The ABC has apologised to News Corp commentator Andrew Bolt after a Q&A panellist accused him of "racial abuse".
In a discussion about racial discrimination laws last Monday night, indigenous academic Marcia Langton accused Bolt of heaping "foul abuse" on indigenous woman Misty Jenkins, forcing her to withdraw from public life.
Her comments stemmed from newspaper articles Bolt wrote that questioned whether "fair-skinned" people who identified as Aboriginal, such as Ms Jenkins, had exploited their ancestry to make political or career gains.
"Nothing that he said about her was political. It was simply racial abuse," Professor Langton said on the program.
"He argued that she had no right to claim that she was Aboriginal and, like most fools who put this argument in public, we are expected to deny our parents and our grandparents because somebody believes in race theories."
Bolt wrote in a blog that he was "devastated" by the comments.
Professor Langton later apologised to Bolt in an interview with him and broadcaster Steve Price on 2GB, saying that although she does not think Bolt is racist, "he's playing with racist ideas — he goes too far to the line".
Bolt published a transcript of the interview in his blog and called on the ABC to respond.
Last night on Q&A the ABC issued an apology through host Tony Jones, who said that Professor Langton had publicly apologised "so as a result the ABC also apologises for broadcasting her remarks".
But the apology was not enough for Bolt who said it "did not go far enough".
The columnist criticised the apology for "failing to include a specific acknowledgement that claims I'd subjected Dr Misty Jenkins to "foul abuse" and driven her from "public life" were utterly false. "
"But it is a start," Bolt said.
In September 2011 a Federal Court judge found that Bolt breached a section of the Racial Discrimination Act by writing newspaper opinion pieces about "fair-skinned" indigenous people.
The section, which the federal government has pledged to repeal, protects people from "offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin."
The judge ruled the offending articles were not covered by the legal exemption for making fair comment in good faith, because they "contained errors of fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language".
From Here
God it's wonder Tony Jones didn't choke on that apology, lol.
Some interesting comments there down to the right.
