The Australian had a front-page exclusive on Wednesday claiming that authorities had confirmed a link between last month’s Melbourne Black Lives Matter protest and the Covid-19 breakout in public housing towers.
“Victorian health authorities have confirmed a link between two COVID-19 cases in people who attended the Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne’s CBD just over a month ago, and the cluster of at least 242 cases in public housing towers in the city’s inner northwest,” Rachel Baxendale wrote.
The “link” was not obvious to the reader but appeared to be buried towards the end: “Cases linked to the North Melbourne towers have links to other cases across Melbourne, including the North Melbourne family outbreak.” The report was accompanied by a complex graphic of 17 steps, which showed the link from the protest to the “confirmation”.
The story was enthusiastically endorsed by the News Corp reporter Sophie Elsworth and repeated on Sky News and the Daily Mail.
Link revealed between BLM protestors & a cluster of 242 cases in public housing towers. This protest was a game changer in Victoria, many people stopped listening after the state with the toughest rules did nothing to try & stop it going ahead @australian https://t.co/sVW4nKSQN3
— Sophie Elsworth (@sophieelsworth) July 14, 2020
But the Department of Health and Human Services told Seven News, and any other journalists who asked for clarification, that there was no evidence linking the two.
“We are aware of six confirmed cases who attended the Black Lives Matter protest,” the department said. “Currently there is no evidence to suggest they acquired the virus from the protest.
“None of these cases are known to reside at a major public housing complex. Currently no known nor suspected episodes of transmission occurred at the protest itself.”
In relation to some newspaper reports of a "link" between the BLM protest and public housing towers, Vic Health says:
— casey briggs (@CaseyBriggs) July 15, 2020
* So far 6 ppl who protested have been infected
* There is no evidence any of them acquired it at the protest
* None live in a major public housing complex pic.twitter.com/Ka6FQC1xWE
While many were sceptical of the link, others embraced the story. Very quickly the Oz “scoop” was shared on Facebook pages, including that of the federal minister for multicultural affairs, Jason Wood, as well as Pauline Hanson, Rita Panahi, Mark Latham, Jacinta Price and Australia First, according to the journalist Cam Wilson.
Baxendale stands by her story, saying it was “meticulously researched and carefully written and the facts within it have not been disputed by DHHS”.
On Thursday the ABC, whose news reporters have been doing a sterling job reporting the facts based on the evidence, risked spreading the BLM protest myth further with an injudicious tweet promoting the appearance of the Liberal senator Sarah Henderson on Q+A. It said she had linked Melbourne’s Covid spike with the BLM rally by saying: “Daniel Andrews blames law abiding Victorian families for doing the wrong thing rather than 10,000 illegal protesters?” A flurry of posts clarifying the errant tweet ensued until the program eventually deleted it late on Thursday.
Earlier today, this account stated that Sarah Henderson had linked Melbourne's current spike in COVID cases with the BLM protests. Senator Henderson made the comments referenced in that tweet on June 21. She was not referring to Melbourne's subsequent spike when she made them.
— QandA (@QandA) July 16, 2020
Olle off
About this time every year the ABC reveals who has been chosen to deliver the Andrew Olle media lecture, in honour of the late broadcaster who died in 1995 at the age of 47 from a brain tumour.
Last year’s address was given by the columnist Peter FitzSimons, who followed speakers including Kate McClymont, the late Mark Colvin, Laurie Oakes and Ray Martin.
This week the ABC announced that the annual media knees-up had been cancelled due to the coronavirus. So who did we miss out on hearing from? Weekly Beast can reveal the lecture was to be given by someone close to home: the ABC chair, Ita Buttrose. “I knew Andrew and he was one of the finest journalists and broadcasters we have produced in this country,” Buttrose told Beast. “I am honoured to have been asked to deliver the lecture and obviously disappointed the event can’t go ahead this year.”
We’re pretty sure Buttrose will take up the invitation if it is reissued next year.
Binge cringe
News Corp is working really hard to make its new streaming service, Binge, a success in a competitive market at a time when its stablemate Foxtel is battling to survive against Netflix, Stan, Disney+ and Amazon. In the March quarter, Foxtel’s earnings fell 31% year-on-year and News Corp took a $931m impairment charge on its value.
Binge’s marketing arm, ably assisted by acres of free advertising across News Corp papers, has been enthusiastic, to say the least. It coined a new word, but not one that rolls off the tongue: the content is “unturnoffable”, the ads say.
Earlier this month Binge partnered with the Iconic to create “Inactivewear”, an “exclusive line of unisex luxe-loungewear”, you can don while watching telly.
Sins against fashion aside, that promotion was harmless. But this week Binge launched a national competition which is rather tone-deaf at a time when hundreds of its journalists have been made redundant.
Binge is looking for “10 budding reviewers” to become “Australia’s first official Bingers and members of the BINGE Club”.
Ten writers who submit a written or video review will be rewarded with a year’s subscription (worth $168) to Binge.
“As an official Binger, they will get to review and talk about their favourite titles on BINGE with a chance to have their reviews published across News Corp publications and BINGE channels.”
But it seems News Corp gets the best part of the deal, in the form of a bunch of free TV reviews it can publish across the company’s mastheads, all the while advertising the streaming service.
It declined to comment on the push for free content while it was laying off an estimated 500 staff but Binge defended the competition.
“The BINGE Club is a light-hearted consumer competition to find people who love watching content, and love to talk about content,” Binge told Gizmodo Australia.
“Of course this is not a substitute for the important role that journalism plays and is completely unrelated to any decisions media companies might make about their business models.”
ABC’s budget rebuttal
It was just last week that the ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, rejected the government’s oft-repeated claim that the broadcaster’s budget had not been cut. Its chair, Ita Buttrose, also publicly rebutted claims that Aunty’s budget was growing each year, saying the corporation had actually lost $83m over three years as a result of an indexation pause.
After the ABC’s 250 job cuts and cuts to services were announced, the communications minister, Paul Fletcher, said at a press conference with Scott Morrison that the ABC’s funding was increasing every year.
“If you look at the numbers in the budget papers, the ABC’s funding is rising,” he said. “It’s all laid out in the budget papers.”
So why did Anderson have to cancel the 7.45am radio bulletin and lay off 70 journalists in news and dozens of program makers and production folk in TV if there was no cut?
RMIT ABC Fact Check has laid out the whole dispute for anyone who wants to understand the figures. Their conclusion is clear: Fletcher’s statement is misleading, largely because he has not taken inflation into account.
In response to allegations of cuts to the national broadcaster, Communications Minister @PaulFletcherMP said @ABCaustralia's funding is rising every year.
— RMIT ABC Fact Check (@ABCFactCheck) July 16, 2020
We found that claim to be misleading. Here's why: https://t.co/JfjRfIsyH7 #auspol #factcheck pic.twitter.com/sHjQnCt3PU
While we’re on ABC job cuts, there may be some unexpected good news. The Community and Public Sector Union has crunched the numbers and found the total number of proposed jobs being abolished is 191. When you add the total number of new positions management is proposing, 40, the net job loss is 151. A similar scenario happened in 2015 when job losses ended up significantly lower than first announced.
The class of 75
Some Australian journalists have incredible stamina. When the palace letters were released this week, we were reminded that some of the witnesses to history who reported on the dismissal in 1975 are still writing today. They include the political veterans Paul Kelly, Michelle Grattan, Geoff Kitney and Niki Savva. Kitney, who was political correspondent for the now-defunct Perth Daily News, is soon releasing a memoir which contains a chapter on the Whitlam dismissal.
Kelly, who was the Australian’s political reporter at the time and is now the paper’s editor-at-large, was described by Sir John Kerr in 1976 as “pro-Labor”.
Savva, a reporter for the Oz 45 years ago, told The Briefing podcast with Tom Tilley and Annika Smethurst that the event remained the thrill of her reporting life.
“Everything pales into insignificance to what happened that day – it had gone on for close to a year and it was just extraordinary,” she said.
