The templated @abcnews reporting of ‘right wing activists’ ‘clashing’ with ‘African youths’ is a perfect example of how lazy journalism distorts reality and therefore fails in the basic requirement of news media to report accurately for the public good. A thread.
This article actually doesn’t do a bad job of describing what happened at St Kilda. However the repeated use of the word ‘activists’ leads the reader to think the racists have some legitimate cause they are promoting when really they’re inciting race hate
abc.net.au/news/2018-12-2…
abc.net.au/news/2018-12-2…
The tweet/headline which frames the main news is awful. This gives a false equivalency to two equally responsible groups for ‘clashing’ - suggesting African youths are just as much to blame as the ‘activists’ campaigning against the Africans’ existence. 
This FB post by Erikson blatantly shows that this incident was a set up. He tried to provoke violence from the young men by filming them to incite a race riot next weekend. This is clearly criminal behaviour and should be reported as such.
Can we just pause for a moment and imagine if a group of immigrant men went to a popular beach and intimidated by filming young white men to try to incite a brawl? The police would throw the immigrants in prison and Dutton would cancel their citizenship. I digress.
The main issue with this news piece is that journalists are taught that to be objective, all they need to do is get a quote from each side and voila, you have a perfect representation of reality as everyone got a chance to put their side of the story across.
The issue with this simplified, context free journalistic practice is that it assumes both sides are just the same as the other, with equal credibility, either good or bad. So, we get ‘activists’ versus ‘youths of African appearance’. Distortion of reality.
The true story is aggressive, racist, white supremacist criminals purposely targeting peaceful young AUSTRALIAN men (who are of African appearance which is why they were targeted but has nothing to do with their behaviour), to try to provoke violence for political ends.
These white supremacists have risen in a political environment of race hatred and mythical accusations of gangs perpetrated by Matthew Guy, Peter Dutton and their Liberal co-conspirators.
The anti-African-immigrants campaign has also been promoted / inflamed by the Murdoch media (@theheraldsun) and other lazy journalists too inept or biased to take Victorian Police advice to stop using the unjustified word ‘gang’ to incite fear and hatred of African immigrants.
So, back to the templated journalism, the practice of ‘he said, she said’ false equivalency that gives each side equal say and equal credibility or blame for the ‘conflict’ that becomes the moral tale of the news reports framed in this lazy way.
As these researchers have found (yay, it’s not just me!), templated journalism is particularly dangerous when you give false equivalence and credibility to both sides, even when one side isn’t playing by the rules.
bostonreview.net/politics/yocha…
bostonreview.net/politics/yocha…
These rules, which Trump breaks every time he speaks, include those age-old doozies such as telling the truth, being honest, having good intentions and basically not trying to use the media to propagandise for political purposes.
As the article☝🏻points out (based on peer reviewed research), the right wing media and right wing political elite have stopped playing by these old rules. That means journalists have to stop pretending that ‘he said’ something credible, and must CHECK before publishing.
It also means that when people like Neil Erikson try to incite a race riot by provoking violence with immigrants, it’s REALLY IMPORTANT that journos don’t fall for this trick and give them false credibility.
Erikson has played the media because their templated journalism allows him to. He knows he can be racist and it gets his face on TV so his message reaches a mainstream audience. He gets interviewed as a credible source.
The @abcnews might scorn the likes of @SkyNewsAust hosting white supremacist Blair Cottrell, but calling Neil Erikson an activist and giving his group a right of reply about this incident, while implying the clash was partly fault of youths he targeted is no better than Sky.
Let’s also note similar occurrences of the right of reply for the not-credible party, which gives the not-credible party an underserved credibility, are happening all the time. Pauline Hanson anyone?
This templated journalism is where we got climate change denialism from. ‘He says it exists, we’ve found someone who says it doesn’t’. It’s also how fake news has become such a problem. The template allows lies to be inserted verbatim and it’s too late to fact check another day.
Another notable example is when lack of Liberal climate policy is referred to as ‘climate wars’, making it appear Labor are just as bad. This ‘just as bad as each other’ template means Labor is tarred with he same brush, causing distrust of majors, every time Libs misbehave.
I researched case of media unanimously accepting Matthew Guy’s lies that UFU wanted houses to burn and were intent of driving volunteers out of the CFA (total lies). But Guy said it so there it was - printed and credible and train-tracked narrative thereafter.
Point is, this stuff happens all the time. (Clinton’s emails!?) When no one is holding both sides to account, one side is able to win by lying, cheating and basically using the news media to propel their ideological lies forward.
The first reports of Neil a Erikson should have been headlined: ‘Racist group harasses peaceful beachgoers with aim of inciting race riot’. This is the most objective reading of this situation - nothing biased about the truth.
It’s been great to see some journos on twitter aghast at @abcnews referring to clash of activists in this case. I applaud those who speak out against bad practices of their colleagues.
Let’s all work towards better journalism for better outcomes, such as not inciting race hatred or legitimising racist criminals. The template doesn’t work. Rethink how journalism can be more effective, with first task throwing out the template. End.
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