitter old Queen’, if they were said about another gay public figure, would be labelled homophobic. But because Jones is on the right and is considered ‘closeted’, it is not called out.
Many years ago, the ABC’s Youth radio station Triple J obtained leaked outtakes of Jones from his time at 2UE radio station. In reference to rumours about his sexuality, despite the network promoting LGBT programming, Triple J called the outtakes The Closet Recordings of Alan Jones.
Many comedy programs over the years, such as the Chaser and Fat Pizza, when satirizing Jones have made gay jokes about him.
Jones should be under no obligation to disclose details of his personal life, and I have already established, although he is a conservative, he is not anti-gay.
Labor strategist, media commentator and Creative Director of Campaign Edge, Dee Madigan, was one of the few leftists on social media to call out the homophobic attacks on Jones coming from her side of politics.
Our daily reminder: we can hate on Alan Jones without being homophobic.
— Dee Madigan (@deemadigan) August 15, 2019
But one leftist still could not help himself but bluster a blatant gay sexual reference about Jones in a piece of public artwork. Sydney artist Scott Marsh depicted Jones with a BDSM ball and gag around his mouth on a mural in the suburb of Chippendale.
Marsh has become known for his provocative politically charged murals in Sydney. He previously painted Tony Abbott dressed as a bride with one hand down the pants of a shirtless Cardinal George Pell after the Marriage Law Postal Survey. After George Michael died, he depicted him as a Christian saint.
Marsh claimed he drew Jones in this sexualised manner because of high demand: “I had so many, dozens of people say, ‘you have to paint Alan Jones’, so that was a big part of it.”
The mural was briefly shared by NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann on Saturday morning, but was taken down after backlash in the comments due to the gay-shaming nature of the mural.
The Greens on Jones
Speaking of the Greens, they called for a boycott of Jones’s program as well as advertiser withdrawals after his “died of shame” comments about Julia Gillard’s father in 2012.
However, after the outrage subsided, they had no qualms about using the power of Alan Jones to promote their party’s opposition to coal seam gas. Greens Senator Larissa Waters agreed to be interviewed by Jones on the issue in 2015 and did not say an ill word about Jones.
Now, in the wake of SockGate, Larissa Waters wants Jones fired.
Fire him already @macquariemedia @Ninecomau
— Larissa Waters (@larissawaters) August 15, 2019
If you believe Jones should be sacked because of his on air-content, that is a valid argument. I will still, however, disagree with that position as in the commercial media world, you should only be sacked if your ratings are terrible, not due to a campaign by people who never listen to you most of the time.
But you can make your argument without resorting to personal attacks, let alone lewd jokes about Jones’s (or anyone’s) alleged sexual life. Also, if you claim to be supportive of LGBT people and believe they should not be subjected to ridicule and shame, then it is best to always be consistent with that view.