SMH staff are frustrated to be in the news, again

SMH editor Bevan Shields hit back at critics in a note to subscribers less than a year after being forced to issue an apology for outing a celebrity.

SMH editor Bevan Shields and former prime minister Paul Keating (Images: SMH/AAP)

A note to subscribers has become the source of grumblings in corners of The Sydney Morning Herald’s newsroom this morning, as some staffers grow frustrated about once again becoming “the story” so soon after the paper was forced to issue an apology for its reporting on Rebel Wilson. 

The Herald’s editor, Bevan Shields, stood firmly behind the paper’s work in a note to subscribers late Wednesday, following a spray from former prime minister Paul Keating that took aim at a multi-part series titled “Red Alert” published by the paper and its sister publication, The Age, which warned of Australia’s involvement in an imminent war with China. 

In an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Keating labelled the Herald’s political editor Peter Hartcher a “psychopath”, and suggested the paper’s foreign affairs and national security correspondent, Matthew Knott, hang his head in shame for writing the stories. 

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