Daily Mail Aus and News.com.au accused of fuelling online troll behaviour
Public broadcaster, the ABC, has directed anger and blame at publishers News.com.au, owned by News Corp Australia, and The Daily Mail Australia for fuelling inappropriate online behaviour towards its presenters.
In a statement published on the broadcaster’s website yesterday afternoon, the ABC said that “under the guise of concern, these stories are republishing abuse”.
The stories referred to by the ABC, which were published yesterday morning include: ‘Just plain gutless’: Aussie Twitter users slam online trolls for sickening Lisa Millar comments, which was published on News.com.au by Rebecca Borg, and ‘Sickening Twitter trolls hit a new low as their vile insults against ABC host Lisa Millar get disgustingly personal more than a year after she was bullied off the platform’ which appeared on The Daily Mail Australia by Antionette Milienos.
The opening line of the News.com.au article stated: “A well-known media personality has once again fallen victim to abhorrent social media trolls who this time callously targeted her for her outfit.”
It goes on to say, the “sickening tweets – most of which are too inappropriate to publish – have sparked outrage online as appalled Twitter users call for them to be taken down”.
News.com.au editor in chief Lisa Muxworthy defended the story: “We believe a clear public interest exists in reporting on the issue of vile social media trolls and the damage they cause. Choosing to not report on this issue or to ignore it would set a poor precedent that could help ensure appropriate action to address these actions fails to occur.”
The Daily Mail Australia story
Muxworthy added: “News.com.au has a long and strident history of exposing abuse against women such as the Let Her Speak campaign championing Grace Tame and other victims of crime and, more recently, our Justice Shouldn’t Hurt editorial series which led to legislative change for children involved in sexual abuse matters.”
News.com.au was earlier in the week named the most read online news outlet in the country, with 12.8 million views.
The ABC statement included a request for response from the broadcaster by the News.com.au journalist.
The statement included that the ABC was not going to dignify any “vile comments” being made about a presenter’s clothes by responding to the News.com.au request.
The statement continued: “If Daily Mail Australia and News.com.au were genuine in their concern about such behaviour they wouldn’t amplify it by republishing the comments they describe as “vile” and “sickening”, accompanied by a screenshot.
“Giving anonymous social media bullies publicity on a national platform is participating in perpetuating antisocial behaviour and the very serious issue of online abuse of women.
“Especially on the eve of International Women’s Day, we ask for a more responsible approach to reporting on these issues.”
ABC director, of news Justin Stevens said: “The relentless and vile bullying Lisa Millar is subjected to on social media, particularly Twitter, is unacceptable. She is an outstanding broadcaster and journalist and does an incredible job.
“Media outlets that amplify this disgusting anonymous trolling need to take a good hard look at themselves and their standards.”
A News.com.au story published three weeks ago, titles ‘Shock as ABC announces it will shut down three of its most popular news brands’ Twitter pages’ stated that “criticism and hatred is nothing new to journalists, particularly those from the ABC”.
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Olivia Kruimel is the managing editor at Mumbrella. She has more than 15 years of experience in journalism, communications and marketing. Her journalism career began at Fairfax Media (now part of Nine) and includes various B2B publications such as B&T, Travel Today and ALB. As a marketer Olivia has worked for Standard Chartered and various global law firms.
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Calling out two very worthwhile campaigns “Let Her Speak” & “Justice Shouldn’t Hurt” does not even go close to making up for the frequently misogynistic articles published by news.com.au – where they seem to have taken the Daily Mail tact of describing women’s outfits, those fab “you won’t recognise this celeb now” articles as an excuse to point out weight gain/loss or aging, showing a picture of Erin Molan crying at her father’s funeral with the classy headline “Erin Molan tears up at father’s funeral”, not to mention the relentlessly trash articles from their so-called royal expert which are just Kate and/or Megan bashing exercises.
Time to get off that high horse and have a look at what is being published everyday….
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I think the comment from news.com.au is missing the point. The original article featured screenshots of some of the troll’s twitter comments. It’s not that the story isn’t newsworthy, rather why do you need to republish and platform people who are just plain hateful?
Pointing out that you run pro-female campaigns is virtue signalling, without addressing the actual concern. It seems the ABC’s statement hit a nerve, as the later version of the article removed all such screenshots. Funny that.
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Well done Lisa Millar – a journalist of quality and integrity. Trash media just fans the flames of the abuse – its part of their bread and butter. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if one day it was revealed that some of the troll’s’ hateful speech was manufactured by the media outlets themselves. Unfortunately there is a very big appetite for schadenfreude in our society – just look at the success of the reality TV shows where people are cruel and hurtful to each other. (As the nastiness arcs up, so do the ratings). We are a very dysfunctional society, increasingly adrift from the guiding principles of a civilized culture.
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