Helen Razer - Media Work

Media Work

Razer was a prominent radio broadcaster on national Australian youth station Triple J from 1990 to 1998. She was partnered for most of this time with comedian Mikey Robins on the breakfast program. She also appeared on the Ladies Lounge program with Judith Lucy in the afternoons. She left after being targeted by a stalker, who had been active for several years and, convinced he was her husband, managed to get into the studio.

In 1999, ABC TV's watchdog program Media Watch lampooned her overuse of long and arcane words.

In 2002 she became a programmer for Joy FM, Melbourne's gay and lesbian community radio station.

In 2005 Razer was employed as presenter of the Sunday arts program on the 774 ABC Melbourne radio station. In October 2008, the ABC announced that she was to finish in this position before the end of the year as "part of a freshening of program formats". The announcement came two weeks after a controversial interview, on 7 September 2008, with actor Steven Berkoff. On the 15 September 2008 episode of ABC TV's Media Watch program presenter Jonathan Holmes accused Razer of patronising Berkoff in the interview by referring to him as "dear" and asking how good was the play he was on the radio "to flog". She finally called Berkoff a "curmudgeon" and then cut him off.

Razer currently writes features for The Age. and the Sydney Morning Herald. She was also a regular contributor to the online Crikey news website in 2007 and was previously an opinion columnist writing for The Australian newspaper.

Razer also writes a column for The Big Issue and has a blog called "Bad Hostess".

In the 2011 Year 12 VCE English examination, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority instructed over 40,000 students to analyse a supposedly fictional blog article that was, in fact, taken from an opinion piece written by Razer. The article in question was published in Melbourne-based newspaper The Age in 2010. Some of the comments written on the original article were also plagiarised.