Australian media are playing a dangerous game using racism as currency
Media outlets and journalists have an ethical duty to minimise the risk of harm and act responsibly when reporting race matters, warns the University of Melbourne’s Denis Muller in this crosspost from The Conversation
It has been quite a week for race-laden discourse in the Australian media.
There was Blair Cottrell, a notorious pro-Hitler extremist, appearing on Sky News and calling for a race-based immigration policy.
There was Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun sounding the tocsin about how “there is no ‘us’ anymore”, how Australia was being overwhelmed by a “tidal wave of immigration” and ethnic “colonies”: Jews, Indians, Chinese, Muslims, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Italians.
A speech in London last month by Alan Tudge, Australia’s minister for citizenship and multiculturalism, resurfaced in which he said Australia was veering into ethnic separatism on the “European” model.
Great article. It’s about time we in the media looked at our role in this. Why are we up in arms about Facebook and YouTube and their challenges with brand safety, but we’re perfectly ok with pushing advertising dollars to the hate mongering that is SkyNews.
The BIG difference being Sky News (News Corp / The Murdoch’s), deliberately causing division and hate. The intent is evident and it always seems that the Murdoch stable pumps out hate fuel.
The intent of FB and Google is to open up networks and information to all. We will look back in history and realise, even with some mistakes made, that FB and Google were the good guys; hopefully!
The problem with this “monetisation of racism” is it makes any issues worse and and it makes any sensible debate about immigration even less likely to happen. Sky News does all of Australia a disservice with this.