As many readers now know from media reports, at the end of last week we ended our relationship with Guy Rundle. His writing will no longer appear in Crikey.
Guy has been a central part of Crikey’s success over the more than 15 years he has been writing for us. While he was never an employee, we know he had a strong following among our subscribers. At Crikey we regularly criticise other outlets for not being open about their internal machinations, so for both these reasons we wanted to explain (as much as we can) what led to the decision.
On Thursday we learnt that Rundle had texted ABC radio’s RN Breakfast that morning to comment on an earlier interview on the program with the Queensland Sexual Assault Network’s executive officer Angela Lynch about the dramatic increase over the past decade of sexual assault offences in Queensland. Rundle’s comment — which was read out on air by program presenter Patricia Karvelas — described the interview as “soft” and added: “It’s because every grope is now a sexual assault and people don’t believe policy people”. It has also been widely reported that Rundle’s comment was one of many sent to the program over a period of months.
Crikey should be a home for controversial views. And part of that is accepting that sometimes our writers, editors and contributors will make the wrong call.
But there are limits.
Even if it was not his intent, the suggestion that groping is somehow not sexual assault is something that should not be acceptable in modern society. It was made outside of Crikey, and had nothing to do with the editorial team (which is why I am writing this, not one of our editors). But it is an egregious statement, and it is one that we don’t want to be associated with, in any form. As a result, our working relationship is no longer tenable. We’re proud of much of his work. We wish him well. But we will no longer be publishing Rundle.
