Grahame Morris, the former chief of staff of ex-Prime Minister John Howard, publicly apologised on Tuesday to ABC journalist Leigh Sales for calling her a cow on radio.

Mr Morris, also former deputy federal director of the Liberal Party, insisted he used the term for a bovine to mean a tough interviewer. He made the comment to another ABC Sydney host, Linda Mottram, in reference to Ms Sales manner of questioning Coalition leader Tony Abbott about the shelved Olympic Dam expansion project.

"Poor sensitive souls . . . What I should have said was (Leigh) can be a tough interviewer when she wants to be . . . It's a phrase I have used a million times that someone can be a real cow when they want to be. But look, I apologise," The Australian quoted the political lobbyist.

The offending remark of Ms Morris was, "Well, Leigh can be a real cow sometimes when she's doing her interviews," in reference to the alleged inability of Mr Abbott to handle Ms Sales manner of interviewing.

In turn, Ms Sales called Mr Morris a dinosaur in a Twitter post, but later accepted his apology. She said being called names such as bitch, shrill and aggressive is part of a high-profile job like hers.

"I guess the question I would ask Grahame - and I do accept his apology - is how does actually doing my job and asking pretty basic questions of a senior politician make me a cow?" she said.

"Would he ever call Kerry O'Brien a cow when Kerry O'Brien was doing the job that I'm doing now?" she added.

Mr Morris had a previous record of publicly apologising for insulting women. The first was issued to Prime Minister Julia Gillard whom he said in a Sky News interview "ought to be kicked to death" by Australians.

Ms Mottram pointed out that the use of the term cow was considered an insult to women when she was still in university in the early 1980s. She said the term was often used to describe an overweight woman or a woman with many children that indicated she has limited capability except for childbearing or has questionable morals.

"Grahame used sexist stereotyping to denigrate a professional journalist for political reasons. He also failed to live up to the purpose of the 'Party Line' segment, designed to give 702 Mornings listeners a glimpse behind the political scenes . . . but then again maybe that's exactly what he did give us," ABC quoted Ms Mottram.

Melissa Hoyer, an entertainment editor who recalled that she had once been called Cinderella's ugliest stepsister, said the name calling is part of people's struggle for relevance in a changing media landscape.

"I get the feeling that some commentators think all it takes to get noticed is one artfully placed piece of verbal vomit and voila! Hello Fame. Hello another 15 minutes," Perth Now quoted Ms Hoyer.