Our (possibly, but we can’t prove it) worst columnist

To use the language of the tabloids, this week’s column by the Herald Sun’s Alan Howe was a stinker. It repeated the paper’s vilification of a convicted woman and it did so in a cowardly manner, taking full advantage of the clout of News Limited to attack someone who it knows will never sue.

Kylie Eastwood is no angel as her charge sheet will attest, having been in and out of the courts for a range of offences. Her most recent crime was giving her five-year-old son so much alcohol he was hospitalised with a reading of .09.

For this she was given a five-month jail sentence suspended for two years.

Maybe she got off lightly? Maybe the magistrate weighed up the evidence and made a very tough decision in the interests of her children? I dunno, I wasn’t in the court. Whatever the truth though, she certainly didn’t deserve what came next, the avalanche of bile from the crusading Alan Howe.

Howe has a problem with certain members of the judiciary and magistrates who, in his mind, are neglecting their duty of slapping hefty prison terms on offenders.

He believes that Victorian magistrate, Clive Alsop, is the worst. He says he is attention seeking and overly lenient and should consider disqualifying himself from cases.

Eastwood got caught up in this on Monday. Perhaps Howe couldn’t resist some mildly clever alliteration when he wrote:

“I wonder if former Moe drunk Kylie Eastwood, our worst mum, appeared before our worst magistrate last week.”

This was an advance on the headline in the Herald Sun the previous Wednesday, which detailed Eastwood’s offences and asked, without a question mark:

“Does this make her OUR WORST MUM”

When you think about it, Howe’s statement that she IS our worst mum means he is claiming that Eastwood is worse than every other mother in prison or just out of prison, or about to go into prison in the state. She is worse than all the women known to the child protection agencies and anyone who is abusive, neglectful or just plain bad.

Mercifully, there probably aren’t many of these women, but how does Howe know she is the worst?

I wanted to find out. I also wanted to know why the paper felt so justified in defaming her in this way.

So I joined the paper’s live blog on the day of publication, where I confess, the writing was fast and furious and my normal quota of typos doubled:

The Herald Sun clearly defamed the woman, to suggest otherwise is crazy. The issue is whether it has a defence to justify that defamation.

While it is certainly true that someone needs to have a reputation to mount a case for defamation, it is not so clear cut when the media accuses someone who is actually a child abuser of being worse than a child murderer.

If Ms Eastwood were to sue, the paper would probably first argue she has no reputation to defend and then plead the “honest opinion” defence. Importantly though the burden would fall on the paper to argue that she is worse than all the other mothers of Victoria. And that’s damn near impossible.

Our discussion continued:

Is it just me or does this read as a dissembling argument? To prop up his case, Howe is forced to effectively defend the woman in Victoria who have murdered children as mentally impaired, and therefore not worse than the woman he has called “our worst mum”.

But wait on, he’s saying that there’s “mostly” evidence of mental impairment. This means that not all are mentally impaired. Oh dear, one of those murderers may be sane. How is he going to defend them?

Throw-away comments have consequences. In this case, calling her our worst mum is probably wrong. It is certainly defamatory and I reckon it is lousy journalism.

It would be like me saying Howe is “our worst columnist”. He may be, but I’d never say such a thing because I can’t prove it, particularly when he’s got so much competition.