Ah, Women in Media Australia, the organisation that claims to champion gender equity, leadership, and workplace safety for women in journalism—unless, of course, you happen to be a woman of colour who was unceremoniously booted from the national broadcaster under highly dubious circumstances. Then, you’re on your own.
In a stunning display of strategic incompetence, Women in Media has announced that Ita Buttrose will headline its upcoming fundraising event on March 18. Yes, the same Ita Buttrose whose recent court testimony in Antoinette Lattouf’s unlawful dismissal case was so damning it could be mistaken for satire.
The event, meant to raise funds for gender equity and workplace safety, is now a masterclass in irony.
Let’s recap. In court, Buttrose’s emails were revealed to show her gleefully forwarding messages celebrating Lattouf’s removal from ABC radio to managing director David Anderson with the remark, “It’s nice to get congratulatory emails.”
She also floated the idea that Lattouf could conveniently come down with the flu, Covid, or a stomach bug—a suggestion she later tried to pass off as a ‘face-saving idea.’ Because nothing says mentorship quite like plotting someone’s abrupt disappearance from the airwaves.
Women in Media’s decision to fawn over Buttrose has ignited outrage, and rightfully so. Social media users have called it “tone-deaf,” “a slap in the face,” and “absolute peak white feminism.” Others have been more succinct: “A sincere f*** you.”
When an organisation supposedly dedicated to gender equity rewards a woman implicated in the silencing of a respected journalist, it becomes painfully clear whose voices they prioritise—and whose they don’t.
The scandal goes beyond mere optics. It’s about systemic bias in an industry that loves to pat itself on the back for performative inclusivity while pulling the rug out from under women of colour the moment they become inconvenient.
Lattouf’s case has exposed deep fractures within the ABC, from the broadcaster’s handling of her dismissal to its now-withdrawn legal argument questioning the very existence of Lebanese, Arab, and Middle Eastern racial identities. The silence from Women in Media on these issues is deafening.
But wait—there’s more! In a fresh twist, Buttrose has now turned on her former colleagues at the ABC, disputing key testimony given by managing director David Anderson. In a legal letter to ABC’s lawyers, she claims Anderson’s version of events regarding Lattouf’s sacking is “entirely inconsistent” with her own recollection and backed up by “irrefutable evidence.”
According to Buttrose, she was not even in the ABC’s Ultimo offices on the day Anderson claims they discussed Lattouf’s fate before heading to lunch. She even has the car hire invoice to prove it. Oh, and that second key conversation Anderson says he had on his way back to the office? Impossible, says Buttrose—because Anderson was still in a car with her at the time.
So what do we have here? The ABC’s star witness against Lattouf now undermining the very defence she was initially aligned with. A Women in Media event honouring a woman currently entangled in a scandal about the unjust treatment of a female journalist. And an industry-wide reckoning with who actually benefits from these so-called feminist initiatives.
If Women in Media Australia were serious about its mission, it would be platforming women like Lattouf—women who have risked their careers to expose systemic injustices, not those who were complicit in them. But instead, they have chosen to sidestep accountability in favour of upholding the old guard.
Perhaps they should change their tagline from “championing gender equity” to “protecting power at all costs.” At least then, we’d all know where we stand.
