On the 28th of July 2018, hundreds of people protested the portrayal of African-Australians in the Australian media.
The protest took place outside Channel 7’s studios and followed the broadcasting of a Sunday Night segment detailing ‘violence’ perpetrated by ‘African gangs’. A segment which was slammed for racist reporting.
Channel 7 defended their program over twitter.
Channel 7 on Twitter: “TOMORROW 8.20 @sundaynighton7 | Barely a week goes by when they’re not in the news. African gangs running riot, terrorising, wreaking havoc. Police are hesitant to admit there’s even a problem. The latest attack was just days ago, so what can be done? #SN7 pic.twitter.com/hYzxka9MEV / Twitter”
TOMORROW 8.20 @sundaynighton7 | Barely a week goes by when they’re not in the news. African gangs running riot, terrorising, wreaking havoc. Police are hesitant to admit there’s even a problem. The latest attack was just days ago, so what can be done? #SN7 pic.twitter.com/hYzxka9MEV
Channel 7 was correct on one front; Barely a week goes by when they, the African community, aren’t the subject of an alarming headline. But do more headlines indicate more crime?
As of August 8th 2018, a combined 697 articles, opinion columns and broadcasts, have been published by The Age, Herald Sun, ABC, Dailymail and The Australian under the tags ‘African, Crime, Gangs, Sudanese’.
From this visualisation we can conclude;
- Melbourne based publications have produced the majority of these articles, 72% of the articles have been published by either The Age or The Herald sun. However this is pretty unsurprising given that it has been a Victorian issue.
- The Herald Sun is the largest producer of articles on these topics. The Herald Sun’s 301 articles is equal to the combined total of The Age and The Dailymail.
When we add a timeframe to this data set things start to get interesting.
- Before 2015 The Herald Sun only averaged 3.75 articles on african crime yearly. From 2015 onwards we see an explosion of coverage.
- Prior to 2015 coverage consisted of reports exclusively from The Victorian based Herald Sun and The Age. Each publication averaged roughly the same ammount of articles on the topic during this period. From 2015 onwards The Herald Sun has consistently out published The Age by a rate of almost 2:1.
- We also see National and Interstate publications begin writing on the issue in 2016, while the ABC covers african gangs for the first time in 2018.
- The Addition of CSA’s Recorded number of criminal offences shows us that recorded offences increased gradually from 2009 In Victoria. However, the count of recorded offences actually fell significantly from 2017 to 2018, a period which saw the greatest increase in articles by all publications.
So is The Herald Sun over reporting the issue? Is the The Age undereporting it?
The answer isnt so clear. But if we consider the ownership of these organisations and the Victorian election cycle, we can add some interesting context.
News Corp own the Australian and The Herald Sun. Media Mogul, Rupert Murdoch founded Newscorp and has never been discrete about his political influence. Journalist Ken Aulett asked him about the subject in 2007.
“of all the things in your business empire, what gives you the most pleasure?” Murdoch instantly replied: “being involved with the editor of a paper in a day-to-day campaign…trying to influence people”
Attention grabbing headlines and conservative editorialising characterise Murdoch’s publications across the globe.
It is interesting to note that the spike in african crime coverage, spearheaded by The Herald Sun, directly coincides with the Victorian Election cycle.
In 2014 The Andrew’s Government won the Victorian state election, outing Dennis Napthine’s liberal party after one term.
Since then we have seen unprecedented and disproportionate coverage of “African crime”, despite ‘number of offences’ reaching a 3 year low. The coverage reached its highest ever peak at the conclusion of The State Government’s 4 year term, 2018.
I think it will be very interesting to see where this trend will go in 2019 following the state election.
Check out some of the headlines, in this timeline.
Featured image: THOMAS HOGAN
