Surprised no one's mentioned this, but on Thursday night Australian bestselling author Colleen McCullough, best known for writing The Thorn Birds, died at the age of 77. However, whoever wrote her obituary in The Australian is, to put it mildly, a sexist pig--and with apologies to Keith Olbermann, is the Worst Person In The World by a city mile (or city kilometer, since this is Australia).
This is how McCullough's obituary began:
COLLEEN McCullough, Australia’s best selling author, was a charmer. Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth.
Wow. Now how in the world could something this horribly degrading have gotten past all the checks and balances of a supposedly legitimate newspaper? Nobody at The Australian is letting on. Then again, this isn't all that surprising since The Australian is the flagship of the Australian half of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. This is, mind you, the same man who apparently finds it acceptable to
trash a newborn baby on the front page. And this is the same man who crassly promoted one of his radio hosts
belittling bipolar disorder as just a "fad."
Crikey reports that McCullough's death came across the wire just as the paper was about to go to press. In the rush to get it in Friday's edition, someone inserted an obituary that had been written years earlier by an unidentified writer who has since died himself. No word on who the sexist pig was--yet.
The Twitterverse reacted with outrage once this got out. Within hours, the hashtag "#MyOzObituary" had gone severely viral. The paper has also taken a well-deserved beating on Facebook as well.
The Australian owes McCullough's family, as well as the general public, the world's biggest apology. And everyone who let this garbage get through--and I mean EVERYONE--should be suspended at the very least.