KEY POINTS:
- An article in the AFR described two journalists for their Tik Tok accounts and agents.
- Social media users said the references were "sexist".
- The journalist's employers have issued complaints to the AFR.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Seven Network have issued formal complaints to the Australian Financial Review (AFR) over a description of its female journalists, with the ABC criticising it for being “irrelevant, incorrect and trivial”.
In an article published by the AFR on Thursday regarding a saga between Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and the Victorian media, reporter Aaron Patrick referred to a number of journalists who attended the premier’s press conference on Monday.
The description of two female journalists – ABC Victorian state political reporter Bridget Rollason and Seven Network’s Victorian state political reporter Sharnelle Vella – came under fire from many commentators on social media who said it was “sexist”.
“The ABC television’s Bridget Rollason, who has shot TikTok videos to catchy music of herself going to a gym, eating breakfast and having makeup applied; the Seven Network’s Sharnelle Vella, who has her own talent agent,” Patrick wrote in the passage.
Seven reporter Jayde Vincent tweeted the AFR could have described the two reporters as award-winning journalists, “but chose sexism and bizarre, inaccurate attempts to smear them instead”.
The Guardian’s Victorian State Correspondent Benita Kolovos also came to the duo’s defence.
Some questioned why the male reporters mentioned in the paragraph didn’t get the same treatment.
“I wonder why the columnist didn't take a ridiculous swipe at his male colleague, like he did Bridget and Sharni,” journalist Luke Costin tweeted.
Rollason said the reference to her was incorrect and questioned its relevancy.
The ABC said it had issued a complaint to the AFR and Patrick, describing the reference as “irrelevant, incorrect and trivialising”.
Vella also announced that her employer had issued a complaint to the publication.
In a statement to SBS News, the AFR said the publication had deleted the descriptions of the pair, but stood by the story as a whole.
"The claims about the journalists contained in Aaron Patrick's report have been deleted from the online story," AFR editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury said.
"The claims detracted from what was an otherwise well-written piece,"
