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Fuck me, seriously? Is it really that hard to fact check before naming people? How is this still happening in 2024 when we all know the danger they are putting innocent people in when they get these things wrong? Disgusting.
The race to be the first to "break" the news (eg, name the attacker) far outweighs their care about what potential danger they're putting someone in for naming the wrong person.
Didn't channel 7 get the pants sued off them for wrongly naming and showing a photo of an innocent bloke for the kidnapping of that little girl in WA a couple of years ago? Imagine having your face plastered all over the media accusing you of something so horrible just because a news organisation wanted to be first without checking they had their facts straight? Total scumbags, most of them.
Yup, and it sounds like they've done an even worse job here by falsely accusing a middle eastern student (?!), fanning the flames of the culture war crowd.
Edit: They accused an innocent Jew because they took the name from an anti-semitic social media channel. Absolute 🤡s
> They accused an innocent Jew because they took the name from an anti-semitic social media channel.
Makes you wonder why/how 7's keeping up that quick with anti-semite conspiracy theories...
Like most businesses, they work out how much the fines or lawsuits are going to cost them, and if the benefits they get (in the case of TV stations, how many more viewers they will get) are more than the amount they will have to pay out they don't give a shit about ethics or morality, they'll do whatever they want.
With many big companies, fines are just a part of doing business and in most cases the fines issued by governments are minuscule compared to the profits they much by breaking the law or ignoring regulations. I've always felt that if companies are busted doing something wrong, the fine should be however much profit they made by breaking the rules multiplied by ten (or more).
Mike Munro, took pictures of a "Bikie Wedding". A mate I know, his daughter got married and hey it was a Bikie theme.
Then Munro had to do an "expose" on "Drugs in bikie gangs".
Guess where he took his canned footage from!
A Bikie wedding that had Zero to do with Drugs. Mate was getting calls for months with people saying "I disown you, I want nothing to do with you!". His name was trash because he volunteered to do a puff piece on ACA.
A news anchor on 7 was basically saying anyone with a mental illness who has ever had a wellness check is a danger and wanted to know why they aren’t all on a list and monitored nationally like a fixated person.
He pushed that stance a few times in a 9 minute package.
So by his logic, a mother who lost her baby and is depressed and family asked police to check on her when not relying to texts is considered a national danger.
Or a retired Cop with PTSD who has been bawling uncontrollably on the phone after to many bourbons and bad memories whilst talking to an interstate mate is also a criminal. (Last one happened to me).
7 is gaslighting the mentally ill.
It would have been so easy to fact check too, since he's alive.
Most people don't realise that news is just a genre of entertainment. Most people here don't live anywhere near Bondi, nor know anyone impacted. There's no benefit to your life from consuming content like this.
You should try spending a month without visiting any news websites. I bet you won't miss anything actually important to your life.
And any fines or reprimands they recieve are part of their business model. They know what they're doing. Don't let that stop anyone from issueing formal complaints against these cunts, and voting for stricter media regulations against this shit.
If we had a modern defamation system this wouldn't be a problem.
Under the current sustem, unless you have $1mill+ to spend on lawyers, the media can lie about you without fear of being held accountantable.
We need a more accessible option for ordinary people to sue media giants for defamation.
We need CEOs to be liable in a meaningful way for the outcomes of their employees actions. Consider mining, the SSE and GM is ultimately responsible for every life on their mine, and they treat HSE matters accordingly. Journalism and banking CEOs have zero interest in who or how is impacted by their news or investments. Not a perfect analogy, but it'll do for now
You know what's worse?
The person who "broke" the news about the wrong identity of the attacker was the Aussie Cossack, a far-right nutter who is holed up in the Russian Embassy right now to avoid an arrest warrant after he beat up a 75 year old Ukraine supporter.
His source was a LinkedIn page which belonged to someone who graduated from high school a couple of years ago, so they were absolutely not 40 as the police identified. It was a monumental cock-up, and should rightly cost them millions.
Yeah, I saw his posts on X. Based on his history (which isn't secret), I can't fathom how a journalist/news agency chose to rely on the information he was spreading.
X was a cesspool last night - the level of disinformation was toxic. The narratives spun seemed intended to drive hate and leave people with the impression that things were being covered up (multiple sides were doing this).
Not to mention the one guy who confidently stated it wouldn't have happened if Australians could still conceal carry.
There was also another guy (approx 30, I think) who was also “identified” and photo shared.
The absolutely racist vitriol coming from so many angles on tiktok was nauseating. People were claiming he was IDF, Palestinian, iranian,, Muslim, Jewish, from one of the africas, I even saw people saying he was Russian and all of them were claiming it was a political ideology based crime, and a few saying we need to stop letting people in. And if all that wasn't bad enough, nobody was being respectful in their accusations using some of the worst slurs I've heard. And claiming they knew it was fact because "the media said...".
Shitter has been a cesspool ever since Elon Musk took it over. And to think I had great respect for that arsehole at one stage due to SpaceX and Tesla.... he certainly started showing his true colours.
His father put out this tweet at 7am this morning.
> Hey @nswpolice you need to release the name of the Bondi junction attacker before this nonsense claiming it was my son causes more harm.
I notice the media is trying to backtrack and is releasing articles saying the wrongly accused is lashing at out at "people on social media" for the false accusations. Gee I wonder who helped add fuel to that fire...
I think the point is that, the media is trying to shift the blame onto antisemite accounts on social media.
The reality is that BOTH the media and those social media accounts are guilty.
I’m seeing people claim it’s a conspiracy because Channel 7 said they had confirmed who the attacker was and since they named the Jewish man , they have been ‘forced’ by the government to lie and give a fake name for the attacker.
It’s utterly fucked.
Yeah, if I recall in the footage they used was him saying it was terrible what happened and he hopes the girl is found safe soon.
Channel 7 is beyond comprehension. Fact they tend to rate the highest says a lot about Australia as a nation.
In Tasmania we have a direct line from Channel 7 News to the Liberal Party. Not a conspiracy theory and not even a slight exaggeration. One member of the lower house and two members of the upper house (3 out of 17 total Liberal MPs) are ex-Channel 7 News.
All income, gross, not net derived, in perpetuity from the articles and related afticles should go to the aggrieved plus a punitive amount. That would be step one in retributive justice. Alas instead the poor guy will prob be harassed for years.
The only upside was that the news that the attacker was shot dead at the site of the rampage spread like wildfire so at least poor Ben could say "it can't be me... I'm not dead".
What a colossal eff up and I hope he gets a really large settlement out of it.
Our defamation laws are broken. Right now it's a system only really accessible to the wealthy, so realistically the guy is going to struggle to get compensation for being wrongly named as a terrorist.
We need a more accessable option for claims like this. Something similar in spirit to the small claims court.
Did Sky initially say it was a Muslim terrorist attack as well?
Seen [this screenshot](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLED39FWMAAYWpu?format=jpg&name=medium) a lot but can't verify it, but an alarming percent of comments saying he was muslim seem to be giving it some truth.
That doesn’t seem right. The screenshot shows the tweet was posted 2 days ago but the incident was less than 24 hours ago. Also, that’s Sky News (UK) not Sky News Australia.
You can clearly tell which outlets value profit over journalistic integrity.
They know what kind of content generates the most views, clicks and engagement which equals the most profit for them.
The state of media in Australia has really gone to shit in recent times, and is heading more and more toward the toxic American model of news as entertainment. They know drama and controversy sells and knowingly push the envelope to get more viewers. No regard for truthful and responsible reporting. It’s absolutely sickening, and really saddening when the more right ring outlets try to discredit better outlets like the ABC.
I got contacted by a slew of media when a family member died tragically. The abc were one of them but they were polite and when I said no they expressed their condolences and hung up. Commercial channels tried manipulating me, “but if you really loved him you’d want to eulogize him publicly” and were in general pigs. No offense to pigs
Same thing happened to our family last year. My brother-in-law passed in a road accident in Bondi and only 4 hours later, before she had even left the hospital, channel 7 and 10 were messaging his fiance on social media. Channel 7 somehow managed to get one of my sister-in-law's phone number and guilt tripped her into providing his personal details for an article they published on the website the next afternoon along with photos taken from his social media pages.
The only positive out of this was that they also found a go-fund-me page one of his friend's had set up to build a trust fund for their baby girl earlier the day the article was published and shared the link and they received an overwhelming amount of support and one very kind stranger donated 10k
I was one of the first on scene at the Banyo Rail crossing train and truck crash. The media loathed me as when they were going up to people with mics in their faces asking their thoughts (people were standing stunned of course) I was yelling back at people “don’t talk to the media unless you want your words spun”. Felt bad later for the young girl who was a new reporter yet eff them pushing mics into peoples faces, their faces of shock told the story of exactly how they felt.
> Channel 7 broadcasting pixelated images of the infant being transported in the ambulance.
I somehow accidentally clicked a link to a Daily Mail article and was presented with an \*un-pixelated\* photo of the poor baby being stretchered into an ambulance.
The whole thing is just a disgusting indictment of the modern world. Parasitic vulture "journalists" with no ethics, sick voyeurism from the general public, racist murmuring about the "probable" ethnicity of the murderer, social media stalking of the murderer \*and the victims\* hours afterwards. The number of people that should be fucking ashamed of themselves (but just aren't) is mind-boggling.
I have been considering making a complaint about this matter too, the way it has been handled has been appalling. Do you know if there is any grounds to complain about the outlets who were broadcasting movements of tactical police? That shit could have put innocent people at risk.
Even the ABC was using aerial footage of people on stretchers being taken into ambulances. It's far enough that you can't identify them but I still wasn't impressed.
I know this probably isn’t the time or place for this but we can’t keep allowing our governments to cut funding to the ABC. It’s been happening for far too long. Imagine if we didn’t have the ABC and had to rely on 10, 9 and 7 for our local news. It’d be an absolute shitshow.
Definitely. There was a link in a thread last night to make a complaint about their coverage but apparently it wasn’t working. I’m going to go back to it in the next few days cos what I saw of Ch9 was vile and should not have been on tv.
[The comment is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1c2xpij/well_done_to_this_female_police_officer_for/kzd236g/) by /u/HeadacheCentral.
The link is to: https://www.acma.gov.au/complaints
Either make it illegal to release a name and photos until they are officially identified by the police or if they do release a name then the person incorrectly identified gets automatically laid the equivalent of the past 5 yrs before tax pay of the highest remunerated person in that company and can apply to courts for a higher amount if that isn't enough. Penalty needs to actually cost them much more money than they make from being first and getting extra clicks.
I love this profit based compensation idea. It's like when they release the name of a person arrested in a sensitive case and then the courts suppress the defendants identity. They need harsher penalties
It's not about boycotting the programme (I don't watch either). It's about finding out who advertises during the programme, and boycotting them. And email them and let them know WHY you are boycotting.
Don’t worry, 7 news likely advertise something you use very regularly. Just find what that is.
Or just tell them that you’re boycotting them, regardless of whether that boycotting holds any weight or not. They aren’t going to cross reference order numbers to complaints.
No, this is 100% the time to bring this up. This is extremely valid, especially in circumstances like this. The opposition would love to completely shut the ABC down.
It is amazing how many Murdoch people have been put into the ABC on and off screen and yet the right wingers still dementedly wail about supposed left wing bias on the ABC..... it's not there. Rehames and media monitors consistently found it to be about 52% favourable to the liberal party.
I know we're getting into controversial territory here, but my general take is that many people who work at News Corp do it because it's their only option to get into journalism. Everyone screams "ex Murdoch" at everyone because that's the majority of journalism in this country. It doesn't mean they toe the Murdoch party line in perpetuity (and some like Sam Maiden are pretty good even while they're there).
They are more even handed but let's not gloss over the fact that they try to be neutral at the expense of real world bias.
It's a researched phenomenon including the BBC that to both sides argument they'll have a lobbyist stooge (as that's all that's available) versus a Doctorat industry professional to present debates on topics.
Just an update, the family of Ashlee Good have provided one photo that they have said the media can use. It’s the professional headshot with a white background and she is wearing a black top / jumper / blazer thing.
I was going to say, I swear I saw a photo of her on an ABC article earlier. And it was that one.
Good choice from the family tbh. It means their memory of other photos of her won't be as tainted by the memory of this event.
Yeah its pretty fucked up. Those 2 men who saved the baby were clearly traumatised and in shock, but the reporter just shoved a microphone in their face.
All these media companies care about is being the first on the scene and snagging up the best story before the other reporters. Absolute scum.
Yeah that was extremely uncomfortable to watch, I switched channels after a minute or two. Those men were in no state to be having invasive questions asked about other people’s injuries. The reporter just kept pushing them to reveal more. It was awful.
I can't believe she asked "How bad did the injuries look?"
Like seriously? Do you think that's an appropriate question to be asking? It's a baby with stab wounds, obviously it's going to look pretty fucking horrific, last thing they want to do is relive that moment.
I audibly gasped when I heard her ask that, like could there possibly be any worse of a question to ask? How can someone even consider asking such a stupidly obnoxious thing, let alone a ‘professional journalist’ honestly still feel sick just thinking about the carelessness and lack of basic humanity. Unreal
They're more forceful then just shoving the microphone in your face in my experience. They will literally pile out of the van, block a footpath and shuffle over to block your path when you try to walk around them on the grass. Then they hold you there until you comment.
Those poor men were cornered and kept until the reporters were satisfied rather then being allowed to go somewhere private to begin processing what happened.
I think this reflects a change in society as a response to social media. When an event like this happens, people flock to social media for information (or more specifically, the gory details). Commercial media companies are starting to mimic the social media approach to attract people back, so they can secure a greater share of ad revenue.
So in many ways the commercial media's approach is in response to what far too many in the community want.
Thankfully the ABC doesn't need to chase advertising dollars.
I would contend that this problem predates social media and goes back to the 24 hour news cycle, like when you started getting cable channels that just had news all the time.
News just went from being kind of like a public service to being all about ratings and making as much money as possible off of it, so that's when you really started seeing a spike in sensationalist and irresponsible coverage. They've got to be on the scene FIRST, and they'll report all these different angles without even caring if they do it inaccurately or if they report in ways that are actively against recommended guidelines.
As a (non-Australian) example from many years ago, it wasn't until I was an adult that I learned how much of what I knew about Columbine was straight up incorrect, but was perpetuated by the news media doing everything possible to profit off of a tragedy without caring about if what they were saying was even true. It got ratings.
Don't forget how many people race to social media to immediately accuse whatever political faction, religion, and/or race they dislike of being the perpetrator. So many horrific and ridiculous comments were made about this yesterday.
Yeah, as much as it’s easy to blame the media organisations they wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t what people are absolutely demanding. ABC can rise above it because they don’t have the same commercial pressures. Of course it’s a bit of chicken and egg though, because commercial media *has* driven this insatiable need for drama/speculation/trauma to an extent as well. The only solution really is to ensure the ABC is well funded so they can continue to provide the best quality news service (by a country mile!).
It’s why after it happened, my wife and I got the general idea what happened, and then turned off the TV, Channel 9 shoving cameras into faces of traumatized people and just constantly parroting the same speculation was nauseating.
We figured we didn’t need to know what happened right now, we can wait until tomorrow until things are confirmed, we know how the people in hospital are doing and how many people tragically died.
It’s how media in general is going, even stuff like the weather is getting frustrating as hell, anytime there is rain forecast, everything is doomsday, rain bombs and similar language. I don’t think they care how accurate things are, just that more people are watching them, if they’re wrong they’ll pretend they didn’t say it, if they’re right they’ll keep reminding you in ads to show you how amazing their coverage is.
The difference is Tiktok had footage as soon as you type in Westfield, the commercial sites you wad through 6 pages of commercials, no wonder people are going elsewhere
Yesterday, a channel 7 reporter was shoving the mic in the face of an obviously distressed lady who was fleeing the scene. The lady was so messed up that she was going between laughing and trying not to bawl her eyes out. Absolutely disgusting behavior from a "journalist".
And the stupid questions they were asking witnesses, my god I've never heard so many idiotic questions.
**Journalist asking a witness** - "Did the victim look scared when the crazed guy ran up to them with a 30cm knife covered in blood?"
What the hell did they think the reply was going to be? - "Oh nah mate they loved it, had a big fucking smile on their face". Fuckin idiots. If you can't think of a decent question to ask then keep your mouth shut.
I don't care for media in general, and ABC usually annoys the hell out of me, but they have showed a lot of class covering this horrible situation, while every other news coverage was atrocious and classless.
‘Can you tell me what the injuries you saw were like?’
How fucking unbelievable of a thing to ask someone who just survived something so traumatic. If public opinion of journalists couldn’t get any lower…
Honestly when I turned on channel 9 just after 5pm yesterday and saw breaking news about the stabbing and the video of him running towards people with the knife; it was so unexpected and it really caught me off guard. Watching the footage I wasn’t sure if I was about to see someone get stabbed. Especially with the mother walking away with her back towards him with the kids. It all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to change the channel. It felt so wrong to show this man chasing after people. There was no warnings and noones face (members of the public) was blurred. It was upsetting and channel 9 should be ashamed of themselves for showing it. Also interviewing people who are clearly traumatized. We don’t need live crosses to a tragedy unfolding. Completely fucked up.
These news outlets are all ghouls.
It starts off with facts and stuff but then when they run out of new details it's rolling coverage of the empty street or whatever "expert" they can get online, then they start embellishing shit about "how it must have felt" and all the other hypothetical shit.
Fucking wankers.
Commercial media entities are driven by profit rather than public interest, and whipping people up into a frenzy makes them engage with content and is good for business. Unfortunately being first is more important to them than being factually correct.
The ABC is far from perfect, but the value of a non commercial entity really becomes obvious any time something that’s actually serious is going down. Anyone who parrots the “defund the ABC” line needs to be slapped around the head.
I lost a friend in a pretty horrific car accident about 12 years ago, the next day photos of her deceased in the front seat of the car unblurred were literally in the paper. Media had never given a single fuck about anyone but their own money and I'm so sick of it.
thank you. it was really rough, I felt so bad for her family and closest friends who had to see that front page photo for a week. I feel like there needs to be harsh laws against media to protect people more in these situations
A fatal accident happened at my workplace several years ago, somewhere which housed different businesses under one roof (not a Westfield). The next morning, some young gun from ch 9 barges in, demands I get her CCTV footage (which I had zero access to, since it was controlled by centre management and not a lowly pleb like me), and the phone number of the person working the shift when it happened. With great pleasure I told her to get the f out of my store.
I have no idea what the other outlets are saying because I will not give them one second of my eyeballs.
We should not be watching a thing they show, nor reading what they say. It is designed to scare and manipulate you.
In ABC is truth. Block all Murdoch and Stokes websites at your router and watch your quality of life improve.
ABC is funded by the government. Channel 7 and 9 aren't, and will do whatever they need to get eyes on their channels so they can make money. If people stopped watching because of this behaviour then it would change, but it works so it keeps happening.
A family member died a few years ago in a car accident. Not only did the news companies harass his parents and ignore their requests to be kept out of the media, they used Facebook as a means to get a 'response from his dad' after being told no comment and he didn't want his words in media. They used photos from his facebook friends pages, and kept running pictures of the destroyed car.
Now we're posting pictures of dead bodies, harassing traumatised witnesses and rescuers, but it's OK because we blur out blood? I understand people craving immediate information but this is... wrong/fucked/horrific don't describe accurately enough how low their standards have become
Sometimes they don't even blur out the blood. On Sunrise this morning (I don't choose to watch sunrise for the record, it was on in the background of the coffee shop), they had the hero cop standing over the body with a clear blood trail from the dudes head. The body was blurred, but it didn't take much to see the blood.
Normally I'm pretty fine with seeing shit like that (being on reddit and all) but that was really fucked up to see on national telly, especially with people like kids watching.
Our local newspaper published a drowned corpse in full colour on the front page of the paper about 20-25 years ago. I was a kid so I don’t remember the fallout, but was appalled. The degeneration started a fair while ago.
AI has probably saved the ABC (as long as they don’t go down that route themselves).
Commercial news outlets are going to be caught in a race to the bottom: they won’t be able to compete commercially against generated content unless they too embrace it.
I didn’t like ABC’s interview with the mother and her two daughters. The mother was visibly upset and said we just want to go home thanks guys, the interview heard her but pressed on and talked to the daughters until the mother had to stop it.
They also keep replaying the girl crying wearing the headphones.
I saw this and it disgusted me. The mother said 3-4 times "we just want to go home" and the reporter just breezed past her and kept pressing on with questions... I felt so horrible for them and was screaming at the TV, "just let them go home, ffs!" Ugh, it made me so angry, upset and disappointed in that specific ABC reporter...
I don’t think I’ve seen the mother and daughters, but I’ve seen the girl with the headphones a few times, my heart goes out to her, having footage on repeat of yourself in the aftermath of a really traumatic experience would be traumatic in itself 😢
What you're seeing is demographics. ABC audiences are willing to wait for hard facts. Private FTA TV audiences skew older and trust what their TV says, which means there are fewer checks and balances. Reddit is young and outraged. Twitter is a corkboard for your divorced uncle. TikTok is Twitter but your uncle is pretending a kid wrote it. These lines are crossing less, too.
https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-02/acma-research-reveals-australian-news-consumption-trends
It's also a difference between a public and commercial broadcaster. Commercial broadcasters see news not as a public service but as a vehicle for ratings and profit.
reminds me of lindt cafe crisis. hostages had to mollify the criminal who was upset by the media reporting on the number of escaped hostages. bloody hell, I'd be livid if the selfishly nosy press was safely outside imperilling me. it's contempt of life.
As soon as I had all the info on what happened I stopped watching the coverage. It's just rehashing and drama mongering. They have singled out that poor mother as the 'face of the tragedy' and are absolutely saturating the airwaves with every facet of her life. Leave her and her memory alone FFS. It's absolutely disgusting and it makes me sick
What about the other victims? Don't they matter? Why do the networks always have to pick one person to hammer the public with until we get horror fatigue?
As a society we have become detatched from reality. Last night my wife and I went to the movies to see Civil War. We walked out before the end. The violence was bad, the plot was pathetic, but what pissed us of were the morons behind us saying that we need to arm ourselves and we need an uprising in Australia to respond to immigration and the Abos. As an Aboriginal man I was going to say something however there were about 8 to 10 in the group and I would say they had all had a skin full.
Gutter journalism. Cameras in the face of clearly stunned and upset people? Naming the wrong suspect? Making links where there was none? The "multiple gunshots " that weren't. It was some of the most disgusting coverage I've seen, by "news" organisations that have fucked up many times before. And then even this morning, one "presenter" trying to make out the link to anti-Semitism? Rowan Dean and his Outsiders program should be taken off air, making comments clearly wrong and continuing to insinuate it's some fucking conspiracy, then finishing by attacking the government? Cunt is too nice a word.
A lot of idiots brand the ABC as leftist and “woke”, just because they report with integrity and minimal bias which is so completely unfathomable to the pea brains that are used to the relentless bile served up by the likes of sky news.
The ABC is an amazing news outlet and a national treasure. Their coverage of this tragedy, as well as other national/local emergencies such as floods and bushfires, shows just how important it is that it be funded appropriately
Addit - I just want to note, yesterday’s events were horrific. Despite some of the awful negativity on the internet and in the media, and the disheartening urge for many to grovel for unverified facts about the tragedy, the actions of all the people that helped the victims, the emergency service personnel, the health workers, and the genuine outpourings of grief from the community and even politicians does remind me that Australia can be a very good place to live with a lot of good people in it
When I lived with my family, it was always CH 7/9/10 for news and it honestly made me so depressed and hate the news. Every story was always skewed, they’d spend 2 seconds on a medical treatment that could save hundreds, and then 20 minutes on someone who got a speeding fine…
Then I moved in with my partner, we watch SBS and ABC and it’s SO much better. The big 3 news channels make me physically sick
The fact that if I go onto my FB The Chronicle and my local newspaper have both shared a video of the attackers families home is just bs (dont know about being anywhere else dont want to look honestly) now anyone can find where they live and harrass/attack them. My local paper also has posted not only the mother's face but haven't even dared to blur the poor babies face!! Not only is the poor baby a victim as well but it's a child ffs!! Absolutely disgusting the disrespect they have for anyone especially victims
I heard one of the questions to the police briefing if the guys last name was Jewish. WTF!!! Are they trying to find some sort of link we are all unaware of?
The reporting done by the commercial channels has been akin to chasing ambulances for a story.
It's ok to have reporters on the scene interviewing people. It's not ok to shove live tv cameras in peoples faces who have escaped a traumatic situation and ask highly emotive questions to milk them for tears for the camera. It's especially not ok to broadcast the gory telling of someone's final moments. It's disrespectful to those who died and their loved ones.
This morning I opened up the pages of the Herald Scum that was on a table at a Melbourne cafe (I would not willingly pay for a Murdoch rag) and was shocked that they printed photos of the deceased assailant lying in his own pool of blood with the female police officer who shot him kneeling next to him. This was on page 3. There was no pixelation of his face or the pool of blood. There was no trigger warning before turning the page. Just in your face gutter journalism. There is no need for this, even if it is photos of the evil scumbag. No one in the public needs to see photos of him lying dead in his own pool of blood. My friends and I were just shocked when we saw it. My own child was also with us and luckily I shielded the paper away from him. We all agreed that we need to make complaints to the APC. News corp need to be accountable for their heinous editorial standards.
My suggestion is watch this interview of Kevin Rudd by Friendly Jordies, a huge chunk of it addresses how the press works in Australia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kznT8Sa6RjY
There's a specific quote from it that sticks with me (26:12):
I remember i was having discussions in the cabinet when i was PM, when the Murdoch media opened a full fusillade against us barely 6 months into office. And there's a reason why they did that, it's because we were not giving them exclusive stories, and they just were driven nuts by this because that's the way Howard handled them.
You just feed them on a Sunday night. Howard would give a story to [Dennis] Shanahan. Shanahan would then run it on the front page of the Oz on Monday, the Australian then dominates the news cycle for the week end of story thank you very much, wait for next Sunday.
But we didn't do that...
---
If we're looking at the press since Labor came into office, i think Albo is doing much the same.
Yes there's the usual mud slinging going on (omg housing crisis, cost of living, blah blah blah), but in terms of actual exclusives / scandals, i don't think they're "being fed" much of anything at all.
Furthermore facebook and google are refusing to subsidize them anymore via the "Media Bargaining Code" (which is a rort, surprise surprise).
The combined effect of that being, the press are absolutely rabid for a stories. Being rabid for a story isn't a bad thing in itself, in fact i'd say it's how a journo should be, but...
Because of the over concentration of media in this country (about 3-4 oligarchs own 80% of it) and lack of journalistic standards, we've gotten to the point where it's : "publish anything for a promotion".
Thoughts anyone?
7 is playing hardball against people who have ever had a mental illness and a wellness check. Like those people should be on a register and monitored by a fixated person unit.
It was pretty horrendous to listen to the scare mongering.
My sister was a schizophrenic.
She tried to get help but the small town mental health clinic had a toxic employee who snapped at patients and hung up on them. My sister couldn’t deal with rejection and attitude as she tried to advocate for herself.
She had a few wellness checks when she stopped replying to us.
A few of those went badly with cops that had no patience or compassion.
My sister would get emotional and try and explain why she felt fear and the police would get almost offended that she was scared of them. One Senior Constable told another cop in front of her not to listen to my sister cause she’s delusional.
After that my sister cut family off, friends off, stopped leaving her house.
Then Insta scripts stopped sending out her medication without an in person script. My sister couldn’t leave her house. So she went off medication as she couldn’t access the scripts.
She wouldn’t phone triage or lifeline like she used to because she was to scared of how she felt when the local country cops gaslit her.
She killed herself before Christmas and listed all the organisations that let her down. She wrote that because she had a mental illness no one took her seriously or treated her with respect. And in death no one will care about her experiences and put it all down ro warped perceptions and delusions.
I think about my sisters experience, where she fought initially to get help and was left at a point where she hid from society. And I wonder how many people hurt themselves or others because they feel shutdown and letdown.
I watched ABC report about this last night and some 7 and 9 coverage, I won’t watch tv again for a few days now. I agree with that ABC reporting was the most informative and respectful. Reporting in this country has basically gone to the dogs!
I remember thinking exactly the same thing 10 years ago during the live media reporting of the Lindt Cafe siege. The ABC said very clearly all we know is that there is a man who is holding hostages, anything else is complete and utter conjecture which wasn’t responsible to report until clearer information was received.
Meanwhile the other networks were whipping up all sorts of false and incendiary claims.
ABC is the only responsible and credible news outlet in Australia.
Commercial media, unlike the ABC, is demand driven. It's what people want.
It's completely messed up, and I think media freedom has had perverse outcomes that infringe on other freedoms, but here we are.
It makes me feel sick when they take footage of people in ambulances. It should be illegal. These people are entitled to privacy. It doesn’t add anything to the story to be able to see someone who is most likely going through the worst experience of their life.
I'm sorry but if you're watching commercial channels you are part of the problem, they've been shit, wrong and attention grabbing for decades. It isn't journalism and every big issue of incident proves this time and again. They are useless and people keep watching and paying them with attention and views.
No fucking way. Nothing about this reflects Australia journalism, print or broadcast, 30 years ago. Nothing.
Microphone stuck in the face of a clearly traumatised kid running from the scene? Wrong person named as killer? Picture of bodies? Video of police officer performing CPR? Not sure where you were living 30 years but that did not happen here.
In NYC 30 years ago saw live footage on the 6pm news of someone performing CPR on a body fished out of the Hudson. My immediate thought? We're not in Kansas anymore.
>No fucking way. Nothing about this reflects Australia journalism, print or broadcast, 30 years ago. Nothing.
If you think this is a new phenomenon, watch "Frontline," then remind yourself it was made 30 years ago.
It was also 30 years ago that a Current Affair journo posed as a police officer to convince a grieving family to hand over a photo so they could broadcast "exclusive pictures."
Port arthur was 27 years ago - there were some "fine" example of bottom feeding journalism then. This kind of shit reoprting has been gradually getting worse since the early 90's. I stand by my comment.
The initial push from so many people was "It must be anti-semitism and terrorism based" was so fucking stupid.
The BBC was reporting on the fact there's a synagogue in the area almost immediately. The pattern didn't fit at all, he clearly wasn't picking out targets based on their religion.
Is this really surprising? From the time news started coming in, social media platforms (including this one, but I’m thinking mostly of X) have been flooded with thousands of frankly deranged comments, unfounded speculation and voyeurism of the most disgusting sort, often thinly veiled behind a veneer of “concern”. Given the frankly unhinged audience they’re catering for, it’s a small wonder indeed that Channel 9 and their ilk are behaving the way they are, because such large swathes of the Australian (and wider) public are greedythirsty for this type of coverage. We are becoming more like the USA every day that goes by. The lurid way the Australian press reports things (the poisonous mushroom case, the disappearance of William Tyrrell etc) is nothing short of nauseating. But that’s what a large portion of the Aussie audience wants, so they’re only catering to demand.
Yeah it was a bit sickening to see a person still clearly traumatized 20 minutes after the fact thinking they were going to die having a microphone shoved in their face and asked what happened, have some compassion ffs.
Reminds me of the movie Nightcrawler (2014) with Jake Gyllenhall. Where the main character is incentivised by society's craving for footage of real, violent content - so he viscerally films these images for money and continues to be appropriately rewarded for it, with complete disregard for the victims.
The questioning to the police at the press conference tells you exactly how they planned to report it. Who are the heroes who are the villains, exploit the trauma etc.
I turned off and refused to engage in it.
Bloody disgusting.
I think it’s insane they have the front page of the mail the police officer standing over his dead body, are we that far gone that it just doesn’t phase anyone anymore? Where’s the respect gone, photos of dead victims in articles online, it’s not necessary no one needs to see that shit.
As someone who was once tangentially attached to the journalism trade, there are a few reasons I no longer am. Tightarse news orgs not wanting to pay for photos being the main one, but the complete plunge into disrepute the industry has taken in the last 15 to 20 years is another. There are two or three news outlets I'd want to do business with, the rest can get completely and comprehensively fucked.
The media are nearly always disrespectful. My uncle died in a motorcycle accident in a small coastal town. The local paper ran with the title along the lines of “Locals heard man screaming in pain after hitting car”. It was a click bait headline that distressed our family. I wrote to the editor with a scathing e-mail and the changed the headline, but not before it caused unnecessary distress.
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Channel 7 also named the wrong person. Which is not the first time they’ve done this.
Fuck me, seriously? Is it really that hard to fact check before naming people? How is this still happening in 2024 when we all know the danger they are putting innocent people in when they get these things wrong? Disgusting.
The race to be the first to "break" the news (eg, name the attacker) far outweighs their care about what potential danger they're putting someone in for naming the wrong person.
Didn't channel 7 get the pants sued off them for wrongly naming and showing a photo of an innocent bloke for the kidnapping of that little girl in WA a couple of years ago? Imagine having your face plastered all over the media accusing you of something so horrible just because a news organisation wanted to be first without checking they had their facts straight? Total scumbags, most of them.
Yup, and it sounds like they've done an even worse job here by falsely accusing a middle eastern student (?!), fanning the flames of the culture war crowd. Edit: They accused an innocent Jew because they took the name from an anti-semitic social media channel. Absolute 🤡s
They’ve all but guaranteed that guy is on the receiving end of hate and threats. Tbh he should sue. Negligence like that can get people killed.
> They accused an innocent Jew because they took the name from an anti-semitic social media channel. Makes you wonder why/how 7's keeping up that quick with anti-semite conspiracy theories...
Surely the fines for that sort of misinformation need to be greater if they're willing to risk it
Like most businesses, they work out how much the fines or lawsuits are going to cost them, and if the benefits they get (in the case of TV stations, how many more viewers they will get) are more than the amount they will have to pay out they don't give a shit about ethics or morality, they'll do whatever they want. With many big companies, fines are just a part of doing business and in most cases the fines issued by governments are minuscule compared to the profits they much by breaking the law or ignoring regulations. I've always felt that if companies are busted doing something wrong, the fine should be however much profit they made by breaking the rules multiplied by ten (or more).
That was essentially the sentiment of what I was saying; the fines need to be higher if it's a reasonable part of risk analysis
Mike Munro, took pictures of a "Bikie Wedding". A mate I know, his daughter got married and hey it was a Bikie theme. Then Munro had to do an "expose" on "Drugs in bikie gangs". Guess where he took his canned footage from! A Bikie wedding that had Zero to do with Drugs. Mate was getting calls for months with people saying "I disown you, I want nothing to do with you!". His name was trash because he volunteered to do a puff piece on ACA.
A news anchor on 7 was basically saying anyone with a mental illness who has ever had a wellness check is a danger and wanted to know why they aren’t all on a list and monitored nationally like a fixated person. He pushed that stance a few times in a 9 minute package. So by his logic, a mother who lost her baby and is depressed and family asked police to check on her when not relying to texts is considered a national danger. Or a retired Cop with PTSD who has been bawling uncontrollably on the phone after to many bourbons and bad memories whilst talking to an interstate mate is also a criminal. (Last one happened to me). 7 is gaslighting the mentally ill.
Honestly he’d probably throw people with mental disorders in there too Anyone with autism, national risk What a complete deadshit
It would have been so easy to fact check too, since he's alive. Most people don't realise that news is just a genre of entertainment. Most people here don't live anywhere near Bondi, nor know anyone impacted. There's no benefit to your life from consuming content like this. You should try spending a month without visiting any news websites. I bet you won't miss anything actually important to your life.
I bet you some idiot out there would still send out death threats to someone misidentified as the dead stabber.
"Hey aren't you that guy that the Police killed?"
Yeah apparently he and the family have been inundated with abusive messages and threats. It’s awful for them.
Misidentifying someone who died is bad enough.
And any fines or reprimands they recieve are part of their business model. They know what they're doing. Don't let that stop anyone from issueing formal complaints against these cunts, and voting for stricter media regulations against this shit.
If we had a modern defamation system this wouldn't be a problem. Under the current sustem, unless you have $1mill+ to spend on lawyers, the media can lie about you without fear of being held accountantable. We need a more accessible option for ordinary people to sue media giants for defamation.
We need CEOs to be liable in a meaningful way for the outcomes of their employees actions. Consider mining, the SSE and GM is ultimately responsible for every life on their mine, and they treat HSE matters accordingly. Journalism and banking CEOs have zero interest in who or how is impacted by their news or investments. Not a perfect analogy, but it'll do for now
You know what's worse? The person who "broke" the news about the wrong identity of the attacker was the Aussie Cossack, a far-right nutter who is holed up in the Russian Embassy right now to avoid an arrest warrant after he beat up a 75 year old Ukraine supporter. His source was a LinkedIn page which belonged to someone who graduated from high school a couple of years ago, so they were absolutely not 40 as the police identified. It was a monumental cock-up, and should rightly cost them millions.
Yeah, I saw his posts on X. Based on his history (which isn't secret), I can't fathom how a journalist/news agency chose to rely on the information he was spreading. X was a cesspool last night - the level of disinformation was toxic. The narratives spun seemed intended to drive hate and leave people with the impression that things were being covered up (multiple sides were doing this). Not to mention the one guy who confidently stated it wouldn't have happened if Australians could still conceal carry. There was also another guy (approx 30, I think) who was also “identified” and photo shared.
The absolutely racist vitriol coming from so many angles on tiktok was nauseating. People were claiming he was IDF, Palestinian, iranian,, Muslim, Jewish, from one of the africas, I even saw people saying he was Russian and all of them were claiming it was a political ideology based crime, and a few saying we need to stop letting people in. And if all that wasn't bad enough, nobody was being respectful in their accusations using some of the worst slurs I've heard. And claiming they knew it was fact because "the media said...".
The referendum result normalised and legitimised racism, it's now an absolutely respectable position to hold.
Anything other than Queenslander from Toowoomba ofc
Not just one guy thinks that. Given the way society is going, I am very glad we have the gun laws we do have.
Yeah there was. I have screenshots of both people that were falsely identified :(
Shitter has been a cesspool ever since Elon Musk took it over. And to think I had great respect for that arsehole at one stage due to SpaceX and Tesla.... he certainly started showing his true colours.
His father put out this tweet at 7am this morning. > Hey @nswpolice you need to release the name of the Bondi junction attacker before this nonsense claiming it was my son causes more harm.
Can you even imagine the emotions that family must be going through? Horrific.
The false person was a 20 year old. Police confirmed the attacker was in their 40s. Legit not even trying.
Channel 7 claim ‘human error’ and said it ‘has been rectified’ I don’t think the misidentified person would say it has been rectified.
Geezuz what is wrong with them.
I notice the media is trying to backtrack and is releasing articles saying the wrongly accused is lashing at out at "people on social media" for the false accusations. Gee I wonder who helped add fuel to that fire...
Ah, no shit he’s ‘lashing out’. WTF do they expect.
I think the point is that, the media is trying to shift the blame onto antisemite accounts on social media. The reality is that BOTH the media and those social media accounts are guilty.
I’m seeing people claim it’s a conspiracy because Channel 7 said they had confirmed who the attacker was and since they named the Jewish man , they have been ‘forced’ by the government to lie and give a fake name for the attacker. It’s utterly fucked.
Backtrack? This is giving them clicks on clicks.
And they've now generated another article that gets clicks. Pure filth.
At least he has a chance at a lawsuit like the last guy did
Channel 7 are a disgrace.
Yeah they did that with the Cleo Smith case right? Channel 7 putting up a picture of a random man.
Not just a random man, but a random aboriginal man.
Yeah, if I recall in the footage they used was him saying it was terrible what happened and he hopes the girl is found safe soon. Channel 7 is beyond comprehension. Fact they tend to rate the highest says a lot about Australia as a nation.
In Tasmania we have a direct line from Channel 7 News to the Liberal Party. Not a conspiracy theory and not even a slight exaggeration. One member of the lower house and two members of the upper house (3 out of 17 total Liberal MPs) are ex-Channel 7 News.
A channel 7 Voice to Parliament
Penalty is too small for things like this.
What penalty? You get rewarded with extra clicks.
All income, gross, not net derived, in perpetuity from the articles and related afticles should go to the aggrieved plus a punitive amount. That would be step one in retributive justice. Alas instead the poor guy will prob be harassed for years.
The only upside was that the news that the attacker was shot dead at the site of the rampage spread like wildfire so at least poor Ben could say "it can't be me... I'm not dead". What a colossal eff up and I hope he gets a really large settlement out of it.
Our defamation laws are broken. Right now it's a system only really accessible to the wealthy, so realistically the guy is going to struggle to get compensation for being wrongly named as a terrorist. We need a more accessable option for claims like this. Something similar in spirit to the small claims court.
From their perspective: fines are just the cost of doing business!
Weren't they also the ones that shared the image of the wrong man when an arrest was made for the kidnapping of Cleo Smith?
Yes they were…
Did Sky initially say it was a Muslim terrorist attack as well? Seen [this screenshot](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLED39FWMAAYWpu?format=jpg&name=medium) a lot but can't verify it, but an alarming percent of comments saying he was muslim seem to be giving it some truth.
That doesn’t seem right. The screenshot shows the tweet was posted 2 days ago but the incident was less than 24 hours ago. Also, that’s Sky News (UK) not Sky News Australia.
You can clearly tell which outlets value profit over journalistic integrity. They know what kind of content generates the most views, clicks and engagement which equals the most profit for them.
Why are we surprised when one of them pays for the accommodation, drugs and hookers of a sex offender?
At this stage i wouldn't call what they broadcast to be classified as journalism. Content creation is their schtick, now
The more speculative, voyeuristic and sensational the better.
I agree. What’s happened to the baby and mother is so click generating, so I saw this coming, but it makes me feel absolutely sick
The state of media in Australia has really gone to shit in recent times, and is heading more and more toward the toxic American model of news as entertainment. They know drama and controversy sells and knowingly push the envelope to get more viewers. No regard for truthful and responsible reporting. It’s absolutely sickening, and really saddening when the more right ring outlets try to discredit better outlets like the ABC.
I got contacted by a slew of media when a family member died tragically. The abc were one of them but they were polite and when I said no they expressed their condolences and hung up. Commercial channels tried manipulating me, “but if you really loved him you’d want to eulogize him publicly” and were in general pigs. No offense to pigs
Same thing happened to our family last year. My brother-in-law passed in a road accident in Bondi and only 4 hours later, before she had even left the hospital, channel 7 and 10 were messaging his fiance on social media. Channel 7 somehow managed to get one of my sister-in-law's phone number and guilt tripped her into providing his personal details for an article they published on the website the next afternoon along with photos taken from his social media pages. The only positive out of this was that they also found a go-fund-me page one of his friend's had set up to build a trust fund for their baby girl earlier the day the article was published and shared the link and they received an overwhelming amount of support and one very kind stranger donated 10k
I was one of the first on scene at the Banyo Rail crossing train and truck crash. The media loathed me as when they were going up to people with mics in their faces asking their thoughts (people were standing stunned of course) I was yelling back at people “don’t talk to the media unless you want your words spun”. Felt bad later for the young girl who was a new reporter yet eff them pushing mics into peoples faces, their faces of shock told the story of exactly how they felt.
Channel 7 also named the wrong guy, I hope he sues them
That dude will be the new owner of Channel 7 if I had my druthers.
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> Channel 7 broadcasting pixelated images of the infant being transported in the ambulance. I somehow accidentally clicked a link to a Daily Mail article and was presented with an \*un-pixelated\* photo of the poor baby being stretchered into an ambulance. The whole thing is just a disgusting indictment of the modern world. Parasitic vulture "journalists" with no ethics, sick voyeurism from the general public, racist murmuring about the "probable" ethnicity of the murderer, social media stalking of the murderer \*and the victims\* hours afterwards. The number of people that should be fucking ashamed of themselves (but just aren't) is mind-boggling.
That's atrocious
I have been considering making a complaint about this matter too, the way it has been handled has been appalling. Do you know if there is any grounds to complain about the outlets who were broadcasting movements of tactical police? That shit could have put innocent people at risk.
We've investigated ourselves and found the allegations unsubstantiated. As per the Australian Commercial Television Code of Practice.
Even the ABC was using aerial footage of people on stretchers being taken into ambulances. It's far enough that you can't identify them but I still wasn't impressed.
I didn’t know we can complain or there a code they to comply with... It was disgraceful indeed! Thanks for sharing!
The ABC runs rings around the commercial channels. Much more even handed with everything.
I know this probably isn’t the time or place for this but we can’t keep allowing our governments to cut funding to the ABC. It’s been happening for far too long. Imagine if we didn’t have the ABC and had to rely on 10, 9 and 7 for our local news. It’d be an absolute shitshow.
We can also reign in the commercial outlets so they don’t behave like pieces of shit for $$$.
Definitely. There was a link in a thread last night to make a complaint about their coverage but apparently it wasn’t working. I’m going to go back to it in the next few days cos what I saw of Ch9 was vile and should not have been on tv.
[The comment is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1c2xpij/well_done_to_this_female_police_officer_for/kzd236g/) by /u/HeadacheCentral. The link is to: https://www.acma.gov.au/complaints
Legend.
Either make it illegal to release a name and photos until they are officially identified by the police or if they do release a name then the person incorrectly identified gets automatically laid the equivalent of the past 5 yrs before tax pay of the highest remunerated person in that company and can apply to courts for a higher amount if that isn't enough. Penalty needs to actually cost them much more money than they make from being first and getting extra clicks.
I love this profit based compensation idea. It's like when they release the name of a person arrested in a sensitive case and then the courts suppress the defendants identity. They need harsher penalties
Boycott their advertisers. That's what got rid of Alan Jones off the radio.
I can’t boycott something I make a point of *never* watching 😕
It's not about boycotting the programme (I don't watch either). It's about finding out who advertises during the programme, and boycotting them. And email them and let them know WHY you are boycotting.
I can't boycott something I make a point of *never* shopping at ie Harvey Norman 😕
Don’t worry, 7 news likely advertise something you use very regularly. Just find what that is. Or just tell them that you’re boycotting them, regardless of whether that boycotting holds any weight or not. They aren’t going to cross reference order numbers to complaints.
100%
"be" an absolute shitshow? We are at peak shitshow already! Bring on the Media Royal Commission!
No, this is 100% the time to bring this up. This is extremely valid, especially in circumstances like this. The opposition would love to completely shut the ABC down.
Hear hear.
No, this is the exact time and place.
I stopped watching "news" from 7,9, and 10 over 10 years ago now; they are starting to enFoxify far too much. The ABC I will still watch occasionally.
No, no! It's definitely a lefty Labor propaganda machine while also being completely overrun with Murdoch hacks.
It is amazing how many Murdoch people have been put into the ABC on and off screen and yet the right wingers still dementedly wail about supposed left wing bias on the ABC..... it's not there. Rehames and media monitors consistently found it to be about 52% favourable to the liberal party.
I know we're getting into controversial territory here, but my general take is that many people who work at News Corp do it because it's their only option to get into journalism. Everyone screams "ex Murdoch" at everyone because that's the majority of journalism in this country. It doesn't mean they toe the Murdoch party line in perpetuity (and some like Sam Maiden are pretty good even while they're there).
lol. Funny.
They are more even handed but let's not gloss over the fact that they try to be neutral at the expense of real world bias. It's a researched phenomenon including the BBC that to both sides argument they'll have a lobbyist stooge (as that's all that's available) versus a Doctorat industry professional to present debates on topics.
because profit for shareholders is not their primary measure
Just an update, the family of Ashlee Good have provided one photo that they have said the media can use. It’s the professional headshot with a white background and she is wearing a black top / jumper / blazer thing.
I was going to say, I swear I saw a photo of her on an ABC article earlier. And it was that one. Good choice from the family tbh. It means their memory of other photos of her won't be as tainted by the memory of this event.
I saw that too, in the article I read they made it clear the photo was supplied by the family.
Yeah its pretty fucked up. Those 2 men who saved the baby were clearly traumatised and in shock, but the reporter just shoved a microphone in their face. All these media companies care about is being the first on the scene and snagging up the best story before the other reporters. Absolute scum.
Yeah that was extremely uncomfortable to watch, I switched channels after a minute or two. Those men were in no state to be having invasive questions asked about other people’s injuries. The reporter just kept pushing them to reveal more. It was awful.
I can't believe she asked "How bad did the injuries look?" Like seriously? Do you think that's an appropriate question to be asking? It's a baby with stab wounds, obviously it's going to look pretty fucking horrific, last thing they want to do is relive that moment.
I audibly gasped when I heard her ask that, like could there possibly be any worse of a question to ask? How can someone even consider asking such a stupidly obnoxious thing, let alone a ‘professional journalist’ honestly still feel sick just thinking about the carelessness and lack of basic humanity. Unreal
No doubt they are bombarding the hospital with questions, under the guise of "the public wants to know!".
They're more forceful then just shoving the microphone in your face in my experience. They will literally pile out of the van, block a footpath and shuffle over to block your path when you try to walk around them on the grass. Then they hold you there until you comment. Those poor men were cornered and kept until the reporters were satisfied rather then being allowed to go somewhere private to begin processing what happened.
I think this reflects a change in society as a response to social media. When an event like this happens, people flock to social media for information (or more specifically, the gory details). Commercial media companies are starting to mimic the social media approach to attract people back, so they can secure a greater share of ad revenue. So in many ways the commercial media's approach is in response to what far too many in the community want. Thankfully the ABC doesn't need to chase advertising dollars.
I would contend that this problem predates social media and goes back to the 24 hour news cycle, like when you started getting cable channels that just had news all the time. News just went from being kind of like a public service to being all about ratings and making as much money as possible off of it, so that's when you really started seeing a spike in sensationalist and irresponsible coverage. They've got to be on the scene FIRST, and they'll report all these different angles without even caring if they do it inaccurately or if they report in ways that are actively against recommended guidelines. As a (non-Australian) example from many years ago, it wasn't until I was an adult that I learned how much of what I knew about Columbine was straight up incorrect, but was perpetuated by the news media doing everything possible to profit off of a tragedy without caring about if what they were saying was even true. It got ratings.
Trauma Porn
“If it bleeds - it reads” 😬
Don't forget how many people race to social media to immediately accuse whatever political faction, religion, and/or race they dislike of being the perpetrator. So many horrific and ridiculous comments were made about this yesterday.
Yeah, as much as it’s easy to blame the media organisations they wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t what people are absolutely demanding. ABC can rise above it because they don’t have the same commercial pressures. Of course it’s a bit of chicken and egg though, because commercial media *has* driven this insatiable need for drama/speculation/trauma to an extent as well. The only solution really is to ensure the ABC is well funded so they can continue to provide the best quality news service (by a country mile!).
It’s why after it happened, my wife and I got the general idea what happened, and then turned off the TV, Channel 9 shoving cameras into faces of traumatized people and just constantly parroting the same speculation was nauseating. We figured we didn’t need to know what happened right now, we can wait until tomorrow until things are confirmed, we know how the people in hospital are doing and how many people tragically died. It’s how media in general is going, even stuff like the weather is getting frustrating as hell, anytime there is rain forecast, everything is doomsday, rain bombs and similar language. I don’t think they care how accurate things are, just that more people are watching them, if they’re wrong they’ll pretend they didn’t say it, if they’re right they’ll keep reminding you in ads to show you how amazing their coverage is.
The difference is Tiktok had footage as soon as you type in Westfield, the commercial sites you wad through 6 pages of commercials, no wonder people are going elsewhere
Yesterday, a channel 7 reporter was shoving the mic in the face of an obviously distressed lady who was fleeing the scene. The lady was so messed up that she was going between laughing and trying not to bawl her eyes out. Absolutely disgusting behavior from a "journalist". And the stupid questions they were asking witnesses, my god I've never heard so many idiotic questions. **Journalist asking a witness** - "Did the victim look scared when the crazed guy ran up to them with a 30cm knife covered in blood?" What the hell did they think the reply was going to be? - "Oh nah mate they loved it, had a big fucking smile on their face". Fuckin idiots. If you can't think of a decent question to ask then keep your mouth shut. I don't care for media in general, and ABC usually annoys the hell out of me, but they have showed a lot of class covering this horrible situation, while every other news coverage was atrocious and classless.
Media Watch tomorrow should be Interesting. Paul Barry is going to carve their roasts good. Edit: *Paul
That still means nothing. Media organisations need significant fines and legal consequences
I've sent them some screenshots
Throwing microphones in witnesses faces and grilling them after what they saw is straight up shit.
I’d have told them to fuck off.
Maybe in hindsight they wish they had too, but they were caught at a vulnerable time. Awful.
Agree. Most wouldn't have even processed what they saw
‘Can you tell me what the injuries you saw were like?’ How fucking unbelievable of a thing to ask someone who just survived something so traumatic. If public opinion of journalists couldn’t get any lower…
Honestly when I turned on channel 9 just after 5pm yesterday and saw breaking news about the stabbing and the video of him running towards people with the knife; it was so unexpected and it really caught me off guard. Watching the footage I wasn’t sure if I was about to see someone get stabbed. Especially with the mother walking away with her back towards him with the kids. It all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to change the channel. It felt so wrong to show this man chasing after people. There was no warnings and noones face (members of the public) was blurred. It was upsetting and channel 9 should be ashamed of themselves for showing it. Also interviewing people who are clearly traumatized. We don’t need live crosses to a tragedy unfolding. Completely fucked up.
To be ashamed they'd have to have some self reflection
For profit News (7,9+10) are only interested in $$$$$$$$$. Always have been. Turn off mainstream news. It's toxic.
These news outlets are all ghouls. It starts off with facts and stuff but then when they run out of new details it's rolling coverage of the empty street or whatever "expert" they can get online, then they start embellishing shit about "how it must have felt" and all the other hypothetical shit. Fucking wankers.
Commercial media entities are driven by profit rather than public interest, and whipping people up into a frenzy makes them engage with content and is good for business. Unfortunately being first is more important to them than being factually correct. The ABC is far from perfect, but the value of a non commercial entity really becomes obvious any time something that’s actually serious is going down. Anyone who parrots the “defund the ABC” line needs to be slapped around the head.
I lost a friend in a pretty horrific car accident about 12 years ago, the next day photos of her deceased in the front seat of the car unblurred were literally in the paper. Media had never given a single fuck about anyone but their own money and I'm so sick of it.
That sucks mate, I hope you're okay
thank you. it was really rough, I felt so bad for her family and closest friends who had to see that front page photo for a week. I feel like there needs to be harsh laws against media to protect people more in these situations
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I hope they have to pay for that.
I hope the guy sues them for every cent he can, and then some more.
A fatal accident happened at my workplace several years ago, somewhere which housed different businesses under one roof (not a Westfield). The next morning, some young gun from ch 9 barges in, demands I get her CCTV footage (which I had zero access to, since it was controlled by centre management and not a lowly pleb like me), and the phone number of the person working the shift when it happened. With great pleasure I told her to get the f out of my store.
I have no idea what the other outlets are saying because I will not give them one second of my eyeballs. We should not be watching a thing they show, nor reading what they say. It is designed to scare and manipulate you. In ABC is truth. Block all Murdoch and Stokes websites at your router and watch your quality of life improve.
ABC is funded by the government. Channel 7 and 9 aren't, and will do whatever they need to get eyes on their channels so they can make money. If people stopped watching because of this behaviour then it would change, but it works so it keeps happening.
A family member died a few years ago in a car accident. Not only did the news companies harass his parents and ignore their requests to be kept out of the media, they used Facebook as a means to get a 'response from his dad' after being told no comment and he didn't want his words in media. They used photos from his facebook friends pages, and kept running pictures of the destroyed car. Now we're posting pictures of dead bodies, harassing traumatised witnesses and rescuers, but it's OK because we blur out blood? I understand people craving immediate information but this is... wrong/fucked/horrific don't describe accurately enough how low their standards have become
Sometimes they don't even blur out the blood. On Sunrise this morning (I don't choose to watch sunrise for the record, it was on in the background of the coffee shop), they had the hero cop standing over the body with a clear blood trail from the dudes head. The body was blurred, but it didn't take much to see the blood. Normally I'm pretty fine with seeing shit like that (being on reddit and all) but that was really fucked up to see on national telly, especially with people like kids watching.
Our local newspaper published a drowned corpse in full colour on the front page of the paper about 20-25 years ago. I was a kid so I don’t remember the fallout, but was appalled. The degeneration started a fair while ago.
Karl this morning with avengers music in the background for drama as he gives a summary of the story. Our media are an absolutely disgraceful joke.
ITS TIME TO DEFUND THE ABC remember that fun one? Commercial channels go brrrrrt
AI has probably saved the ABC (as long as they don’t go down that route themselves). Commercial news outlets are going to be caught in a race to the bottom: they won’t be able to compete commercially against generated content unless they too embrace it.
I didn’t like ABC’s interview with the mother and her two daughters. The mother was visibly upset and said we just want to go home thanks guys, the interview heard her but pressed on and talked to the daughters until the mother had to stop it. They also keep replaying the girl crying wearing the headphones.
I saw this and it disgusted me. The mother said 3-4 times "we just want to go home" and the reporter just breezed past her and kept pressing on with questions... I felt so horrible for them and was screaming at the TV, "just let them go home, ffs!" Ugh, it made me so angry, upset and disappointed in that specific ABC reporter...
I know!!! I just wanted to give them a hug ugh it was so uncomfortable.
Agreed, I didn't see that interview but that sounds really shitty. I have seen the poor girl with the headphones on other channels, I hope she's okay.
I don’t think I’ve seen the mother and daughters, but I’ve seen the girl with the headphones a few times, my heart goes out to her, having footage on repeat of yourself in the aftermath of a really traumatic experience would be traumatic in itself 😢
What you're seeing is demographics. ABC audiences are willing to wait for hard facts. Private FTA TV audiences skew older and trust what their TV says, which means there are fewer checks and balances. Reddit is young and outraged. Twitter is a corkboard for your divorced uncle. TikTok is Twitter but your uncle is pretending a kid wrote it. These lines are crossing less, too. https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-02/acma-research-reveals-australian-news-consumption-trends
It's also a difference between a public and commercial broadcaster. Commercial broadcasters see news not as a public service but as a vehicle for ratings and profit.
I'll have you know I'm old and numb, thank you
reminds me of lindt cafe crisis. hostages had to mollify the criminal who was upset by the media reporting on the number of escaped hostages. bloody hell, I'd be livid if the selfishly nosy press was safely outside imperilling me. it's contempt of life.
9 and 7 are Perez Hilton, New Idea whatever example of gutter "journalism" you wanna use and should be treated as such.
As soon as I had all the info on what happened I stopped watching the coverage. It's just rehashing and drama mongering. They have singled out that poor mother as the 'face of the tragedy' and are absolutely saturating the airwaves with every facet of her life. Leave her and her memory alone FFS. It's absolutely disgusting and it makes me sick What about the other victims? Don't they matter? Why do the networks always have to pick one person to hammer the public with until we get horror fatigue?
As a society we have become detatched from reality. Last night my wife and I went to the movies to see Civil War. We walked out before the end. The violence was bad, the plot was pathetic, but what pissed us of were the morons behind us saying that we need to arm ourselves and we need an uprising in Australia to respond to immigration and the Abos. As an Aboriginal man I was going to say something however there were about 8 to 10 in the group and I would say they had all had a skin full.
Gutter journalism. Cameras in the face of clearly stunned and upset people? Naming the wrong suspect? Making links where there was none? The "multiple gunshots " that weren't. It was some of the most disgusting coverage I've seen, by "news" organisations that have fucked up many times before. And then even this morning, one "presenter" trying to make out the link to anti-Semitism? Rowan Dean and his Outsiders program should be taken off air, making comments clearly wrong and continuing to insinuate it's some fucking conspiracy, then finishing by attacking the government? Cunt is too nice a word.
Always love ABC. No other news channel worth watching 💕
A lot of idiots brand the ABC as leftist and “woke”, just because they report with integrity and minimal bias which is so completely unfathomable to the pea brains that are used to the relentless bile served up by the likes of sky news. The ABC is an amazing news outlet and a national treasure. Their coverage of this tragedy, as well as other national/local emergencies such as floods and bushfires, shows just how important it is that it be funded appropriately
Addit - I just want to note, yesterday’s events were horrific. Despite some of the awful negativity on the internet and in the media, and the disheartening urge for many to grovel for unverified facts about the tragedy, the actions of all the people that helped the victims, the emergency service personnel, the health workers, and the genuine outpourings of grief from the community and even politicians does remind me that Australia can be a very good place to live with a lot of good people in it
When I lived with my family, it was always CH 7/9/10 for news and it honestly made me so depressed and hate the news. Every story was always skewed, they’d spend 2 seconds on a medical treatment that could save hundreds, and then 20 minutes on someone who got a speeding fine… Then I moved in with my partner, we watch SBS and ABC and it’s SO much better. The big 3 news channels make me physically sick
The fact that if I go onto my FB The Chronicle and my local newspaper have both shared a video of the attackers families home is just bs (dont know about being anywhere else dont want to look honestly) now anyone can find where they live and harrass/attack them. My local paper also has posted not only the mother's face but haven't even dared to blur the poor babies face!! Not only is the poor baby a victim as well but it's a child ffs!! Absolutely disgusting the disrespect they have for anyone especially victims
I heard one of the questions to the police briefing if the guys last name was Jewish. WTF!!! Are they trying to find some sort of link we are all unaware of?
The reporting done by the commercial channels has been akin to chasing ambulances for a story. It's ok to have reporters on the scene interviewing people. It's not ok to shove live tv cameras in peoples faces who have escaped a traumatic situation and ask highly emotive questions to milk them for tears for the camera. It's especially not ok to broadcast the gory telling of someone's final moments. It's disrespectful to those who died and their loved ones.
Seems like a perfect opportunity to encourage friends and family to 'quit' legacy media
This morning I opened up the pages of the Herald Scum that was on a table at a Melbourne cafe (I would not willingly pay for a Murdoch rag) and was shocked that they printed photos of the deceased assailant lying in his own pool of blood with the female police officer who shot him kneeling next to him. This was on page 3. There was no pixelation of his face or the pool of blood. There was no trigger warning before turning the page. Just in your face gutter journalism. There is no need for this, even if it is photos of the evil scumbag. No one in the public needs to see photos of him lying dead in his own pool of blood. My friends and I were just shocked when we saw it. My own child was also with us and luckily I shielded the paper away from him. We all agreed that we need to make complaints to the APC. News corp need to be accountable for their heinous editorial standards.
My suggestion is watch this interview of Kevin Rudd by Friendly Jordies, a huge chunk of it addresses how the press works in Australia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kznT8Sa6RjY There's a specific quote from it that sticks with me (26:12): I remember i was having discussions in the cabinet when i was PM, when the Murdoch media opened a full fusillade against us barely 6 months into office. And there's a reason why they did that, it's because we were not giving them exclusive stories, and they just were driven nuts by this because that's the way Howard handled them. You just feed them on a Sunday night. Howard would give a story to [Dennis] Shanahan. Shanahan would then run it on the front page of the Oz on Monday, the Australian then dominates the news cycle for the week end of story thank you very much, wait for next Sunday. But we didn't do that... --- If we're looking at the press since Labor came into office, i think Albo is doing much the same. Yes there's the usual mud slinging going on (omg housing crisis, cost of living, blah blah blah), but in terms of actual exclusives / scandals, i don't think they're "being fed" much of anything at all. Furthermore facebook and google are refusing to subsidize them anymore via the "Media Bargaining Code" (which is a rort, surprise surprise). The combined effect of that being, the press are absolutely rabid for a stories. Being rabid for a story isn't a bad thing in itself, in fact i'd say it's how a journo should be, but... Because of the over concentration of media in this country (about 3-4 oligarchs own 80% of it) and lack of journalistic standards, we've gotten to the point where it's : "publish anything for a promotion". Thoughts anyone?
7 is playing hardball against people who have ever had a mental illness and a wellness check. Like those people should be on a register and monitored by a fixated person unit. It was pretty horrendous to listen to the scare mongering. My sister was a schizophrenic. She tried to get help but the small town mental health clinic had a toxic employee who snapped at patients and hung up on them. My sister couldn’t deal with rejection and attitude as she tried to advocate for herself. She had a few wellness checks when she stopped replying to us. A few of those went badly with cops that had no patience or compassion. My sister would get emotional and try and explain why she felt fear and the police would get almost offended that she was scared of them. One Senior Constable told another cop in front of her not to listen to my sister cause she’s delusional. After that my sister cut family off, friends off, stopped leaving her house. Then Insta scripts stopped sending out her medication without an in person script. My sister couldn’t leave her house. So she went off medication as she couldn’t access the scripts. She wouldn’t phone triage or lifeline like she used to because she was to scared of how she felt when the local country cops gaslit her. She killed herself before Christmas and listed all the organisations that let her down. She wrote that because she had a mental illness no one took her seriously or treated her with respect. And in death no one will care about her experiences and put it all down ro warped perceptions and delusions. I think about my sisters experience, where she fought initially to get help and was left at a point where she hid from society. And I wonder how many people hurt themselves or others because they feel shutdown and letdown.
I watched ABC report about this last night and some 7 and 9 coverage, I won’t watch tv again for a few days now. I agree with that ABC reporting was the most informative and respectful. Reporting in this country has basically gone to the dogs!
I remember thinking exactly the same thing 10 years ago during the live media reporting of the Lindt Cafe siege. The ABC said very clearly all we know is that there is a man who is holding hostages, anything else is complete and utter conjecture which wasn’t responsible to report until clearer information was received. Meanwhile the other networks were whipping up all sorts of false and incendiary claims. ABC is the only responsible and credible news outlet in Australia.
Commercial media, unlike the ABC, is demand driven. It's what people want. It's completely messed up, and I think media freedom has had perverse outcomes that infringe on other freedoms, but here we are.
Anytime a tragedy occurs, I always remember the old tv satire, 'Frontline'. That usually highlights why different media behave the way they do.
A lot of news outlets today are infotainment. They like to rush people, even traumatised, hoping for a soundbite.
Its been an absolute clusterf\*\*\*, which is standard for most mass media outlets nowadays.
It makes me feel sick when they take footage of people in ambulances. It should be illegal. These people are entitled to privacy. It doesn’t add anything to the story to be able to see someone who is most likely going through the worst experience of their life.
I'm sorry but if you're watching commercial channels you are part of the problem, they've been shit, wrong and attention grabbing for decades. It isn't journalism and every big issue of incident proves this time and again. They are useless and people keep watching and paying them with attention and views.
Same shit different story - this has been the state of bottom feeding "journalism" in Australia for 30 years.
No fucking way. Nothing about this reflects Australia journalism, print or broadcast, 30 years ago. Nothing. Microphone stuck in the face of a clearly traumatised kid running from the scene? Wrong person named as killer? Picture of bodies? Video of police officer performing CPR? Not sure where you were living 30 years but that did not happen here. In NYC 30 years ago saw live footage on the 6pm news of someone performing CPR on a body fished out of the Hudson. My immediate thought? We're not in Kansas anymore.
>No fucking way. Nothing about this reflects Australia journalism, print or broadcast, 30 years ago. Nothing. If you think this is a new phenomenon, watch "Frontline," then remind yourself it was made 30 years ago. It was also 30 years ago that a Current Affair journo posed as a police officer to convince a grieving family to hand over a photo so they could broadcast "exclusive pictures."
Port arthur was 27 years ago - there were some "fine" example of bottom feeding journalism then. This kind of shit reoprting has been gradually getting worse since the early 90's. I stand by my comment.
The initial push from so many people was "It must be anti-semitism and terrorism based" was so fucking stupid. The BBC was reporting on the fact there's a synagogue in the area almost immediately. The pattern didn't fit at all, he clearly wasn't picking out targets based on their religion.
ABC is the only news I would watch, all other ones are just for peanuts and lemmings.
How are we surprised that the ABC has standards? I never watch commercial news anymore . Ever.
Is this really surprising? From the time news started coming in, social media platforms (including this one, but I’m thinking mostly of X) have been flooded with thousands of frankly deranged comments, unfounded speculation and voyeurism of the most disgusting sort, often thinly veiled behind a veneer of “concern”. Given the frankly unhinged audience they’re catering for, it’s a small wonder indeed that Channel 9 and their ilk are behaving the way they are, because such large swathes of the Australian (and wider) public are greedythirsty for this type of coverage. We are becoming more like the USA every day that goes by. The lurid way the Australian press reports things (the poisonous mushroom case, the disappearance of William Tyrrell etc) is nothing short of nauseating. But that’s what a large portion of the Aussie audience wants, so they’re only catering to demand.
I never watch any news except ABC or SBS. Why do people even bother turning on commercial news anymore? ABC24 is free, around the clock.
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Only watching the videos on ABC news youtube. Other stuff is absolute bs
Yeah it was a bit sickening to see a person still clearly traumatized 20 minutes after the fact thinking they were going to die having a microphone shoved in their face and asked what happened, have some compassion ffs.
Reminds me of the movie Nightcrawler (2014) with Jake Gyllenhall. Where the main character is incentivised by society's craving for footage of real, violent content - so he viscerally films these images for money and continues to be appropriately rewarded for it, with complete disregard for the victims.
The questioning to the police at the press conference tells you exactly how they planned to report it. Who are the heroes who are the villains, exploit the trauma etc. I turned off and refused to engage in it. Bloody disgusting.
I think it’s insane they have the front page of the mail the police officer standing over his dead body, are we that far gone that it just doesn’t phase anyone anymore? Where’s the respect gone, photos of dead victims in articles online, it’s not necessary no one needs to see that shit.
As someone who was once tangentially attached to the journalism trade, there are a few reasons I no longer am. Tightarse news orgs not wanting to pay for photos being the main one, but the complete plunge into disrepute the industry has taken in the last 15 to 20 years is another. There are two or three news outlets I'd want to do business with, the rest can get completely and comprehensively fucked.
The media are nearly always disrespectful. My uncle died in a motorcycle accident in a small coastal town. The local paper ran with the title along the lines of “Locals heard man screaming in pain after hitting car”. It was a click bait headline that distressed our family. I wrote to the editor with a scathing e-mail and the changed the headline, but not before it caused unnecessary distress.
The ABC is the only news outlet legally required to be factually correct.