Martin Devlin: 'I have missed the mark'
Monday, 11 February 2019
Radio Sport has apologised after its host hit out at a journalist for taking a banner advocating for sexual consent to a Black Caps game.
Host Martin Devlin called the journalist 'the lowest form of life' during a heated on-air rant on Saturday.
The director of Help in Auckland, an agency that works with victims of sexual assault, said Devlin's comments were harmful and concerning.
The target of his rant was Spinoff journalist Madeleine Chapman, who took a banner to the cricket on Friday night in protest against NZ Cricket's heavily criticised decision to include Scott Kuggeleijn in the Black Caps squad.
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Kuggeleijn faced two trials in 2016 and 2017, on charges of raping a woman in a Hamilton East flat in 2015. The first jury was undecided and the second found him not guilty.
NZ Cricket was further criticised for its 'shameful silence' around issues of sexual assault and consent, after Kuggeleijn was included in the squad. Stuff national correspondent Michelle Duff highlighted the issue, taking aim at the sporting community which she said had supported Kuggeleijn without question.
'Sports journalists seem to have collective amnesia about the events of 2016 and 2017 entirely,' she said.
On Saturday, Devlin accused Chapman of 'manufacturing news'. He repeatedly said: 'Get over yourself!'
He said: 'What she did was dickheadish, that's what it was.'
He belittled her career as a writer and journalist, telling colleague Jim Kayes that Chapman was 'not a journalist'. He said she was 'a disgrace to the profession'.
'Have your little 15 minutes of Twitter whatever fame that you think you have the rest of us think you're a dork,' he said.
He also questioned if Chapman, or anyone, should be advocating for consent.
'Hope you've got no skeletons rattling away there, love,' he said, before admitting: 'That's patronising of me.'
Radio Sport owner NZME issued an apology on Monday. It said Devlin was wrong to call Chapman the 'chick from the Spinoff' and 'dickheadish'.
In a statement, Devlin defended his comments as 'satire'.
'I have missed the mark with my satire but I'm always learning,' he said.
NZME said he 'crossed the line'.
'There is a fine line between making a point - and the way that point is made. Our talkback hosts are encouraged to provoke conversation and discussion,' it said.
Chapman declined to comment further.
Spinoff editor Toby Manhire said Devlin's tirade was 'performance art'.
'Surely he wouldn't seriously have a go, before an audience of many thousand 'young guys into their sport', at a young woman journalist expressing a principled opinion on the subject of sexual consent by calling her 'that chick',' Manhire said.
Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation director Kathryn McPhillips said Devlin's 'satire' sent a harmful message to victims of assault.
'When you've been sexually assaulted you want to see society change, you want to think this is not going to happen to other people. The more you see people doing things that will lessen the likelihood of it happening to other people, the better.'
She said it was important for people such as Chapman to bring discussions about sexual assault and consent into sporting arenas.
People everywhere, but especially those in high power positions such as sport stars, needed to have a clear understanding of consent, she said.
Chapman's sign said: ''Wait' is not 'yes' between the wicket or between the sheet.'
In clear criticism of NZ Cricket's response to Kuggeleijn's inclusion in the team, the sign finished with the footnote: '(Should be brought to you by NZ Cricket)'
NZ Cricket public affairs manager Richard Boock said the organisation had taken positive steps since the trials to address the way they induct professional players into the game.
Its steps included a handout about 'good decision-making' and an induction course about sexual harassment and consent, he said.