I live in Richmond Victoria, a street from where some of the violent protests occurred yesterday, once street away from some disturbing footage you can see in this video:
We have media outlets in this city that have, in my opinion, played a role in encouraging unrest that has played a role ‘encouraging’ the protests.
The Herald Sun has run story after story about the lockdowns, personalising attacks agains the premier. They preference appears to be for opinion, to encourage a set of views, more so than reporting. You only have to see today’s front page to see that in action.
This front page story, Dan’s slow road, is not journalism. The so-called slow road is the road agreed by national cabinet – but there’s no reference to that on the front page.
I am angry at the personal risk I and my neighbours faced yesterday. While the major confrontations were one street away, there were protestors on my street, as well as police. There were also helicopters directly overhead. It was a tense few hours.
The coffee shop I go to had hundreds of protestors outside, closing with police. I can only imaging how they felt.
The actions of the protestors effectively caused us to be barricaded in for the day given how the local streets were barricaded.
I am tired of selling this nonsense published baby News Corp., tired that their newspapers are no longer newspapers, that they are political lobbying pamphlets.
I support free speech. But to dress this up as front page news is ridiculous. News Corp. should focus on news on the front page and restrict opinion peddling to their opinion pages – and they should label them as such.
Do I think the Herald Sun played a role in what we saw yesterday in Victoria? It is hard to say, specifically. I do think the Herald Sun has played a role in encouraging unrest and disrespect.
Footnote: the protest was in Richmond because the police decided to stop the trains at my local station. This decision caused the city planned protest to relocate to my suburb. I would like to understand why the police thought shifting a protest from an empty CBD to populated suburban streets was a good idea.
Mark in response to your question “Did Herald Sun ‘reporting’ play a role in the Richmond protests yesterday?” I would answer yes. It is exactly what was done with Fox News in the US in Washington. Interestingly right now far right protests are again taking place in Washington. When will the pushers of these protests be held responsible for their actions. To me one of the Great facilitators/pushers of all this is News.
So who has been responsible for the madness over the last few days Not sure we can continually blame the press
Living here, hearing people, reading the papers and being aware of local shock jock radio, the root of the protests can be found in the behaviour of some ‘news’ outlets. They setup and fanned discontent, and subtly encouraged what we have seen since the weekend. The same thing happened with Cronulla in NSW years ago.
This morning in a Coles on Swan street, at 6:15am, I witnessed appalling behaviour that was, thankfully, quelled – someone shouting against vaccines and lockdowns and complaining that Coles had a QR code check in.
These are minority fringe dwellers. The majority, I suspect more than 99% of the population, want to get through this as quickly and safely as possible. I suspect that this 99%+ group are not protesting and will not protest, as they know that’s the type of activity that will lengthen health and safety measures.
Paul I do not see the press et all being blamed rather just News. Further today it was announced by News and specifically Lord Rupert Murdoch with great claimed honesty and middle of the road fanfare Piers Morgan (late of the land of the Pom and USA with many scandals) will now be on Sky News After Dark promoting the only true source of free speech for all to see. To me free speech is not defined by the right to practice lies false truths and or basically the right to be be a rude ignorant pig.
Mark to your comment above a resounding yes!