15/10/2019

From Kerri-Anne To The Masked Stinger: How Australia's Media Covered Extinction Rebellion

The Guardian - 

The Daily Mail promised nudity, the Daily Telegraph tried to generate buzz while the West Australian ran a blank front page
Studio 10’s Kerri-Anne Kennerley suggested Extinction Rebellion protesters be used as speed humps or be locked up in jail and starved. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP 
Daily Telegraph reporter Mitchell Van Homrigh got dressed up in a bee costume to go “undercover” with Extinction Rebellion but his stunt wasn’t even the most foolish response to the mass protests we saw this week.
After making all the bee puns he could think of, Van Homrigh admitted he found the protesters “passionate and kind and helpful to this blind little bee”. But he finished by reverting to the Joe Hildebrand school of argument about how little the protest would help their cause.
“Would these people be better off directing their passions towards developing programs and policy that enact their vision?” he wondered as he removed his bee head.
Hildebrand had earlier declared in his weekly news.com.au column that global action for climate change was a waste of time unless the protesters had a solution, as “passion on its own achieves nothing without a practical plan to back it up”.
“Romeo and Juliet were passionate and look what happened to them,” the Studio 10 co-host wrote, before conceding that marching was at least better than doing drugs.
But it was Hildebrand’s occasional co-host on Studio 10, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, who stole the headlines with the most offensive response to the protests.
Kennerley suggested that protesters be used as speed bumps. Or better still locked up in jail and starved: “Put ’em in jail, forget to feed them,” she said.
“Personally, I would leave them all superglued to wherever they do it,” Kennerley said when the panel discussed the disruption to the cities the protesters were causing. “The guy hanging from the Story Bridge. Why send emergency services? Leave him there until he gets himself out. No emergency services should help them, nobody should do anything and you just put little witches’ hats around them or use them as a speed bump.”
Channel 10, which this week narrowly missed censure for an earlier ill-advised comment by Kennerley, later insisted the veteran TV presenter was only joking.
“This morning on Studio 10 Kerri-Anne Kennerley made comments regarding climate protesters that were said in jest,” a spokesman said. “Before the show concluded, Sarah Harris reiterated the tone of her remarks, affirming that Kerri-Anne wasn’t inciting violence.
“Kerri-Anne confirmed that she was indeed speaking in hyperbole and her words were clearly a joke. There was no intent to cause offence. Over the past few days, Studio 10 has extensively addressed a range of opinions on this subject.”
The Australian’s media editor, Leo Shanahan, saw nothing amiss with KAK’s call, describing her rant as “sage advice”.
“Kerri-Anne Kennerley has some sage advice to Extinction Rebellion protesters: just stay on the road”, the Oz said.
It wasn’t just Ten that was all class this week. The media tripped over each other to put the worst light on the protesters who were using civil disobedience to get the attention of governments. Seven breakfast host Samantha Armytage said the protesters were annoying people to get on TV.
“So you deliberately want to annoy people, so you appear on national television,” Armytage said. “What is your message? What are you trying to do?”
Nine’s A Current Affair took the theme of the inconvenienced punter to the extreme, finding a woman stuck in traffic who was on her way to clear out her late mother’s nursing home. Her mother had died on Sunday and now she had been blocked by the protest.
“Fuck the environment,” the distressed daughter said. “People are more important.
“They think [protesting] is so important but what is important is the everyday, good Australian people just trying to go about their everyday lives. It’s not fair.”
The Daily Telegraph blogger Tim Blair kept score of the arrests in each city, as if it were a sporting competition. His best line in National Climate Comp: Sydney Going for Gold was suggesting that the protesters must be on “electric lettuce”, also known as marijuana.
The West Australian editor, Anthony De Ceglie, thought he had an even better gimmick, running a large blank space on his front page.
“The climate change ‘rebellion’ plans to bring its protests to the doors of the West Australian today,” he editorialised. “This is a democracy. And we support free speech and peaceful demonstration. In that spirit, here’s a blank front page for your placards. Use it wisely.”
But the last word should go to the Daily Mail, which got way too excited about the possibility of nudity, with activists planning to “get their gear off”.
“A NAKED parade and traffic stopping rave: how Extinction Rebellion plan to bring Australia to a standstill during week of mayhem over climate change,” the headline said on Tuesday.

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