Here at Crikey we like to take note and recognise the hard work some journalists do to show why our profession is profoundly distrusted by the public by handing out the coveted Wankley award. Today the honour goes to Sunday Night, for its story yesterday about Melbourne’s “African gangs”.
The narrative is familiar to Victorians, taken up with particular gusto by the Herald Sun since the 2016 Moomba festival in Melbourne was marred by rioting young criminals. Between the tabloid media and politicians capitalising on law and order panic, the story is that Melbourne was being taken over by violent Sudanese gangs.
Opening his story last night, Sunday Night reporter Alex Cullen said police denied there were gangs because “we live in such politically correct times”. But, as we reported last year, Victoria Police have acknowledged a higher-than-average crime rate within the South Sudanese community, but last year (and in an interview to Sunday Night) said it was wrong to call them “gangs”.
A police spokesman interviewed as part of the story explained why police didn’t use the word “gang”: “They’re over-represented in crime and some of them are behaving in very serious offending … I think we call it for what it is. I don’t think we want to give these young people any additional notoriety or additional kudos for something.”
Despite Cullen’s claim that “barely a week goes by” without a story of crime carried out by African gangs in the news, there was no background or further evidence of more than one particular incident.
Most of the story was based on an interview with the victim of an especially traumatic experience, Elaine French, who was working in a Toorak jewellery store that was robbed twice in three months at gunpoint. French talked about her trauma, told the program she would have panic attacks if she saw “a coloured person”, and said any of the young criminals should be “deported back to where they came from” (most of those caught in relation to these crimes are Australian-born, and come from a variety of backgrounds, police have said).
Cullen explained why French and others were angry about the crimes: “For far too long police and politicians have refused to acknowledge that African gangs even existed, let alone were responsible for an alarming surge in violent crime.”
Last week, Victorian crime statistics showed a drop in the crime rates, and the lowest rate of home invasions in 10 years.
Community leaders were furious about the story before it even aired, with lawyer Maker Mayek starting a Twitter hashtag to protest the story, #NotMyAustralia.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Victoria Police said people from African backgrounds only represented a small portion of offenders in the community.
“We know that young people of African backgrounds are overly represented in some high-harm crimes, and police and African Australian communities are working extremely hard to deal with the issue,” she said.
“The groups that have been labelled ‘gangs’ are effectively groups of young people coming together, sometimes for one night, to commit offences. It’s not what we have traditionally called gangs. Some of these young people might only join up once and never be there again, others might be there a few times. It may be street-gang behaviour that we are seeing and responding to, but they are not gangs in the traditional sense, which are typically more structured and organised in their offending.”
A spokeswoman for Sunday Night did not respond to Crikey’s specific questions, but said: “Sunday Night stands by each and every element of the story published in last night’s program.”
NOTE: This story has been updated to include comment from Victoria Police and Seven, received after deadline.
What did you make of Channel Seven’s coverage of the so-called “African gangs” crisis? Write to us at boss@crikey.com.au.
I see that Sunday Night/Channel 7 has decided to go full tilt in its attempts to get Matthew “eating lobster with a mobster” Guy elected in this year’s Victorian elections. In spite of inheriting a police force heavily cut by the previous Naptime/Bally-hoo government, Andrews has still managed to oversee a drop in crime rates two years running, unlike their counterparts in NSW.
Channel 7 and channel 9 current affairs shows are and always have been as bad as Fox News, Sky and News Corp for promoting ignorance and racism.
They don’t need facts, they have “common sense”. They don’t inform, they pander to prejudices. They are disgusting, and work hand in glove with the Liberal Party. The African Gangs story is the favoured narrative of Matthew Guy, the Herald Sun and Channel 7. The injecting rooms story is another one.
That’s why we need to get rid of the ABC. How are we going to get the message of prejudice and divisiveness out there and panic the populace with a non-existent surge in crime if we’ve got the ABC wasting taxpayer dollars on reporting actual news?
You didn’t see the way this was treated by 7:30 (Jan; 17 this year)?
Dep; Commissioner Crisp put things into perspective – and how it was being beaten out of shape by parts of the media.
Then on comes Jason Wood – Dutton Lib. ex-copper clone – to be indulged, to give his political two cent’s worth. “All those home invasions. All them Sudanese!”?
OK by Sales?
Majak Daw played a fantastic game yesterday didn’t he?
From now to November get ready for a series of “common sense” stories from the heralds of the right designed to denigrate the Andrew’s Government. An Injecting Room near a school, Sky-Rail destroying the suburbs, African Gangs and so on are all part of the armoury to frighten, confuse and distort the populace’s perception of a reasonably capable, though not perfect Government that has actually achieved a great deal and should get another go.
Channel 7 seems to be going out of it’s way to push far right racist tropes in the past few years, especially on Sunrise which played a major part in normalising and promoting Pauline Hanson before the 2016 election by giving her a regular slot and then subjecting her to soft soap questioning from Kochie. The same program also gives regular exposure to red-neck big-mouths like Prue McSween to spout garbage about aboriginal children.
I guess it’s no real surprise that Seven reflects the nasty-old-rich-white-man world view of it’s Chairman Kerry Stokes in the same way that Fox and Sky reflect the views of the Oligarch-in-Chief.
No doubt about it, Seven has taken a turn towards fascism. Hard to tell if it’s ideological conviction or just a search for easy ratings that’s driving it.
Always has. Even 25 years ago Today Tonight and A Current Affair were equal opportunity offenders at running the kinds of “Asians coming here and taking our jobs, and opening entire shopping centres where only Asian is spoken, and buying up whole suburbs and leaving them empty to drive up prices for Aussies while laughing, and also getting all their money from drugs” kind of stories that spawned Pauline Hanson.
It’s just over time the focus has done from demonising Asians to demonizing Africans.
McSween, and several others, which hateradio 2GB pushed throughout 2017 as their “Basket of Deplorables” using la Klingon’s paint stripper voice as the intro soundbite have seriously blotted the escutcheon of decency, Alex Malley, Pru “run over YAM” McSween, (D)ross Cameron and the inimitable (hopefully) Mad Mark.
By their paid contributors shall ye know them.