From: Adam Gibbons On Behalf Of Reader Services
Sent: Wednesday, 30 March 2005 2:36 PM
To: Gavin Dixon
Subject: RE: Danny Katz sacking

Dear Gavin

Thank you for taking the time to contact The Age.
Danny Katz has not been sacked. His Metro column has been discontinued.

The Age is looking at expanding Danny’s profile so expect to read more from Danny in the next week or two.

regards

Adam Gibbons




Another Crikey read Margaret Bozik writes:

Please tell me this isn’t true? I’ve just heard Danny Katz has got the flick. His is the one column I really look forward to in The Age each week! Not all of us are totally serious; we like his sarcastic sense of humour. Sarcasm is very important in Australia.

In
case you hadn’t noticed, we can all get the news far quicker through
the radio and internet than through a daily paper. If you sack all the
good columnists, there’s no reason to buy The Age.

And Kerry Crompton sent this letter to beleaguered Age editor Andrew Jaspan:

I write in dismay at learning of the apparent dismissal of your regular columnist, Danny Katz.

As a subscriber to The Age
I look forward to a regular intake of Danny’s offbeat and light-hearted
humour. His two columns provide a bi-weekly tongue-in-cheek set of
considerations from the daily diet of corporate feast, world famine,
and political flatulence served up by your newspaper.

If the
news is true that you consider Danny’s services to be (and I simply
postulate) “excess to requirement”, “no longer relevant”, or his column
“not in line with editorial direction”, I ask you to please reconsider.

Rumour has it that you were distressed by a recent column line
indicating that writing for newspapers is akin to delivering garbage
with a pointed quill; ‘It’s easy lounging around all day writing
nonsense for newspapers’. That’s funny. The irony is that some
journalists and reporters do this on a multiple daily basis. News is
dished up without any real analysis to see if it is accurate. Opinions
are expressed without rudimentary critical analysis. It is work that is
printed and no-one considers it to be funny. But it is. Satirists like
Danny Katz spot these inconsistencies and turn them into humorous
dissertations.

It is disappointing and indeed regrettable that
many individuals are unable to have their belief set or personal
position challenged. Publicly. I hope sir that you are not one of those
individuals. My request is that you reconsider whatever criteria were
used to determine Danny Katz’s untimely demise. Please ensure that in
spaying your breed that this is not the second unkindest cut of his
life.

Yours sincerely, Kerry Crompton