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By Ronni Salt<\/a> The call came 30 minutes after the court documents had been submitted.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Unaccustomed to speaking to media, Michael chatted to the journalist as if it was a normal phone conversation. He had no idea his words were being put directly into the Guardian’s live blog for immediate publication. It was the beginning of a media hurricane for Michael. <\/span><\/p>\n The following day Michael woke to strange cars parked outside his house. A photographer from the Australian hid near his rubbish bins and leapt out to take a photo. He did not identify himself. Michael in his morning track suit screamed thinking he was being attacked & robbed. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t really want to dwell on the gory details, but there\u2019ve been death threats and rape threats and photos of me circulated on the internet for weeks,\u201d Baxendale says, in an email exchange. \u201cThere\u2019s been some pretty violent, nasty stuff involving suffocation and strangling and gagging. There\u2019s been sexual nonsense about who I \u2018must be\u2019 sleeping with. But there\u2019s also just been relentless, low-level stupid stuff, about what I wear and how I look and what my voice sounds like. Ironically a lot of the latter has come from people who describe themselves in their social media profiles as feminists who believe in things like \u2018kindness\u2019, \u2018fairness\u2019 and \u2018equality\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Melbourne writer<\/span> Jill Stark tweeted<\/span><\/a> last Saturday: \u201cDan Andrews really has perfected the art of fronting up each day to give the perception of transparency and accountability but then not actually saying anything.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Over the next 48 hours it received more than 3,000 responses, including those calling her a \u201cstupid girl\u201d (Stark is 44), accusing her of being a rightwing hack (she left journalism four years ago) and asking why she was not instead criticising Scott Morrison (he wasn\u2019t speaking, but she has been critical of the prime minister too).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After this, the<\/span> @australian<\/span><\/a> &<\/span> @smh<\/a><\/span> were fed attack pieces by Michael Sukkar & several other prominent Liberal MPs. The advantages of being a politician with unfettered media access hey?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n No media outlet acknowledged Michael’s position of weakness in these attacks.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI thought what I was saying wasn\u2019t particularly controversial,\u201d Stark says. \u201cI was watching the press conference \u2013 I watch it every day \u2013 and it was just something that had been slowly building in my mind. He just doesn\u2019t actually answer those tough questions about hotel quarantine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Stark has supported the lockdown and her personal politics are progressive.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople apply their own lens on what you are saying and pigeonhole you as being on their side or not,\u201d she says. \u201cLife is not as black and white as that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But social media is increasingly that black and white, says Dr Tim Graham, a senior lecturer in digital media at the University of Queensland. \u201cThere\u2019s a sort of homophily effect that\u2019s at play here, where like attracts like and it groups particular like-minded individuals together and brings the fringes into the mainstream,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n Graham and his team have analysed six months of data, purchased from Twitter, on the<\/span> #IStandWithDan<\/a>, #DictatorDan<\/a> and<\/span> #DanLiedPeopleDied<\/a> hashtags.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The biggest of the three is<\/span> #IStandWithDan<\/a>, with 275,000 tweets between 3 March and 25 September. The bulk of accounts using that hashtag appear to be authentic: they were created over the past 11 years, use unique profile pictures and engage in a variety of topics. Accounts tweeting about<\/span> #DictatorDan<\/a> (108,000 tweets) and<\/span> #DanLiedPeopleDied<\/a> (21,000 tweets) were mostly created this year or last year, were more likely to use profile pictures that were copied from the web, and are more likely to tweet at a rapid rate that suggests the use of a scheduling tool or another form of automation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Graham is yet to run the data through a bot analysis, but says it appears that most accounts are controlled by real people. That won\u2019t stop accounts being labelled as \u201cbots\u201d in a pejorative way by those who disagree, he says.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI would say that the term bot is fast becoming the new fake news,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s no deliberative democratic debate happening, there\u2019s not an exchange of ideas, it\u2019s not civil in many cases, it\u2019s just tit for tat, highly emotionally charged, and then eventually someone calls someone else a bot and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Michael is a quiet man, who lives a quiet life with a wife who has a long term illness. He looks after her in their private home in Melbourne’s east. He is a private citizen, without the happy protection of being a member of the media pack.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After 12 weeks of lockdown, the premier\u2019s daily press conference has become something of a performance, with both reporters and Andrews acutely aware they are being watched and evaluated by an audience at home.<\/span><\/p>\n Andrews has always excelled at addressing the public. He has stayed for every question for three months, an approach that appears transparent even as he failed to respond to the most pressing questions around hotel quarantine.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn my view, Andrews is also the best politician of his generation at spinning things to his advantage,\u201d Baxendale says. \u201cSometimes that spin involves using a tone of voice and manner that\u2019s aimed at discrediting the person who\u2019s asked him a question he doesn\u2019t particularly want to answer. And that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s part of his job. But it should be seen for what it is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Osman Faruqi, a journalist with the Saturday Paper, says broadcasting press conferences has both helped and hindered public understanding. Because while they are seeing one part of how the media operates, they are not seeing the whole: the weeks of emails and phone calls to government departments requesting a response to a simple question; the outright lies from government arguing that a story which is later proved right is wrong; the hours spent on phones to sources.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c[Journalists] are asking a series of questions that can sound frustrating and boring because that\u2019s how the media works,\u201d he says. \u201cGetting answers out of government is frustrating and boring and sometimes you have to ask the same question five days in a row to get an answer that is still ultimately unsatisfying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Frydenberg’s team – including the two journalists he had working on his behalf at The Australian – waged a relentless war on Michael Staindl – the private, mild mannered citizen who unfortunately wasn’t a journalist.<\/span><\/p>\n His finances were looked into, his wife’s illness, everything. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n He says televising the press conferences has also changed the way they are conducted, like a journalistic Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s cat. Journalists may be more conscious of the way they do their job \u2013 which means more intense scrutiny, more questions, a more combative tone \u2013 and Andrews is increasingly playing to the back of the room. Dismissing a question does not go down well in a room full of journalists, but it does work for those watching at home.<\/span><\/p>\n Faruqi has attracted the ire of Andrews supporters for criticising several elements of the state\u2019s coronavirus response, including its contact tracing system; the use of police to lock down the public housing towers; and the over-reliance on policing and fines to manage public health.<\/span><\/p>\n The attacks from Andrews super fans have been, for him at least, milder than previous pile-ons by rightwing accounts.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt least they\u2019re not threatening to kill me or hurling racist abuse,\u201d Faruqi says.<\/span><\/p>\n He is slightly bemused by those that have suggested that in criticising the Victorian government, he is angling for a job at News Corp, an organisation that has run campaigns against him in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And yet no journalist or media outlet wrote a long piece grieving for this private man who wasn’t a journalist having his life turned upside down by powerful politicians & powerful media outlets. They were all silent.<\/span><\/p>\n Even the Guardian who we contacted about it. Not interested. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI have no interest in being in cahoots with those people,\u201d he says. \u201cIf they are waging a vendetta against the government and I am doing reporting simultaneously that exposes problems happening in the government, that is not me being in cahoots, that\u2019s just two different things happening at the same time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Stark thinks the stress and pressure of this year has created a heightened response on social media.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe<\/span> #IStandWithDan<\/span><\/a> supporters probably do have some valid criticism in terms of the level of scrutiny being applied to the premier, compared to, say, the prime minister during this pandemic,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it seems like it\u2019s gone beyond the usual ideological or political tribalism and it has a much more emotional, almost anxious energy to it. Which I think is understandable given that in Melbourne we\u2019ve been going through a collective trauma in the last few months.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Andrews has been a steady presence throughout that period, a source of comfort and stability. For people who feel that way, she says, an attack on Andrews is \u201cby proxy an attack on your own sense of security\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The threats and intrusions into Michael and his wife’s lives continued for months. Michael did not want to go outside, his wife was fearful.<\/span><\/p>\n Their social circle avoided them due to threats from Josh Frydenberg.<\/span><\/p>\n His radio program dropped him due to the media scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It has created, says journalism professor Monica Attard, an interesting change. \u201cRather than wanting the media to closely question and pursue government, Twitter wants the media to back off and leave Dan alone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There is a group of people who see any criticism of Andrews as an attempt to undermine the public health message, says Baxendale.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI see it as the opposite,\u201d she says. \u201cParts of the bureaucracy and government have monumentally failed us, and the only way of fixing them is to work out what went wrong by asking the right questions and refusing to accept the spin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The threat of a social media pile-on has discouraged some experts from contributing to the public debate, says Deakin University\u2019s professor of epidemiology, Catherine Bennett.<\/span><\/p>\n Bennett is one of the few independent public health experts who has kept talking. After each opinion piece or interview, she receives a flood of emails: 99% from other academics who praise her for speaking out even as they keep their silence; and 1% from members of the public who question her integrity, twist her arguments or issue threats.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Prime Minister even declared in a national press conference that Michael was “anti-Semitic and disgraceful”.<\/span><\/p>\n Nothing like being called a racist in front of the whole of Australia (when you are not).<\/span><\/p>\n I didn’t see any journalists defending Michael then.<\/span><\/p>\n Or now.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI know that other academics aren\u2019t out here doing the same thing, working in the public space, because that 1% is shocking to us, that you could be questioned and challenged and used in people\u2019s own political spheres,\u201d she says. \u201cSo it is tough. You do have to have enough focus on what you\u2019re doing to be able to put the blinkers on and ignore some of that as a sadly necessary negative part of being in this space.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She says that valid questioning \u2013 such as requesting the inputs of the modelling released by the Victorian government this month, and asking to see the evidence behind various policy decisions \u2013 should be encouraged, not shut down.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe message is just: stay the course, it\u2019s working,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s fine, OK, but could other things work?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Traditional media is just as guilty of misinterpreting expert opinions: an interview Bennett gave this week about changes to the face-mask rules was reported as \u201cexpert slams the latest guidelines\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI actually supported them completely,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n Bennett has abandoned social media, saying it serves no purpose as a measure of public sentiment when it\u2019s occupied by extremes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAll the middle conversation\u2019s dropped out so there\u2019s no point in trying to engage in it,\u201d she says. \u201cYou know what the extreme views are and you don\u2019t know what the balance is, because [the extreme views are] the loudest voices.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael and his wife were almost destroyed by what the Liberal government and their media acolytes did to him.<\/span><\/p>\n The publicised name calling, the phone calls, the harassment.<\/span><\/p>\n But Michael wasn’t a journalist.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nobody wrote a 1000 word article on his trials.<\/span><\/p>\n None of them cared.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Featured image – From <\/span>The Australian<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ABC’s puff piece for the LNP<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Tim Smith<\/span><\/a><\/span> | The PM ignores a pandemic, <\/span><\/span><\/span>multiple deaths in Aged care and <\/span>a crashing economy forcing people into <\/span><\/span>unemployment –<\/span> to build a chicken coop<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Original Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n<\/span>Oct 3 2020<\/span><\/a><\/span>
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\nWhen Michael Staindl chose to question<\/span> Josh Frydenberg’s right to sit in parliament<\/a> <\/span>(his Constitutional right) the first phone call he received was from a journalist from the Guardian.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/press-conference1.jpg?resize=944%2C793&ssl=1\")
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\nSome journa<\/strong><\/span>lists covering the premier\u2019s Covid-19 press conferences have become the subject of torrid personal abuse on social media<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nGuardian article – <\/strong><\/span>Questioning Daniel Andrews: how reporters came under attack in Victoria<\/span>
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\n<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\u2018People apply their own lens\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
An approach that appears transparent<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Experts discouraged from speaking<\/span><\/h2>\n
The media attack on the Towke family<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n
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