Triple J host forced to apologise
RADIO station Triple J has told The AJN it is open to breakfast show host Tom Ballard visiting the Sydney Jewish Museum after he was forced to apologise for a tasteless Holocaust-themed joke last week.
RADIO station Triple J has told The AJN it is open to breakfast show host Tom Ballard visiting the Sydney Jewish Museum after he was forced to apologise for a tasteless Holocaust-themed joke last week.
During the Tom and Alex breakfast show last Thursday, Ballard and co-host Alex Dyson played a game called “Six Degrees of Hitleration”, in which listeners had to call in and link a random topic to Adolf Hitler.
Ballard made a joke during the segment linking wind farms to Hitler saying, “Wind farms, fan-forced ovens, let’s not go there.”
The joke prompted a barrage of criticism on Facebook and Twitter, as well as drawing the ire of the director of the Centre for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Melbourne, Dvir Abramovich, who penned a column in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age blasting the segment.
Ballard initially responded to an irate tweeter with “Dude, if you don’t like the show, just don’t listen”, but later retracted the joke.
“I never set out to vindictively offend or belittle anyone or any group with my comedy, that’s not what I’m about. I sincerely apologise that’s how I came across in this instance,” he said.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff said while the apology is welcome, the incident pointed to “appalling ignorance” of what occurred during the Holocaust and how easily thoughtless comments can cause both offence and harm.
“An offer is being extended for Mr Ballard to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum,” he said.
Triple J manager Chris Scaddan told The AJN the station would be open to such an invitation. “We very much regret that this happened on air and it was a supreme lack of judgement,” he said. “It was out of character for him to behave that way. I think he’s learnt a lot in the last couple of days. He’s a young guy but he’s a good person and if the invitation is there, we’ll definitely put it to him.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) executive director Peter Wertheim said the incident was part of a bigger problem. “I am far less interested in Tom Ballard and his weasel words of apology than in the broader problem of racism, which is increasingly becoming socially acceptable, especially when it is directed against Jews,” he said.
“The federal government is about to launch a National Anti-Racism Strategy, which I applaud, but at the same time it is using public funds to pay the salary of an alleged comedian who lacks the imagination to get a laugh other than by mocking the victims of the Holocaust.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
Triple J breakfast host Tom Ballard.
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