SMH editor Bevan Shields says sorry for strike ‘stuff-up’
The editor of the Sydney Morning Herald has issued a lengthy public apology over his call to label a rail shutdown ‘a strike’.
The editor of the Sydney Morning Herald has issued a lengthy public apology to the newspaper’s subscribers, after insisting that the NSW government’s recent decision to halt the city’s train network was a “strike” rather than a “shutdown”.
Bevan Shields — who took over as the masthead’s editor in January — was left red-faced on February 21 when messages were leaked from the SMH newsroom’s internal chat group, revealing his curt instruction to staff to describe the government shutdown as a “strike”, despite several staff pointing out his error.
Shields’ mistake drew heavy criticism on social media, including posts from SMH readers who expressed concern that such “mischaracterising” of political events was damaging the newspaper’s integrity.
On Friday, in his regular email to SMH subscribers, Shields acknowledged his “stuff-up”, and also expressed regret over the failure to run an immediate correction to the online news story.
Shield wrote: “Last Monday, Sydney’s train network stopped running as part of a continuing industrial dispute between the NSW government and NSW Rail, Tram and Bus Union.
“During a discussion with reporters, I decided we would use the word ‘strike’ to describe the unfolding event.
“Some reporters argued on Monday morning we should not call it a strike.
“I wasn’t alone in settling on that word – the ABC, Seven, Nine and Ten also used ‘strike’ throughout the morning.
“But this was not a strike and I take little comfort in the fact others used the same word. “Once it became clear the government was responsible for the chaos – not the union – we stopped using the word strike and shifted to ‘shutdown’.”
Some commentators have recently suggested that the political direction of the masthead — which is owned by Nine Entertainment, of which former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello is the chairman — is gradually moving away from its traditional left-leaning sensibilities.
In his letter on Friday, Shields indirectly addressed those claims.
“Some critics have tried to portray the use of the word ‘strike’ as some kind of conspiracy but this was simply a stuff-up, which was later corrected,” he wrote.
“Any assessment of our coverage over the following hours and days would detect no sign of anti-union bias.”
Shields also accepted responsibility for the SMH’s failure to correct the record in a timely manner.
“Compounding the initial error last Monday was a failure to ask for a correction to be placed at the bottom of our blog and online news story, noting we had wrongly labelled the shutdown a strike on Monday morning. This was an oversight on my behalf,” he said.
Earlier this week SMH investigative journalist Kate McClymont took to Twitter to defend Shields.
“Can I ask that people please give @BevanShields a decent go. He’s only been in the job a couple of weeks,” McClymont posted.
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