I like Jamie Oliver.
There, I’ve said it.
For some, he is a bit preachy about school dinners and getting us all to eat more veg etc., but we know he’s actually right about that and means well.
His heart seems to be in the right place.
So I was astonished to see him having to pull his new book from the shelves in the middle of a PR crisis.
Until I read why.
Now, it wasn’t a cookbook.
There has been no offence caused to vegetarians, pescatarians, vegans, carnivores, omnivores, or any other group.
There have, however, been complaints that his children’s book stereotyped Indigenous Australians.
That is pretty darn serious.
For reasons I can’t fathom, “Billy and the Epic Escape”, features an Aboriginal girl with mystical powers living in foster care who is abducted from her home in central Australia.
I actually spent a few years as a little kid in Papua New Guinea, and I can see where this might have gone wrong—stereotyping.
The problem, as noted by First Nations leaders, is that the book reproduces “harmful stereotypes,” trivialising the “complex and painful” history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being forcibly removed from their families under government assimilation policies.
Now that is a massive issue and most probably something that Jamie was blissfully unaware of.
His publisher is at fault here; this is their job. Check facts; check sensitivities.
Jamie, who is in Australia promoting a new cookbook, has apologised and said he was “devastated” to have caused hurt.
“It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue,” he said in a statement.
That is exactly the right thing to say.
In a PR crisis, you don’t flower about.
You hold your hands up and admit fault if fault is there.
Interestingly, Jamie did not throw his publisher under the PR bus.
Another smart move, as that is NOT what one might expect from him or what I think he would want to do anyway.
As for the publisher, Random House, they said that a consultation with Indigenous Australians requested by Oliver had not happened due to an “editorial oversight.”
Wow!
Again, they’ve held their hands up.
They’ve also cleared Jamie here by noting he had requested this.
Oliver said he and his publishers had decided to withdraw the book from sale around the world.
A statement from Penguin Random House UK added:
“It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that.”
Educational body Natsiec said it acknowledged and recognised their apologies and “swift action” in removing the books from sale.
Let this be a lesson to us all.