Seven Sharp host Jesse Mulligan went too far, the BSA says. Seven Sharp has been ordered to apologise to Colin Craig, for making fun of him in a way the broadcasting watchdog believes was "personal abuse masquerading as satire". The Broadcasting Standards Authority says the mocking went too far in a Jesse Mulligan skit How to Make Fun of Colin Craig, where he said: “Firstly, the best defence is truth. If I tell you that Colin Craig said ‘being gay is a choice’ or that he thinks ‘being abused as a child can turn you gay’, well I can’t get in trouble because he did. “I am also safe from the lawyers if I just state my opinion. ‘I think Colin Craig is a nutcase’; ‘I feel Colin Craig is a doofus’; ‘I believe Colin Craig is a smarmy rich prick’. As long as that is my opinion – and I can tell you it bloody well is – I should be safe from the lawyers. “Now remember, people, defamation cases can be expensive – if you’re not sure, just don’t say it. So let me be very clear, Colin Craig does not wear women’s clothing; Colin Craig does not drown puppies for fun; Colin Craig is totally not a gay man. It seems to me he just really loves to talk about them.” The Authority has ruled the comments about Craig being a “doofus,” and a “smarmy rich prick” had no bearing on Colin Craig’s political views and “were simply personal abuse masquerading as satire”. “The comments, combined with [Ali] Mau’s introductory statement that ‘most of us would like to have a go at Colin Craig’, the concluding remarks from Ms Mau and Mr Boyed about Colin Craig lacking a sense of humour, and the laughter from all three presenters, turned the item into a sustained personal attack against Colin Craig that was childish and unfair, in circumstances where he had no chance to defend himself,” it says. However it ruled a statement by Greg Boyed in an earlier programme about Craig and his cohorts’ views on marriage equality was genuine satire and not unfair. Boyed said: “a year from today when the world hasn’t come to an end and there isn’t a plague of locusts, and the North and South Islands aren’t sinking, I want them to come out and say, “you know what, we’re a bunch of ill-informed bum barnacles, we don’t know what we’re talking about, and we were wrong”. TVNZ has been ordered to broadcast an apology to Craig for unfair treatment and pay $1500 costs to the Crown.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 17th December 2013 - 9:54am