Editorial: Media racism
Media racism
@box text intro = "Korean gangs blamed for new city crime war" was the banner headline on the Sydney Morning Herald on July 28. What better way to spur newspaper sales on a slow news day than to publish a beat-up about "gangsters from (fill in the blank with your pet fear)" menacing helpless Australians?
Predictably enough, despite the Herald giving its "special investigation" half of the front page, and another full page inside, there was remarkably little in the way of news. The "crime war" heading was justified primarily by a rehashing of the bashing murder of two Koreans, allegedly gang related, in Kings Cross — an event already given lavish coverage when it happened, last January.
The other element of gangsterism uncovered by the Herald sleuths was the operation of loan sharks preying upon Korean gamblers at the Sydney Harbour Casino. This is dirty business, but hardly a crime wave, the numbers of both victims and gangsters being small. In total, the gangs must have made off with only a fraction of what Alan Bond did — and the Herald did not head that story "Australian of European ancestry steals $1 billion".
Nevertheless — perhaps fearing that readers wouldn't be alert enough to get its main point — on the inside page, the Herald included headlines about standover men, gangsters and brothels under the page heading "Korea Inc"! (Memo to the Bangkok Post: The next time an Australian is arrested for trying to smuggle heroin through the Bangkok airport, why not headline the story "Drug runners: Australia Inc"?)
This disgusting pseudo-journalism is, of course, not unusual — though this instance was considerably more brazen than many. It makes unmistakably clear that even the so-called "quality" papers quite consciously pursue a racist agenda.
It is not only a matter of selling more papers. The people who own the economy — including the major media — benefit from racist scapegoating, which deflects attention from the real causes of social ills. Pauline Hanson and media racism like that of the Herald serve the same cause. And that is why the establishment media treat Hanson with kid gloves even when they worry that she may be going further than is wise at the moment.