It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a good fortune in Twitter followers must be in want of a comeuppance. At least, that’s the experience of too many women journalists — in Australia, around the world — the moment they’re seen sliding a toe over some line hitherto invisible.
Twitter rewards the short, sharp and brutal with likes and retweets. It’s a feature that’s been weaponised — including by political movements and malign state actors through bots and troll farms — against the journalists, particularly women, who supply so much of the news content that drives the platform.
Media organisations (including the journalists’ union here in Australia) are building track-and-trace tools and encouraging resilience. But as Twitter has grown as the dominant social media platform for news, journalists and media organisations have lost the luxury to ignore it.
Sure, as journalists tell each other, “Twitter is not real life”. But neither is the audience for any distribution platform — including the evening news. Some journalists still prefer the one-directional channels of 20th century media. But to engage heavy news users, media need to embrace the multi-directional Twitter.
Numbers across platforms are a bit apples and oranges, but, as an example, the ABC’s main Twitter feed has about twice as many followers as there are viewers of its 7pm television news bulletin. The most popular journalists on the platform are leading ABC women like Leigh Sales, Annabel Crabb and Laura Tingle.
These twin contexts have crashed together in the overheated pandemic wars.
First, ABC News Breakfast co-presenter Lisa Millar walked away from Twitter, suspending her account. Then, 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales (with about 450,000 Twitter followers) called out the harassment and bullying. It is, she said, “non-stop, personal, often vile, frequently unhinged and regularly based on fabrications”.
Sales pointed to the way it’s manifesting in Australia, saying “the space is dominated by views that are militantly pro-lockdown, pro-COVID zero and pro-Labor premiers”. The Sales tweet that triggered her pile-on seems to have been an insufficiently alarmist thread of studies on the impact of COVID on children.
The frustration for journalists is the confidence of the Twitterati that political preferences can be read in the day-to-day decisions of stories covered and news-gathering techniques used in reporting the pandemic policy response, where all jurisdictions — state and federal — have operated within a narrow, largely consensual policy band.
A criticism framed as a question should be understood as a retweet — it does not imply endorsement.
Yet, on social media (and in the performance theatre of press conferences), the most minor of differences has triggered a life-and-death struggle for the ages, with more straw people than a scarecrow school reunion.
Sales puts her finger on the real peculiarity: unlike the US and western Europe, the most vocal dissenters — on both social and traditional media — have been those shouting “Not enough!”, even though the country has had the most restrictive public health regime of any democratic country.
Part of the answer comes from recent history. The lines in the pandemic wars were forged in the media trenches through the depths of Melbourne’s 2020 winter as pushback against a belief that the aggression of the mainstream media — News Corp, through the Herald Sun in particular — was undermining the five-month lockdown. It was hard fought across press conferences and online — no nuance, no neutrals.
After five months, the hardliners found themselves vindicated with a summer of doughnut days. Trouble is, while Twitter rewards certainty, it discourages — even punishes — reconsideration as circumstances change.
Politicians haven’t helped, covering up inherent uncertainty by playing up minor state-by-state differences, cashing in state parochialism to justify particular models of lockdowns and lockouts.
Many journalists, meanwhile, seem to have picked up a touch of uncertainty. While all media are reluctant to discard the attention hit of pandemic catastrophism, the audience is moving on: half of all adults — maybe two-thirds of regular news consumers — are now fully vaxxed.
Social media will adjust algorithmically as users turn to feeds that meet their needs for knowing what’s next. Journalists need to adjust too.
Nobody should be bulled ,but for progressives and Australian working class has had the MSM and shock jocks bully people & organisation’s for years,not one of those high payed commentators raise their voices against that .
Is Sales, or anybody else, sticking up for Murdoch/SKY’s Panahi, Credlin, Devine et al in the same way?
Are they “targeted more than SKY men”?
Ever catch Sales smiling at, joking and giggling with any Labor or Greens politicians : like she does some Coalition? Cousin Jethro used to be one, Turnbull still, and Howard gets indulged.
Social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter et al.) are not yet compulsory for any profession..Lots of us don’t use it at all!
I find Twitter an ugly and unforgiving platform. Its quite depressing after a Twitter surf following threads. Don’t use it much for anything but some radio program updates. Sales says progressives seem more vitriolic on Twitter. Could it be thats because they feel out shouted and out influenced by power of the MSM – Costellos Nine – Stokes’ Seven and Limited News and then over expect the ABC to be unrealistically fair, balanced and professional in every regard to news reporting and analysis?
Hi. Not sure if you read the original article but she goes into much greater detail here…& the treatment of her & many others from “progressives” is absolutely savage. Worth reading if you haven’t already. Twitter is a toilet!
https://amp.abc.net.au/article/100458714
Right, twitter is a dumpster fire, and no one should go near it.
That said, a TLDR of Sales’ article is: “I was being abused and bullied by MPs (i.e., people with enormous institutional power), who were often calling me _on my personal phone_. That’s fine, but getting yelled at on a social media platform by anons is actually the problem.”
WTF?
Let me fix this for you: The Sales tweet that triggered her pile-on seems to have been a thread of extremely outdated, pre-delta studies on the impact of COVID on children, that totally ignored the lived experience of places like Qld, where covid spreads quickly through school children in school settings.
Also ignores a mountain of international evidence. Is to her discredit she reacted that way instead of donning a journalist hat and investigating the issue that was being raised and the more so given it was the health of our kids at stake.
NB: Alpha studies are a huge concern, eg article saying playgrounds were safe stated using alpha studies as were no delta studies yet went ahead and advised parents kids were safe. CDC and American Academy recommend masks for 2 yo indoors + outdoors in areas where there are high case numbers and distancing isn’t possible.
Disappointing that what I regard to be legitimate concerns have been reframed as politically motivated gender based attacks as it means that the issues themselves were not given due consideration and there will be no action on them. I’m not familiar with Sales but switched from watching New Breakfast to Sunrise for genuinely less politicized covid coverage and filed a complaint against Karvelas. Both promote the LNP’s anti-lockdown rhetoric and frequently in degree that felt as if they were dedicated propaganda arms of the LNP. Eg Karvelas repeatedly solicited opinion from business and tourism operators as to what they thought should be done about lockdowns. This is different to asking how lockdowns were affecting their businesses as the first elicits broadcasting of ‘lockdowns need to be ended’. while the latter does not steer towards this. Canavan et al have been given extended time to rail against lockdowns and in contrast to Patricia’s usual rigour not asked a single question was asked nor counterpoint offered nor opportunity for rebuttal by some with an opposing view, like say a Dr or epidemiologist or most of those on any street for that matter. The LNP has succeeded in reframing lockdowns as the problem requiring a solution instead of as the solution to the problem of uncontrolled covid and the targetted ABC presenters appear to personally endorse this view given the amount and nature of the coverage they give to it which differs from their handling of other topics. Fostering anti-lockdown sentiment is dangerous as it foments noncompliance and protests both of which spread covid and imo the ABC has contributed to this.
In one article Sales took exception to the #thisisnotjournalism thread on twitter. I’ve posted on it and from I’ve seen the above is a fair example of what and why people post there. My viewing is selective as I post after I have observed something so there may be areas of it that blow, but from my point of view the concerns of viewers – 2300+ of us re one episode of Afternoon Briefing – are actual issues, not some gender based political attack and shame on them for dismissing them as such instead of reflecting on their own actions.