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- Is your life 'news'?
Last Sunday, Channel 7 aired a deeply unethical & inaccurate episode of 7NEWS Spotlight about trans people who de-transition. Natalie Feliks breaks down the many dangerous problems with the program in this piece for Heterosexual Nonsense. I want to hone in on one: Channel 7 used a lot of images & clips of trans people without their permission. The producers simply plucked the content off social media and framed them to suggest these people regret transitioning.
Photos of Grace Hyland before and after she transitioned at age 13 were used in the promo while the voiceover says “thousands of kids are doing it [transitioning] and regretting it.” Grace is… very much still a trans woman. Levi Ace Day’s photos were also used, even though they are 27 and “did not realise I was trans until at least 23-ish”. Not a kid who regrets transitioning. Also, still trans. Producers used video of Olivia Gavranich celebrating her top surgery as an example of trans people ‘brainwashing’ kids online. It is shameful behaviour by every single person who worked on the Channel 7 segment.
Besides the obvious transphobia (being rightly called out), this is part of a broader trend in news media. Major news outlets rip content made by normal, everyday people off social platforms, lazily turn it into a ‘story’ and throw it into the 24/7 global news cycle. Journalists are operating under the assumption that if you post anything about your life to a social platform, it qualifies as news. News that is, of course, open to for everyone else to weigh in on.
So, is the minutia of your life newsworthy?
I’m talking what you ate for breakfast, how you make your bed. The comment you left on a friend’s new Instagram post. The way you sit in a chair, the shape of your chin.
It’s disturbing by how many ‘news stories’ are being pumped out daily that are merely descriptions of a TikTok video of some random person living their life. Not trend commentary or analysing the behaviour of a public figure… just a play-by-play of This American Girl Said Something Silly, or This Guy Has An Ugly Apartment, or This Girl* Said She Doesn’t Like Making Plans in Group Chats. *It’s more often women than men, because of course it is.
If we accept that being on the Internet is equivalent to being ‘in public’ (which I think we have to), then I have questions: when did existing in public become enough to turn you into a talking point for millions? Which parts of the Internet qualify as ‘public’? What does it mean to ‘put something out there’? I don’t know. Ironically, I do know that if you’re physically in a public space, a producer needs your written permission before including images or audio of you in a story.
Conservative outlets, journalists & commentators maliciously amplify the content of regular people to inflame the culture wars that line their pockets. Unfortunately for us in Oz, ‘conservative’ applies to the vast majority of our media landscape – News Corp Australia, Nine Entertainment and SevenWest Media. On top of that, general news publishers are doing it too, including youth publications. Although the normie stories they pump out might seem harmless, it’s a) unethical journalism, and b) fucking up the way we see each other.
Privacy is a human right. Sure, you could argue that posting online is not ‘private’ but if that was true then release forms for filming in public wouldn’t exist. When huge, for-profit corporations worth hundreds of millions of dollars are entitled to use the details of your life for their commercial gain, we’re encouraged to see each other as storylines and characters instead of people. I think it’s why we’re also seeing people publish content about strangers online without their consent (often unflattering content). It’s dehumanising as fuck.
This is a pretty off-the-cuff written rant, so I don’t know where to land other than to say: I don’t like it! Should I write a bigger, more considered article about this? Love to hear your thoughts on this one - email me back with your 2c!
Good stuff on Zee Feed rn:
One year after Mahsa Amini’s death, the situation in Iran is about to get worse. The government is set to pass new laws that are even more controlling of women – and police are already (unlawfully) enforcing them. CLICK HERE TO READ.
Smart stuff on the Internet 💭
All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:
Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison on The New Yorker
Speechless. “In 2020, the California legislature passed a law that made anyone who served twenty continuous years, and who was at least fifty years of age, eligible for parole. I’m fifty-three, and I’ll get my first chance at release in 2024. I couldn’t help but think of ‘Daylight’ again. “I’ve been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night,” Swift sings. “And now I see daylight.”
The Powerful Anti-Colonialism Of Hozier on Junkee
“As one descends through Unreal Unearth, the themes of colonial violence against Ireland and how Hozier experiences that legacy becomes more and more explicit. On ‘De Selby’ and ‘Butchered Tongue’, lyrics wax and wane between English and Native Irish as Hozier laments the loss of Native Irish language through colonialism and those who fought and died to keep it.”
Hoda Ashfar: “You Can’t Tell An Entire Story In One Frame” on Instyle Australia
Iranian-Australian photographer talks about her latest exhibition, ‘A Curve is a Broken Line’ which includes a series in response to the protests in Iran. “I started seeing these photos that women were making on the streets of Iran plaiting each other's hair and posting it on social media… Across different cultures you've seen women's fight for liberation and the hair symbolises their resilience and resistance. So I use that as a kind of symbol in my work.”
From now until the Oct 14 referendum, I’ll also recommend some perspectives from our big list of First Nations opinions on the Voice each week:
YES: The Voice to Parliament is a beginning, not an end from Dr Summer Findlay (READ)
NO: ‘The Constitutional reform we thought… would be amending the mistakes made by Terra Nullius’ from Uncle Wayne ‘Coco’ Wharton (LISTEN)
UNDECIDED: Voice 'undecideds' with Luke Pearson and Celeste Liddle (LISTEN)
CONTEXT: Six graphs that reveal Closing the Gap outcomes since Rudd apology (READ)