Missteps and Malice - How Australia's Media Responded to the Paris Attacks

When Channel Seven put together a graphic for their report on the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, someone in the graphics department messed up. Behind the anchors was a Dutch flag with bullet holes dramatically photoshopped in.

It was a profoundly idiotic error on Seven's part, yet the days-long vilification that erupted on social media was hardly a proportional response. As everybody on Twitter used the same condescending tone to attack Seven, you have to wonder how many of them had actually spotted the error themselves, and how many were just repeating the outrage of the original tweet. At least a few of them could probably stand to have been a little less smug.

Particularly when we were all facing down the social media mandlebrot of shame. It began with "Poor France", then continued with "But what about poor Other Countries you didn't mention because they're not western?", then "Stop grief-shaming me for feeling bad about Paris", then "Stop shame-shaming me for pointing out systemic biases", and so on until all culture spirals into a righteous singularity.

Breaking through the nonsense was a rare ray of sanity in the form of Waleed Aly, host of Channel Ten's The Project.

Waleed's video has been shared across the country and then across the world, not because it promotes an idealised world of lovey-dovey peace, but because it conveys information that is not being widely promoted to the mainstream. Namely, that the stated intention of ISIL is to drive a wedge between Western nations and Muslim immigrants, thus forcing the immigrants into the beckoning arms of the terror group. It's not a particularly complex strategy, but it's a disappointingly effective one, and the more simplistic members of the media have been mindlessly playing right into it.

Not that any of them would admit it.

Andrew Bolt—the columnist who increasingly sounds as if he's looking for a way to travel back in time not to 1889 to kill Baby Hitler, but to September to stop Tony Abbott losing the Prime Ministership—was having none of it.

"First, [Waleed Aly] is a Muslim and was spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria at a time that it had voted to make the extremist Sheik Hilali the Mufti of Australia," explained Bolt. "He could be seen to have an agenda."

If there's one thing Andrew cannot stand, it's someone who might be seen to have an agenda.

But despite the attempts by the ultra-conservative commentators, even they found it impossible to (not insanely) argue against Aly's argument.

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As Aly pointed out, Channel Nine's Weekend Today program had added to the static by interviewing Pauline Hanson, failed politician and future failed politician. Hanson did what Hanson was supposed to do, which is to warn everyone that letting in refugees might mean letting in some undercover ISIS plants.

Displaying the same complex view of history as a torn Fantales wrapper, Hanson repeated the popular claim that "Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim". It's fact that can only seem plausible if you literally don't know anything about the world.

It's not as if Pauline Hanson is being quizzed on this because she's an expert on terrorism or world affairs or Islam. Networks scramble to get her on the air because she's going to say something ignorant and incendiary, and everyone is going to get up in arms and write think pieces and in those think pieces they'll mention Hanson-featuring programs such as Channel Nine's Today and Channel Seven's Sunrise, both airing from 6am-9am weekdays, thus giving them free publicity. It's a vicious circle, and I refuse to play any part in it.

It's this sort of mindless nonsense that Aly was arguing against, and yet commentators such as Chris Kenny, columnist for The Australian and Andrew Bolt-without-the-page-views, was furious that Aly had singled Hanson out. He also made a bold attempt at tearing Aly's arguments down.

"Time and again we hear the call in the wake of Islamist terrorism attacks that the community must not respond with hatred against all Muslims," wrote Kenny in The Australian. "And time and again, aside from isolated incidents (and even fabricated events to spur an 'I'll ride with you' hashtag), the Australian community, and others, show nothing but common sense and cohesion."

Kenny, like most of Australia, must not have been watching his own show, when just two weeks ago he reported on the Muslim students who were excused from singing the national anthem.

The outrage across the country was entirely predictable: "They don't share our values! They refuse to sing the national anthem! Etc!" Kenny, like most other outlets, failed to report the fact that this incident had occurred during the month of Muharram, a period that requires Muslims to abstain from joyous events. The real issue is why Muslims consider singing the atonal mess that is our national anthem to be even remotely joyous. But we'll look into that another time.

And yet this lack of understanding didn't stop Treasurer Scott Morrison from calling staff at the school "do-gooders" and "muppets". Maybe we can look forward to Morrison chastising Jewish kids for not participating in similar activities during Yom Kippur, as part of an inclusive insulting-all-religions-equally move.

And if that example is too oblique for you, then let's look at the group trying desperately to stop a mosque being built in Bendigo. Perhaps the most indefensible vilification of Muslims we've seen yet in this country.

Kenny, who frequently chastises reporters for ignoring facts that don't suit their narrative, must be working very hard to convince himself of this utopian social cohesion. Because the facts tell a very different tale to the one he's spinning.

Meanwhile, let's leave the final word to the Australian media personality who said the most constructive thing about this whole situation, Jason Donovan:

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