Stan Grant Jr has continued has critique of Australian media and politics, saying the ‘competition’ of modern news has led to an increase in abuse.
Speaking at a Canberra launch event for his new book on Tuesday, the Wiradjuri man said he and his family had been subject to “death threats” and “vicious attacks”.
“My family is not just racially and viciously attacked and mocked and ridiculed now. It happens every single day,” he told an audience at the Australian National University.
Grant laid part of the blame at the feet of the modern information cycle, saying 24 hour news saturation had led to a breakdown of social discourse.
“I think we have become infected with politics,” he said.
“I think part of that is the 24/7 news cycle, exacerbated by social media. [It] is a competition: if you can shout the loudest, you can be heard over the din.
“When you start to shout, you stop thinking, and it gets louder and louder and more hoarse, and more nasty, just to be heard.”
In a statement posted online, Grant said the abuse he faced had ratcheted up after his appearance on the ABC’s coronation coverage, where he critiqued the monarchy’s role in the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
He detailed some of the shocking results of that at the Canberra event on Tuesday, not just for him but those close to him.
“Because of the position that I hold on television, and because of the way people see me … people who are innocent – my mum and dad, my wife, my children – are constantly attacked.”
Grant’s departure a ‘damning indictment’ of ABC
As the fallout continues from Grant’s departure, the ABC is facing tough questions about its role as both enabler and perpetrator of racism.
In his statement last Friday, Grant took aim at the ABC’s executive for failing to defend him from negative coverage in other media outlets.
Appearing on ABC talkshow The Drum, Mununjali and South Sea Islander professor Chelsea Watego called it a ‘damning indictment’, noting past examples of racism at the national broadcaster.
“It took an intervention from other people to get a First Nations perspective to join this conversation this evening,” she told host John Barron.
“The ABC’s coverage of [Grant’s] Q&A speech had, as a headline, him apologising to the perpetrators. That framing was really problematic.
“Also looking just to February this year, the ABC’s failure to defend Carly Williams in her coverage of those meetings in Alice Springs. There are so many examples.”
As the discussion turned to the role of social media, Professor Watego said the ABC was attempting to point the finger.
“This is the settler move to innocence, that racism is always elsewhere,” she said.
“We prefer the racism of the spectator in the stands, and not the AFL clubs.”
She also defended social media, saying it was an important place of resistance for Blak journalists and citizens.
“For Blakfullas, who have long been targeted and demonised in public, social media has been a place in which we can gather and organise and get a voice for issue in our community that mainstream media often refuses to cover,” she said.
