It's Reigning Cats

ABC managing director Hugh Marks is seeking applicants for the job of ABC News Director. My cat Sophie puts her paw up.

Dear Hugh,

I’m writing on behalf of my cat, Sophie, who would like to apply for the role of News Director of the ABC, which has just been made vacant by the sudden departure of the incumbent, Justin Stevens.

Although I am acting as her stenographer for this letter, I can assure you Sophie speaks fluent English, albeit with a heavy cat accent. Given the ABC’s favoritism towards presenters with impenetrably foreign accents, I assume this won’t be a disadvantage.

Besides, once you become familiar with her, communication becomes crystal clear. Most of her communication comes in the form of requests for food, attention and toys. Some people think she’s bossy, but I prefer to call her authoritative. She is unambiguous about what she wants, which I imagine will be a key requirement as she adapts from being a humble, sophisticated house cat to overseeing the ABC’s news output.

Sophie will also redress an aspect of the ABC that sadly diminishes its otherwise stellar example as an employer of progressive diversity. I speak, of course, of what looks suspiciously like the ABC’s cat-phobia. As I type this (and my fingers tremble with anger as I do so), not a single significant role in the ABC is occupied by a cat. I’ve never been inside the ABC, but I would be willing to bet that there aren’t even any cats working in the staff canteen – not that such a lowly role would be suitable for Sophie but I’m sure there are some desperate rescue cats who would appreciate the work.

This shortcoming in the ABC’s diversity cannot last. Also, I hardly need to remind you of the decades of expensive, complex and onerous legal proceedings that will ensue should your decision regarding Sophie’s application be potentially affected in any way by the ABC’s already palpable cat-phobia. Achieving fairness for cats – who have equal, if not more, rights than humans because they don’t drive toxic V8 cars or yell abuse at black people – is one of the great moral issues of our time, so why not start addressing it meow, I mean now?

Besides, Sophie’s qualifications for the role of News Director are immense.

Firstly, she is extremely cute. I mean, really cute. The way she lies on her back with her paws in the air, looking at you as if your human behaviour is the very definition of existential futility, is enough to melt even the hardest person’s heart. (I exclude from that group, of course, far-right Liberal voters, who don’t have hearts anyway.)

But this and her many other forms of cuteness are more than merely adorable. They are expressions of political activism. What she is really saying is that climate change is real, and us humans could solve it if we just all laid on our backs and purred. Imagine how happy Gaia would be!

Neither she nor I are so naive, however, to think that she could perform the role of ABC News Director by relying on cuteness alone. Like Blofeld’s cat in the James Bond series of colonial propaganda films, cats can, when necessary, command considerable respect. All it takes is a stern look and subtle flexing of the claws. This will occasionally be necessary whenever staff journalists stray, unwittingly or otherwise, from the ABC’s clear editorial guidelines into bigoted or populist perspectives, a potential against which even the most ideological organisation must be perpetually guarded.

The good news is that Sophie will, she assures me, be happy to perform the role of News Director for the humble salary of two packets of treats a day, some neck rubs and a pillow near the window.

I guarantee that she will singlehandedly elevate the ABC’s news content to previously unimagined quality and authority.

I look forward to your response.

Purriest wishes, etc

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