It was the week we saw a new ABC policy to call out the social media abuse of its journalists in action. The public broadcaster’s news director, Justin Stevens, took the big stick to news.com.au and the Daily Mail over their coverage of misogynist online abuse of News Breakfast host Lisa Millar but the popular websites did not resile, not in public anyway.
The editor-in-chief of news.com.au, Lisa Muxworthy, publicly defended the coverage, claiming the high ground. “News.com.au has a long and strident history of exposing abuse against women such as the Let Her Speak campaign championing Grace Tame and other victims of crime and, more recently, our Justice Shouldn’t Hurt editorial series which led to legislative change for children involved in sexual abuse matters,” she said in her own publication.
