SEN boss’s Nazi image claim ‘disappointing’, says Lalor

Cricket writer Peter Lalor has described SEN chief Craig Hutchison’s references to the journalist’s reposting of memes featuring “Nazi-related imagery” in explaining his axing from the station as “misleading” and “disappointing”.

In his first public comments since the storm erupted last week, Hutchison on Tuesday said Lalor, formerly The Australian’s chief cricket writer, had breached SEN’s social media policy with his posts on the war in Gaza, which he claimed had offended the station’s listeners.

Cricket journalist Peter Lalor (left) and SEN chief Craig Hutchison.Credit: Nine

“At the start of the series, near and overlapping the series, some of his recent republication on social media platform X offended some of our audience,” Hutchison said on The Sounding Board podcast on which he appears with senior football journalist Damian Barrett.

“That ranged from Gaza-related content but also retweets of memes featuring Nazi-related imagery that was unrelated to the conflict in Gaza, and some other things.

“On the eve of the Test, we got some feedback from the audience.”

When pushed by Barrett as to what the Nazi-related imagery he was referring to, Hutchison said: “There was a range of retweeting that caused some offence to our audience at the time, on varied topics.”

Lalor has been critical of Israel for its response to the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas that killed 1200 people in 2023. He recently reposted images featuring tech billionaire Elon Musk and the swastika that appeared to be a parody of Musk, who was accused of making a Nazi salute last month.

“The implication he makes in the podcast is misleading and disappointing,” Lalor told this masthead on Tuesday.

Hutchison did not return calls or messages from this masthead regarding Lalor’s response.

Hutchison had said earlier on The Sounding Board he stood by his controversial decision to remove Lalor – who writes on his website, Cricket Et Al, and also appeared on Channel Seven’s broadcast – from SEN’s coverage of the Test series in Sri Lanka.

Hutchison said his aspiration for the sports station to remain apolitical did not meet with Lalor’s desire to continue commenting on social and political issues beyond sport.

“In our discussions, Pete communicated to me he wasn’t necessarily surprised he drew attention, that he was unwilling to change his use of social media,” Hutchison said.

“I’m not here to dissuade him from his approach. He’s a very respected journalist, he’s left News Ltd, he’s his own man. But he had articulated that would be ongoing for him. It was on that feedback, looking at it through our policy and values, the path forward was to part ways.

“Our cricket, what I want it to be is a place we pride ourselves on all nationalities, celebrate all cultures. It’s not a place where I want it to be politicised or ostracised.”

Under SEN’s social media policy, Hutchison said employees had to use platforms in a “respectful and responsible manner, refraining from acting in a manner that brings SEN into disrepute or impacts our good standing and reputation, prohibiting the use of offensive or inappropriate content”.

Part-owner John Rothfield, known as Dr Turf, said last week he backed Hutchison’s decision but was not consulted.

“I can tell you that I had no discussion with him over that issue, but I support it because of the commercial responsibility to advertisers and shareholders,” Rothfield told this masthead. “It’s naive for [Lalor] to tweet like that with limited balance.”

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