After a torrent of abuse, Jess Rowe deleted her interview with Pauline Hanson. It shouldn't have done that, but it shouldn't have, writes Joe Hildebrand.
According to this week's news, the planet is boiling, China is invading, and the NRL grand finale is about to go down in football history by becoming a Covid-19 superpreader event.
So I was very relieved to find out on social media that, in fact, the biggest threat to civilization was that Jessica Rowe had done a podcast with Pauline Hanson.
This, of course, followed other existential threats to humanity, including ABC breakfast host Lisa Millar dared to be born to a Nationals deputy and Bachelorette party Georgia Love making a joke about a restaurant.
Such things, of course, cause hostility and division in society, which is why Rowe had to delete his interview, Millar had to be bullied from Twitter, and Love had to be taken off the air. It is a small price to pay for tolerance.
And, of course, it's a great way to attract people to your cause. After all, what better way to build a growing consensus than to harass anyone who accidentally falls into the trap of the latest rolling software update.
There have been countless farcical examples of this boring marauder puritanism, but Jess Rowe's public denunciation is without a doubt the most mind-boggling height of hypocrisy.
For one thing, there is probably no one more thoroughly politically correct in Australian public life than Rowe. Your entire purpose on the planet is to avoid offending people.
I know this because I sat next to him for years. Study 10 and his always positive and understanding approach towards almost everyone he met used to make me cry.
Our discussions on the show were frequent and sometimes fierce, initially because I thought she was the same kind of pontifical modern puritan who has now turned against her.
In fact, it was just her as a person, and I was surprised to find that she was personally upset by some of our previous fights on screen. I assumed it was all theater, but she really felt it.
In short, he is a sensitive soul. She stood on tiptoe on eggshells for a thousand years to avoid making a chicken uncomfortable.
It's also a weird combination of witty and weirdly naive. She once told me a story of how a Green campaign worker verbally approached her while handing out voting cards for a friend who was running for independent.
Needless to say, I was surprised that a green could be so bad. Needless to say, it wasn't.
The irony, of course, is that Jess was a Green supporter prior to that incident. If it was later, I don't know. Knowing her, she probably told herself that he must have had a bad day.
But it clearly upset her, and if that was enough to upset her, then you can only imagine how this week's ugly pile made her feel.
No wonder he quickly issued a humiliating mea culpa and deleted the podcast. She shouldn't have done that but, again, she shouldn't have had to.
Like Lisa Millar and Georgia Love, the social media mob relentlessly invaded her until she capitulated and offered them what they wanted. It is a strange but now common ritual of online waterboarding.
As for Pauline Hanson's politics, I don't have time for her crazy insanity. I have discussed and debunked their views in almost every medium imaginable, including this week on 2GB and 4BC. There is no doubt that he has spent much of his public life perpetuating baseless crap and hateful ideas.
But the same charge cannot be made against someone who interviews her in an effort to understand who she is or the experiences that created her. That would be an attack on the fundamental premise of journalism itself.
Indeed, former Labor MP Kate Ellis explored Hanson's experiences as a woman politician both intimately and extensively in her excellent book. Sex, lies and question time and he suffered not one iota of the abuse and condemnation Rowe was subjected to.
The tolerant left talks a lot about perpetuating hatred. They are also quite good at doing it themselves.
