Cathy Wilcox is grabbing a voluntary redundancy payout from the Sydney Morning Herald, walking away seven months after publishing a disgraceful cartoon that the Australian Press Council confirmed pushed the antisemitic trope of Jewish control. Reports reveal the 63 year old applied for the cash package herself in the weeks after Nine announced its latest newsroom cuts, landing an approval that puts her out the door within days.
She collects four Walkley Awards from a 37 year career, leaving without ever offering a single public apology for her offensive work.
Official Press Council ruling slammed her hateful cartoon for spreading antisemitic tropes
The toxic cartoon hit the Herald and The Age on 7 January, just three weeks after 15 innocent people were slaughtered in the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach. Titled "Grass roots", the picture mocked ordinary citizens demanding a royal commission into antisemitism, portraying them as puppets carried along by David Littleproud, Sussan Ley, Jacinta Price, John Howard, Rupert Murdoch, and federal special envoy Jillian Segal, while Benjamin Netanyahu stood nearby beating a drum with a thought bubble reading "Don't mention the war".
Segal is a prominent Jewish leader appointed to fight hatred. Wilcox drew her into the cartoon anyway, smearing a legitimate grassroots movement as a fake campaign marching to Netanyahu's drumbeat.
On 9 June, the Press Council shattered Nine's excuses, ruling the imagery "encodes the antisemitic trope that Jewish people secretly control or manipulate global events, governments, financial systems, or the media". While the Herald and The Age tried to defend the insult as political commentary, the Council found both mastheads in breach of editorial standards, deciding the public interest wasn't sufficient to justify the substantial offence, distress and prejudice caused to Jewish Australians.
The movement Wilcox sought to destroy was completely genuine. BondiResponse.com was launched by four everyday Australians who gathered thousands of signatures within 24 hours and raised massive funding to buy national advertising space. Organiser Danny Berkovic called out the media slur directly in Nine's own Financial Review, calling the claim that a foreign government pulled the strings "not only offensive but patently false".
No apology from unrepentant Wilcox, who told reporters to "fuck right off" instead
The Herald and The Age hid in total silence for four full days before publishing a cowardly editorial apologising for the outrage their cartoon caused. Their star cartoonist took an even more hostile path. When reporters from News24 contacted her for comment, Wilcox lashed out at the outlet, calling it "Murdoch's petty little propaganda operation" running "a campaign of hatred", before ending her rant with: "You and your hit squad goons can fuck right off."
Following the official Press Council ruling in June, Liberal senator Sarah Henderson blasted the artwork, declaring it "was laced in antisemitic poison and should never have seen the light of day", while demanding: "But where is the apology from cartoonist Cathy Wilcox?"
No apology ever materialised. Industry site The Daily Cartoonist reported that Wilcox was unhappy with her own paper's "weak defense of her work". Her reported grievance was that her editors had bothered to apologise to offended readers at all.
| Press Council Finding or Event | Corporate Realities and Unrepentant Fallout |
|---|---|
| Press Council formally rules cartoon pushed antisemitic tropes | Nine protects Wilcox with zero sackings, and she stays on staff until the payout |
| Herald and The Age publish delayed apology for community hurt | Wilcox fumes at paper, reported unhappy at its "weak defense" of her work |
| News24 puts its questions to Wilcox directly | Wilcox snaps at reporters: "You and your hit squad goons can fuck right off" |
| Senator Henderson demands an apology for "antisemitic poison" | Wilcox never apologises or expresses a shred of remorse on the record |
| Nine opens 30 voluntary redundancy packages | Wilcox applies within weeks and walks away with a cash payout |
Nine sold its journalism to Microsoft before slashing newsroom jobs and blaming AI
On 3 July Nine signed a landmark deal handing Microsoft Copilot full access to paywalled stories across the Herald, The Age, the Financial Review, Brisbane Times, and WA Today. Nine chief executive Matt Stanton boasted the deal was a "win-win", while Nine Publishing managing director Tory Maguire claimed it ensured "AI outputs are grounded in verified facts". Just eighteen days after cashing in, Maguire turned around and told staff to "keep shifting towards the digital-first future", announcing 30 voluntary redundancies across four major mastheads. Wilcox jumped on that exact redundancy round. This marks the fourth massive wave of job destruction at these mastheads in ten years, dragging total editorial job losses to 370 since 2016.
Taxpayers foot the bill for 375 Nine journalists as company bankrolls Wilcox payout
As One News Australia exposed in July, Nine quietly extracts $16.1 million from the Albanese government's $67.6 million Journalism Assistance Fund. That massive taxpayer cash injection directly subsidises the wages of roughly 375 Nine journalists, devouring about 22% of the entire fund. Yet no funded newsroom is required to disclose this public handout scheme to its readers. The very masthead condemned by the Press Council operates on public wage subsidies, as does the parent company writing Wilcox her exit cheque.
Wilcox pockets her exit package, while Australian taxpayers are forced to keep subsidising the wage bill at the biased newsroom that printed the offending cartoon.
Virginia Bell's royal commission reaches the media next, and Wilcox is already gone
Commissioner Virginia Bell will soon direct a dedicated hearing block of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion straight at traditional media outlets and digital platforms, News24 has reported. Major media companies are expected to be called to give evidence. Nine's mastheads will have to face that public scrutiny with the central figure of their worst antisemitism scandal already safely off the payroll. The Royal Commission's final report is due on 14 December, exactly one year after the tragic attack at Bondi Beach.
