The comments that ended Mark Latham's AFR column
The editor-in-chief of the Australian Financial Review has poured cold water over the controversy surrounding the resignation of columnist Mark Latham, calling the response to his departure a media frenzy of misinformation. 
In an email to AFR subscribers on Friday, Michael Stutchbury said Latham's decision to part ways with the paper had nothing to do with the apparent unmasking of the Twitter account @RealMarkLatham.
The former Labor leader came under intense scrutiny over the past week after news site Buzzfeed published several articles suggesting the Twitter account was run by the man who once could have become prime minister.
Several prominent Australian women including former Australian of the year Rosie Batty and RAAF Reserve Group Captain Catherine McGregor, the world's most senior transgender military officer, had long complained that they had been the targets of hurtful tweets by @RealMarkLatham, which many assumed was a parody account.
Mr Stutchbury said his phone "went nuts" on Monday morning after the @RealMarkLatham account Tweeted "the AFR sacked poor Latho".
The Dismissal: The AFR has sacked poor Latho, who has retired to Mt Hunter Lodge for a rump steak (medium-rare). Maintain The Page.
??? Real Mark Latham (@RealMarkLatham)     August 17, 2015
Media commentators speculated that Mr Latham had been sacked as a result of the offending Twitter account and complaints from Group Captain McGregor and AFR backer Westpac. 
But Mr Stutchbury told subscribers that Mr Latham was not sacked, nor was his resignation a response to the apparent unmasking of @RealMarkLatham.
"It's usually not appropriate to canvass in any detail the stated reasons for the departure of any employee or contractor but, in this case, they had nothing to do with McGregor nor with this 'real Mark Latham' Twitter account," he wrote.
As the media storm raged Mr Stutchbury said he had been trying to get a hold of Mr Latham since Friday but had no response until late Sunday afternoon. 
"[Latham] replied that, while he had enjoyed writing for the Financial Review over the past eight years, he had now filed his last column," and declined to talk it through with the editor-in-chief.
"Coincidentally, less than an hour later, the internet news site BuzzFeed posted a story that featured highly selective extracts of what I'd assumed to be my private correspondence with an increasingly erratic McGregor," Stutchbury wrote in the email, which has been published on the AFR's website.
"This unusual behaviour from a senior military officer ramped up a minor media frenzy," he said.
Mr Stutchbury also addressed reports in News Ltd papers that "wrongly suggest that the Financial Review and Latham parted ways over his inflammatory commentary about Rosie Batty and McGregor", and pressure from Westpac.
He conceded the @RealMarkLatham Twitter feed, which "seemed to be more or less connected to Latham" could be "pretty wild", but was also "often incomprehensible".
"Many Financial Review readers are pleased to see Latham gone, but others from across the political spectrum say they'll miss his uncompromising and often humorous western Sydney take on inner-urban elites, left-wing feminists and the loony right-wing fringe," he wrote, before signing off: "phew".