Although John Laws left 2UE a year ago, he is still costing them money. This week the current management, Fairfax, have agreed to pay $130,000 in penalties having been found guilty by ACMA of “allowing” Laws 13 times to broadcast comments about organisations with which he (not necessarily the station) had a commercial agreement while failing to disclose that fact to his audience. The irony is that Fairfax didn’t even own the station for most of the time that the offences took place. The greater irony is that Laws made more profit from the platform 2UE provided him than 2UE made from Laws. Yet he is not held accountable for his own actions – the station is.
In a statement, ACMA Chairman, Chris Chapman, said, “ACMA —and the Australian Broadcasting Authority before it— has emphasised in previous findings against 2UE that the obligation to comply with program standards lies with the licensee itself; in fact it goes to the heart of a licensee’s obligations.”
Read the full text of the ACMA statement.
Well, he makes the rules and them’s the rules. But are they fair? Surely the announcer has to take some responsibility. It’s not as if Laws didn’t know the rules. He had his bell with which to mock the legislators. Did he just forget to ring it – 13 times?
While Laws is in blissful retirement, struggling with weighty decisions such as whether to take the Rolls or drive the Bentley, 2UE struggles to make a profit and is cutting staff and wages rather than increasing them. $130k in this economic climate is not easy to find.
On the other hand, no other announcers make the kind of money Laws did and Alan Jones does. And perhaps that’s why few others dare to risk their jobs over a “cash for comment” incident.
What say you? Where should the onus lie – with the announcer or with the station?
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