'Pitiful Poms'
Broadcaster exonerated for labeling English squad
Posted: Thursday October 01, 1998 12:25 PM
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England took a real beating at the hands of Australia earlier this year Clive Brunskill/Allsport |
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A New Zealand broadcaster has been exonerated for calling England's rugby players "pitiful Poms" after its disastrous Southern Hemisphere tour earlier this year.
England's understrength squad lost 76-0 to Australia, before crashing 64-22 and 40-10 against a New Zealand team that subsequently slid to its worst losing sequence in history.
While the English put up little fight on the playing field, television viewer A.F. Judge showed some when he complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Judge complained that the "pitiful Pom" remark, in a One Network News report on July 5, was racist and derogatory and likely to encourage discrimination against British people. He said the presenter should be dismissed.
TVNZ responded that the word "pitiful" was an accurate description of the performance of an international rugby side that had lost seven games in a row.
It said the word "Pom" was used in a good natured or affectionate way.
The word "Pom" derived from convicts sent to Australia in the 19th century; its derivation is not clear, though one explanation is that it was short for "prisoner of his majesty."
The broadcasting authority said the remark did not breach television standards about discrimination and the words did not represent British people as inherently inferior.
"It was an ad lib colloquialism specifically directed at the reportedly dismal efforts of the touring rugby team," the authority said in a statement.
Judge moved to New Zealand in 1974 and reported to the authority that his son had been victimized at school and was called a "Pommie bastard" by classmates. Judge said that when a New Zealand rugby winger came to his son's school after a tour of England he told the class that "all Poms are dirty."
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