Posted October 23, 2024
Anyone who has met Andrew Bayly for an extended period knows he would never intentionally offend anyone. By reading all of the information available on this issue, it’s abundantly clear he was using friendly banter that was surprisingly misunderstood.
This does bring up an important point related to the news media. If you know TV reporters are gunning for you, don’t give them the exact quote they want for their pre-planned story angle. If you saw either TV news programme at 6pm last night, you will have seen an exchange in Parliament where Bayly responded to the question: “Did he call the worker a loser?” with the answer: “Yes.” Then: “Did he hold up the shape of an L on his forehead?” with “Yes” again. This made it look like he was admitting to being a bully.
However, if you saw Parliament live or the subsequent Hansard, his answer to the first question was: “Yes. I was wrong, but I intended the comments in a light-hearted manner; unfortunately, it has caused hurt and offence, and for that reason I've apologised unreservedly to the individual.”
His answer to the second question was: “Again, yes, I did; but again, it was in the spirit of comments made in a light-hearted manner, and that is why I have apologised unreservedly to the individual.”
It was clear from the beginning that most media were after blood and wanted to portray Bayly as a bully. In these situations, Parliamentary Question Time being a prime example, you need to be extremely careful how you answer questions because the media are always going to pull snippets for their stories and only ones that suit their chosen angle.
This is why rather than saying: “Yes” to these questions before following up with more information that will probably be ignored, you need to incorporate the ‘Yes’ into a sentence that would need to be used in its entirety. For example, responding to the question: “Did he call the worker a loser?” he could have said something (that would be pre-planned) like: “Only in the context of what was intended to be light hearted banter.”
Then his argument would have been quoted and this would have balanced up the story in some small way. This is a common mistake made in Parliament and many other sectors where spokespeople front media when the stakes are high.
