Witches and giants: The fight for 2GB
Rowdy online activist groups think they’ve found a way to pester Alan Jones off the air, but the radio king has other ideas, write Matthew Benns and Edward Boyd.
NSW
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Online troll campaigns aimed at advertisers on Alan Jones’ breakfast radio program made headline news this week, but a deeper investigation reveals the power of these groups is really only click-deep.
And as questions grow around the identity and size of online pressure groups such as Sleeping Giants, advertisers are pushing back at anonymous campaigns that see them harassed by activists who in some cases don’t even live where their products are sold.
Retailer Gerry Harvey has joined the chorus of businesses taking aim at the social media campaign urging advertisers on Alan Jones’ show to withdraw their cash in the wake of the host’s comments about NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Harvey has hit out at companies who have jumped ship, saying to do so was “fundamentally wrong”. Instead, Harvey Norman is among companies who will continue to advertise with 2GB despite Jones’ remark New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern should have a sock “shoved down her throat”. Jones (below) has apologised directly to Ardern.
A social media campaign by troll groups such as Sleeping Giants has been publicly shaming companies who advertise on Jones’ show.
Mr Harvey said “minority groups” like these were deliberately targeting his brand and others to “try and make a name for themselves”.
“Then you get people that go out there and cancel their advertising, without me mentioning names of people who have cancelled, they might have done it to boost their own brand,” he said.
“They think — oh, here’s an opportunity for us make a statement on it as if we’re really nice people — and then they go back again a week or a month or sometime later, to renegotiate (their advertising deal),” he said. “I think its fundamentally wrong. It needs to be called out.”
Garlo’s Pies will also continue advertising. “We’ve received some correspondence from people out there that have expressed their view, a lot them aren’t even from NSW and Queensland, where we pretty much sell our products,” CEO Sean Garlick said.
“If they’ve got an issue with Alan Jones and 2GB they should be taking that up with Alan Jones and 2GB. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that just because we advertise we necessarily support the views of any particular broadcaster.”
One advertiser who ceased advertising this week said the social media backlash had been “intense”, forcing them to pull the pin.
“We were getting bullied by all these people hiding behind their keyboards. I don’t think many of them would have the courage to actually call us and make a complaint,” the advertiser said.
Toil and trouble
The online outrage was also stoked by a Facebook group called Mad F***ing Witches, which was set up in 2016 to call out sexism in Australian society. The group has published lists of Jones’ advertisers and urged its thousands of followers to contact them.
Jones pointed out that he had already apologised for his comments. “My comments were metaphorical comments,” he said.
“And if my comments cause offence to someone I always apologise for that.”
Macquarie Media chairman Russell Tate kept Jones on air but issued a rebuke: “Notwithstanding his apologies, I have today discussed the matter with Alan and advised him that any recurrence of commentary of this nature will result in the termination of his contract,” he said.
There has been no love lost between Jones and Macquarie Media management, who had drawn-out negotiations to re-sign him for months.
It was only at the instigation of minority shareholder John Singleton that the $8 million deal was finally inked in May. The deal was done to secure the value of the radio network ahead of majority shareholder Nine Entertainment’s bid to buy Singleton out.
That offer to take full control came last week — but whether the shares are still worth the $114 million is debatable with a raft of businesses pulling their ads. Or, if the bosses get what appears to be their long-term ambition, and dump their biggest star.
Nine Entertainment boss Hugh Marks was unfazed by the controversy. “I heard Alan apologise for what he said on the Ben Fordham show. I was listening and heard it to air and I think he recognises that this kind of thing could be done better, and I think that’s just the world that we live in these days and we all need to be better at what we do,” he said.
Bed time stories
One advertiser which said it had pulled its ads, mattress brand Koala, tweeted, “Koala has cut ties with Alan Jones. We’re a significant buyer in the medium, and it’s something we should have done earlier. Climate change is real, violence against women starts with words and the bloke has had too many chances. @2GB873 time to wake up.”
However, it later emerged the brand had actually stopped advertising three weeks earlier after Jones refused to do live reads that encouraged people to take sick days from work and stay in bed.
Koala had been targeted by a cyber-trolling campaign from Sleeping Giants. The advertisers were bombarded by thousands of angry emails threatening to pull their business unless they stopped advertising on Jones’ show.
Many advertisers caved in to the online bullying — only to find Jones’ supporters, the people they were trying to reach by advertising on his show, threatening to stop buying their products.
A story on The Australian website about Koala’s decision attracted 71 comments within hours. The common theme was that the readers would no longer be buying Koala mattresses. The advertisers were caught between howling outrage on the left and resolute people power on the right.
Giants … or dwarfs?
Advertisers may have caved too early. Analysis of a Sleeping Giants attack on Sky News advertisers earlier this year found less than 200 individual accounts make up more than half the tweets in Sleeping Giant campaigns.
The analysis by Brandwatch found that 70 per cent of those accounts were anonymous — so it is impossible to tell if they are real or fake. Between January 1 and February 21 this year 43 per cent of all the Sleeping Giants tweets were found to have come from an academic, Andrew Priest, at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia.
Jones is calm about advertisers walking out. “They can make their own judgment if they go. There will be others that take their place,” he said.
And while he has apologised for his comments he is also happy that most women understand him.
“I don’t go around pumping up my own tyres, but on my desk in the last 48 hours have been letters from people whom I have helped infinitely — women — more than my critics,” he said.
The reaction has been condemned by legendary 2UE and 2GB program director John Brennan who said: “The radio world has gone mad.”
He warned Macquarie’s bosses to be careful before silencing Jones: “Alan Jones is bigger than the brand. Wake up to that fact. The station too shouldn’t be Labor or Liberal. We should be shouting we’re Australians. That is how we see the news. That is our edge. Many won’t be satisfied until all conservative voices are silenced throughout the Macquarie Network.”
Jacinda Ardern broke her silence on the subject this week with a gentle sledge at Jones, who coached the Wallabies from 1984 to 1988.
“I understand that he, of course, used to be closely linked to the Wallabies, so let’s just say I think that revenge is best served through a Bledisloe Cup,” she said.