Another media comparison

The media have moved on from Labour’s Associate Foreign Affairs Spokesperson saying that the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of 1,000+ Israeli civilians was justified. They ran one story, and abandoned it despite the lack of apology or sanction.

Now let’s compare this to a story in 2020 involving Todd Muller. What did Todd Muller do? Did he endorse rape and murder? Did he praise torture and kidnapping as justified? No, he had some US political memorabilia in his office including a Trump MAGA cap (alongside a Hilary Clinton badge).

This resulted In an avalanche of stories, running for several days. The media went out to groups such as the Islamic Women’s Council who condemned it. Yes they asked the IWC for their views on someone having a MAGA hat in their office, yet don’t approach the Jewish Council over an MP endorsing the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of Jews.

They quoted political expert Dr Siouxsie Wiles on why what Muller did was reprehensible. They also quoted neutral academic Shane te Pou. They wrote columns on it. They did a couple of dozen stories, until finally Muller agreed to hide the hat from view. They followed up with articles on how the hat is a symbol of racism and white supremacy. They got comments from the Race Relations Commissioner.

So consider all that coverage over a hat, and compare that to the lack of coverage of an MP who claims murder, rape, torture and kidnapping was justified – and is an official spokesperson for the party on these issues.