Mark Latham Quits AFR Column Amid Twitter Troll Shitstorm


In the wake of a three-day complete and utter shitstorm, former federal Labor leader and likely Twitter troll Mark Latham has just resigned as a regular columnist for The Australian Financial Review, it’s just been reported.

The strange saga began on Saturday, when Buzzfeed’s Mark Di Stefano linked Mark Latham, columnist, to @RealMarkLatham, twitter troll, as likely being the same person. [Everyone previously thought the non-blue ticked account was a fake – read Di Stefano’s work HERE].

Di Stefano went deep, finding that even IF they weren’t the same person, then Mark Latham was definitely plagiarising @RealMarkLatham, based on exact phrases appearing in tweets before they appeared in columns.

When the article was posted and blew the complete fuck up, @RealMarkLatham took one look at the high road and bypassed it completely: 

THEN, Stefano proved Mark Latham’s email address was linked to @RealMarkLatham’s account. [Read about it HERE.]

At this point, @RealMarkLatham tweeted that he’d been sacked, and nobody could figure out if he was legit or not.

Editor-in-chief of The Australian Financial Review, Michael Stutchbury, appeared to be screening calls, probably because he was busy trying to wade through this shitstorm and speed dialling Latham from the board room. 

In a statement in the AFR article announcing Latham’s resignation, Stutchbury said:

“Mark has been a provocative and highly readable columnist for the Financial Review. He has been both loved and hated by readers – sometimes by the same ones at different times. While I didn’t agree with everything Mark wrote, he has played a significant role in Australian public life and brought rare personal insight into his writing.”

The article states that speculation he’d been sacked was incorrect, but leaves the is he / isn’t he the @RealMarkLatham thing firmly to the side. Not one bloody mention.

There is this, though, a nice casual reminder that this dude epitomised what it means to be a great Australian dickhead.

BYE FELICIA.

Picture: Ryan Pierse via Getty Images.

via AFR.

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