ACA criticised over Racial Divide story
Story on racial unrest interviewed extremist but not leaders from local communities.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
A Current Affair has come under fire for a “Racial Divide” segment which profiled racial unrest in Melbourne but did not include leaders from Vietnamese nor Sudanese-Australian communities.
The report, which aired on New Year’s Eve, featured an anonymous, masked “Vietnamese teenager” calling on people to “hurt any African youths” they see. It also interviewed a member of the far-right United Patriots Front whom reporter Reid Butler branded as “100% racist”.
The Vietnamese Community in Australia, told Guardian Australia footage used was not “race-related” as implied.
“I do believe the African community is being unfairly treated in the media. To isolate the Sudanese community, and say anyone with dark skin is in a gang … that happened to the Vietnamese community too. Ten or 20 years ago, we were the ‘Asian gangs’,” said Kevin Tran, VCA vice-president.
“We very much understand the difficulties of being in a newly arrived community. I have no doubts that Sudanese and African communities can contribute to Australia and its multicultural fabric.”
A Current Affair defended interviewing the United Patriots Front member and said members of the Sudanese-Australian community declined to comment.
The report doesn’t indicate if those were community leaders nor whether ACA approached Vietnamese community leaders.
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3 Responses
ACA’s consistent pandering to its Bogan audience continues
When you look around at some the respectful journalism on BBC, CNN or Al Jazeera, ABC where they take their time to have intelligent reporting, and sounding off on their thoughts on the subjects of the day – I can’t understand how this show is still on air. I get it rates, and gets the sponsors, but if a network replaced this with true respect to journalism for a 2019 feel, and thats all that was offered at 7pm on the commercial stations, than certainly this would still get the numbers and respect wouldn’t it?
ACA has been in Woolies for so long it has forgotten / or never learnt, how to undergo true and impartial investigation of a ‘ real ‘ current affairs story. They should hire every X ABC journo they can get their hands on. Then they would have got the interviews and learned the real gripes of al these beautiful but diverse people.
It has to be the right time for Fiona Dear to make changes.