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Sacked reporter taking legal action against SBS

Scott McIntyre, who was fired by SBS after tweets on ANZAC Day is pursuing an unfair dismissal case.

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Scott McIntyre, who was fired by SBS after tweets on ANZAC Day is pursuing an unfair dismissal case against the broadcaster.

Last month McIntyre sent out tweets which managing director Michael Ebeid said had caused his on-air position to become untenable.

BuzzFeed reports law firm Maurice Blackburn filed the discrimination claim on behalf of McIntyre today.

“The case is not about whether Mr McIntyre’s opinions are correct or not. It will focus on whether the views expressed by Mr McIntyre constituted political opinion and whether SBS terminated his employment for expressing these views,” it said in a statement.

“It is alleged SBS took action without a proper investigation and consideration of all relevant issues. It will be contended that Mr McIntyre had an unblemished work record and if a proper process had been followed, he would still be employed in his chosen career.”

8 Responses

  1. McIntyre is digging himself into a deeper hole here. What media outlet would want to risk employing him after all this? McIntyre just has to move on with his life and not drag this out as it only defames him more.

  2. He was dismissed over the weekend for using his personal twitter account without any warning. Fair work has ruled much worse offences don’t constitute grounds for dismissal. He has a right to challenge his dismissal same as any employee.

    SBS also ran an old documentary narrated by Jack Thompson questioning the nature of ANZAC Day a couple of days before. So why can SBS fire him for expressing similar political opinions to what they broadcast?

    There’s also the question of how people who attacked and threatened McIntyre (those tweets were never published) can demand he be fired for offending them. Especially if he directed the tweet at a the actions of certain group of people, if you aren’t one of them how can be offended and if you are then isn’t he correct?

    There’s a lot of case law to be determined in these matters. It will be an interesting and important case.

    1. The doco was a contextual discussion about the merits of war. Sam Neill did similar on ABC, but I suspect none levelled the same extreme opinions as his 140 characters, so therein lays the difference. Essentially it’s about whether he breached employer code of conduct, but I have no problem in his right for his case to be heard.

  3. Michael Ebeid was right. The nature and timing of his highly offensive and insensitive remarks made McIntyre’s position at SBS untenable. I think McIntyre made the mistake of believing that because he was on the telly that people would see some validity in his opinion. Epic fail, Mr McIntyre, epic fail.

    2. McIntyre hasn’t got a leg to stand on. He richly deserved his sacking because he failed miserably to use the stock weapon in any journo or presenter’s kit, the disclaimer – “the view expressed are my own and not necessarily those of this station”. If he’d have said that in his tweet, before or after his comments, he’d have saved himself a bit of grief.

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