Media Response to Bondi Beach Terror Attack and Its Impact on Communities

The Bondi Beach terror attack made headlines in every major newspaper around the world. The failures of our

government, intelligence agencies, laid bare for all to see. The Times of London ran with bloodbath at Bondi Beach. The

Daily Express and the Daily Mail featured the heroic moment, "A man disarmed one of the shooters. The Sun

had Bondi fiends, dad and son." The Independent simply had an act of evil. The UK Daily Telegraph had hate and

heroism on Bondi. While perhaps the most powerful was the coverage from Ben English's Daily Telegraph, which simply

stated, "You bastards." Now, it must be said that the surviving gunman who was just pictured on the front of that paper

has since been charged for a range of offenses, including multiple counts of terrorism and murder. Joining me now to

discuss is host of Power Hour, Gabriella Power. Welcome to the show. >> Hi, Jack. Thanks for having me.

>> Yeah. Well, look, you were one of the journalists and I remember because we discussed it on Sunday and you weren't

working and you wanted to go down there and cover it. How do you think that the media has handled this story? It's very

difficult thing to cover. >> Yeah, it is. Look, those papers, I think they really cut through, particularly

the Daily Telegraph front page, just how angry everyone is about what has happened, this horrific terror attack on

Bondai Beach. Running there on Sunday, obviously it was like a scene from a horror film. So many people were so

shocked, confused, so many tears. People were on the phone, very panicked. I was speaking to survivors that still had

blood on them, were separated from their children. Absolute horror scene. Um so horrific.

It's going to take this community a really long time to heal from this. Interesting about the the media

reporting and um coverage of this. I was speaking to a journalist on my show who is based in the US in Florida. She's a

Jewish journalist and she was all over the the reporting and noticing who was slow to call this out for an attack on

Jews and some outlets were very slow. People have been murdered and it took them several hours until they started

actually reporting the truth that this was an attack targeting the Jewish community and there is a lot of anger

out there about the reporting particularly on the Israel Gaza conflict and how biased it has been in many

outlets. I was actually speaking to someone on Bond, so at Bondi on Sunday night. He told me that he was approached

by a journalist to get his uh recol recollection of what actually took place. Um he asked where they were from.

They were from the New York Times. He said, "I will not speak to you because the New York Times has been pretty

biased. It's been accused of being biased against Israel, accusing depicting Israel as the aggressor in

this war." Of course, the New York Times had to admit that it published a misleading image on its front page of of

a child that was starving to kind of infer that this child was little bombing very on in the conflict. That that was

an egregious error. They had to wrap that back and apologize. But I think the Jewish community doesn't forget and our

national broadcaster has been in a bit of >> Absolutely. Well, it was the following

day as well. So, I went back out to Bondi on Monday. That's when the tribute started pouring in. people laying

flowers, grieving, mourning the loss of those innocent lives that were killed in such a horrific way. And there is real

anger in the community. The Jewish community is not going to forget um the way the media uh downplayed

anti-semitism in in some parts and also the way they depicted the war and the way they demonized Israel. Here's this

Jewish uh uh person, Jewish Australian calling out the ABC directly. I've got to say, um, will you cut out

the biased reporting? >> Yeah. And I think so many people agree with that. She's not the only person

I've spoken to that feel angry about the a about how the ABC has covered the Israel Gaza conflict and um the rise in

anti-semitism here. I mean, plenty of outlets, not just the ABC, have run Hamas propaganda without a lot of

skepticism. Um, have failed to kind of challenge the accusations of genocide. And meanwhile, we've had protests that

have been depicted as largely peaceful when there have been ISIS flags and our protest on Sydney Harbor Bridge only a

few months ago. And now we have an ISIS inspired terror attack on Bondi. >> Yeah. Well, they were marching um

alongside Hamas flags. And you you can't control what someone carries next to you, but these are the people you're

keeping company with. There's photos of the Ayatollah. There was some Labour politicians photoed photographed near

those signs of the Ayatollah. I mean it is incredibly damaging for these people. Um tell me about the influences. How

have they behaved during all of this? >> Some of them have behaved I think horrifically. I mean Abby Chhatfield is

one example. Let's just listen to what she has said in the past. She has previously posted pretty proudly and

publicly. Are you pro-Israel? Gross. She's also said on her she has a podcast. It's popular. She says I am

biased. I acknowledge that I will not platform a Zionist. That is something she has has declared. She's been

demonizing Zionists and she has been marching at those protests alongside others who have been supporting

extremists such as Hamas or now all of a sudden she's sickened by this tragedy. Let's just take a listen to her

response. As an Australian, as someone that lives in Bondi, first of all, our tragedy is not yours

to politicize. Particularly when your politicization makes no sense. >> Yeah, she went on a rant.

>> Ow. Ow. Tragedy. All of a sudden. All of a sudden. So what? All of a sudden she's now an advocate for the Jewish. That's

That is bizarre. That's strange. >> It's really difficult to hear. She went on a rant for nearly four minutes

talking about US politics and US gun laws. This is about the Jewish community. And I and anti-semitism, as

we know, has just been allowed to fester here. And that and part of that is because these protests have been um you

know going on week after week chanting some people attending those protests have been chanting anti-Semitic things.

River to the sea, globalizing antifart. It's not just Abby Chhatfield though. There's Hannah Ferguson from Cheek

Media. Um in the past she's been a big supporter of Greta Thunderberg and her publicity stunt going into Gaza.

This Cheek media post has has also in the past accused Israel of um of uh of uh abducting Greta Thunderberg and

others. It it's just absolutely insane. Anyway, uh chic media is now saying in response to the to the terror attack

this week, faright politicians will use this mass murder as a vehicle for their racist anti-immigration policies. parts

of the media will decide the commercial value of clicks is worth more than the integrity of respectful

>> the commercial value of clicks. Okay. >> Um I mean this is incredible. So basically

the problem the problem as as this influencer this crazy person is putting it is going is the response not the act.

And and what's the insinuation that if I talk about it if I cover it what I'm commercializing it? Am I is that the

suggestion? These these people they they don't have they don't have 10 IQ points between them and they have such a

following. They're so influential with young women particularly. >> I mean it's it's it's we're going to

have to there's an entire generation which is listening >> I know

>> to these people and it's helping them form their views. It's very dangerous. >> Yeah. And and we've seen it for the last

two years. I mean it's been cool to be pro Palestine. It's been really woke to be pro Palestine and anti-Israel. I mean

it's been in our face. And what meanwhile synagogues have been have been burned. We've seen f the Jews kill the

Jews been spray painted on walls. Jews have been targeted. And so many uh people in the Jewish community I have

spoken with are not surprised. Um and you know when you just look at the environment and some of these influences

and and what they have contributed over the last two years, this anti-Israel sentiment has not helped.

>> Yeah. And it's it's what they're choosing to call out as well. and that we all saw the footage right after

October 7. There was a gathering, the hate preachers in Western Sydney making these points that it was a moment to be

celebrated. And I really feel like the media, >> it's not, look, they're not law

enforcement. They don't decide who goes to jail and who gets prosecuted. But I've just the focus wasn't there. And so

there's obviously a cohort of people that harbor these views and and the media I think failed.

>> Yeah, I completely agree with you. Yanni Bashan had a great article as well in the Australian calling out many of the

influences. Plenty of people by the way who are happy to share pretty horrific images coming out of Gaza also saying oh

don't stop sharing the images um from from Bondi Beach. It's it's too horrific. And you know, I I think um

it's very sad. A lot of people were caught up in in the social media trends, you know, trending being pro Palestine

and uh >> Well, thank you for being a real journalist, going on the ground and

talking to the actual victims and and educating um Australians about what's happened. Thank you so much for your

time and your insights.