MICHAEL USHER: There has been a video emerge, believed to be the gunman who livestreamed this horrendous attack. Now, we are not going to show that in its entirety. There is a little bit at the beginning that may just give an indication of exactly how this happened. So a warning, we believe that this is the beginning of the gunman's attack. We’ll just show you that briefly … - Seven News, 15 March, 2019

Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch. And to the brave new world of livestreamed terror.

Because the attack on two Christchurch mosques, in which 50 people were murdered, was broadcast live to the world for 17 minutes as the horror unfolded.

As The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell tweeted:

The New Zealand massacre was livestreamed on Facebook, announced on 8chan, reposted on YouTube, commentated about on Reddit, and mirrored around the world before the tech companies could even react. - Twitter, @drewharwell, 15 March, 2019

And that is why newsrooms, who switched to rolling coverage, had to grapple with what and how much to show, and whether to show it at all – given it was exactly what the gunman desired.

Seven News initially broadcast the gunman’s helmet-cam video of the attack, complete with soundtrack and jaunty Grenadier Guard music, right up until he entered the mosque, after which you heard shots ring out.

And a warning, we’re about to show you some of that vision:

MICHAEL USHER: What follows there for the next few minutes, and it has been viewed in our newsroom, is beyond horrific and that’s where we’re going to leave it there. - Seven News, 15 March, 2019

But for the 6pm bulletin, Seven changed its mind and crossed that line, showing footage from inside the mosque, with bodies blurred – which we’re not going to show you – as the gunman hunted down his defenceless victims.

On Nine, in the immediate aftermath of the attack the network was cautious:

DAVINA SMITH: It’s vision that has been obtained by our newsroom, we will not be playing it for you under the circumstances because it is incredibly graphic. - Nine News, 15 March, 2019

But half an hour later it relented and showed us this.

And on Weekend Today next morning it went further, showing footage from inside the mosque, which brought a storm of angry comments to add to hundreds from the day before:

It disgusts me that you continue to play the shooters footage. Just stop. Have some more respect for the people he murdered and stop giving him what he wanted. - Facebook, Kasie Moffit, 16 March, 2019

The NZ government demanded media outlets take down the video and you idiots still post it. TAKE IT DOWN!!! - Facebook, Kieran Betts, 16 March, 2019

On Friday, Sky News repeatedly played footage of the gunman taking his weapons from the car and approaching the mosque.

And also broadcast alarming footage of him fleeing the scene, complete with subtitles:

GUNMAN: There wasn’t even time to aim there was so many targets. - Sky News, 15 March, 2019

Sky went on to broadcast 40 seconds of the gunman boasting of his success, as if he’d just been playing a video game.

So, was that a good decision? In my view not, because it trivialised and normalised 50 brutal murders.

And arguably that applies to showing any of the gunman’s video – shot from his point of view, down the barrel – because it made those 50 murders look like playing Call of Duty.

And before long, Sky did an about turn, announcing:

DAVID SPEERS: We’ve decided not to show you this video, and in fact we’re not going to show you any of this video now. - Sky News, 15 March, 2019

On the ABC, the decision was made at the start to not show any of the gunman’s footage:

CRAIG McMURTRIE: We decided we could report this shocking story effectively without providing a platform for the graphic video or manifesto. - Email, Craig McMurtrie, Executive Editor, ABC News, 15 March, 2019

But online sites like News.com.au and the Daily Mail embedded parts of it in their stories where you could watch it again and again.

And while Facebook pulled the plug on the gunman’s live stream after 17 minutes, the unedited video of his bloody slaughter was still popping up many hours later on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Reddit, with new versions being posted as fast as others were ripped down.

In the first 24 hours Facebook alone pulled down 1.5 million copies of the video – edited and unedited – or stopped them going up. How many million people viewed it is not known.

But the mainstream media also had to decide how to handle the gunman’s Muslim-hating manifesto.

In its rolling coverage Seven initially declared it to be a no-go zone:

MICHAEL USHER: … a manifesto that’s full of hatred. We’re not going to go into that either at this stage, because that’s exactly what he would want. - Seven News, 15 March, 2019

But seven minutes later, some of it was appearing on screen. And Seven’s 6pm bulletin then quoted it at length.

Nine told viewers of its 6pm bulletin:

JARRAD BREVI: We will not repeat its content ... - Nine News, 15 March, 2019

And the ABC took a similar stance, but only after chief foreign correspondent Philip Williams had read out parts of the manifesto live on air:

PHILIP WILLIAMS: It says, there’s a question mark. ‘Why did you carry out the attack?’ And the answer: ‘To most of all show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands. - ABC News Channel, 15 March, 2019

These decisions all had to be taken on the run.

But with more time to think about it The Weekend Australian opted to publish far more of the gunman’s racist rant, including quotes like:

“I only wish I could have killed more invaders”. - The Weekend Australian, 16-17 March, 2019

Was that a good decision? We do need to know who he was and what drove him.

But it’s also what Tarrant would have hoped for. As indeed was all this fame.

So no surprise that at his court appearance on Saturday we’re told:

He kept turning his face towards the media pack, smiling faintly. - News.com.au, 16 March, 2019

The missing factor in all the initial media coverage, at least on Friday, was a real focus on the victims.

So why was that? Having the gunman’s video to hand was certainly one reason. But was another the fact that they were brown and Muslim?

London-based writer Rajesh Thind tweeted on Saturday:

And today’s perfect example of why British newsrooms desperately need some more diversity. Picture 1: response to Christchurch. Picture 2: response to Bataclan. - Twitter, @RajeshThind, 16 March, 2019

With that Paris attack TV also had a video to show, but it was from the victims’ point of view. See how different it feels?

On Ten’s The Project on Friday evening, a visibly upset Waleed Aly did offer a powerful and much-needed personal reaction to the killings, and at the same time he widened the debate to how such a hate-filled attack could have been allowed to happen:

WALEED ALY: ... I'm gutted and I'm scared and I feel overcome with utter hopelessness – the most dishonest thing, the most dishonest thing would be to say that I'm shocked. I'm simply not. There’s nothing about what happened in Christchurch today that shocks me. - The Project, Channel Ten, 15 March, 2019

Aly then went on to talk about the gunman’s manifesto, and why it had scared him so much:

WALEED ALY: … not because it was deranged, but because it was so familiar. Let me share some quotes with you to show you what I mean: ‘The truth is that Islam is not like any other faith. It is the religious equivalent of fascism.’ Or: ‘The real cause of bloodshed is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate in the first place.’ How do those words sound now? Now how do they sound when I tell you that they weren't part of the manifesto, they were actually published today, after this terrorist attack, on an Australian parliamentary letterhead. - The Project, Channel Ten, 15 March, 2019

Both those quotes are from Queensland Senator Fraser Anning, who got into Parliament on One Nation’s ticket, but is now an independent.

Condemnation of his remarks – and tweets that he posted after the attack blaming Muslim immigration – was swift, with the Prime Minister leading the charge:

SCOTT MORRISON: … I want to absolutely and completely denounce the statements made by Senator Anning in all of the comments that he has made ... These comments are appalling and they're ugly ... - ABC News Channel, 16 March, 2019

That same day, as Anning gave an impromptu press conference, he was hit on the head with an egg by a young boy in the crowd.

Anning turned round and punched him. And the boy was then set upon by the Senator’s supporters.

Fraser Anning is a fringe player whom the media ‘till then had largely ignored.

But you can’t say that of his erstwhile leader Pauline Hanson, who’s a regular on Sky, Seven and Nine, where she typically gets kid-glove treatment, even when making statements like this:

PAULINE HANSON: We have a disease, we vaccinate ourselves against it. Islam is a disease. We need to vaccinate ourselves against that. - Nine News, 23 March, 2017

Hanson wants a ban on Muslim immigration, and the burqa, and has warned that white Australians will be second-class citizens living under Sharia law unless we close our borders:

PAULINE HANSON: I said it 20 years ago, I said there’ll be places in Australia that we won’t even recognise to being Australian. I said they’re forming ghettos. - Today, Channel Nine, 24 May, 2018

And despite her Islamophobia – or perhaps because of it – Hanson is a media darling.

But on Sunrise on Saturday, terror expert Greg Barton pointed out the dangers of politicians and the media giving her such an easy platform:

GREG BARTON: Since the John Howard election campaign of 2001, both parties have dallied with the vile politics of Pauline Hanson and the last 12 months this has accelerated. I think we’ve all got to walk back from this and recognise that what was seen to be political sparring has fuelled hateful rhetoric and hateful rhetoric has literally been lethal. - Weekend Sunrise, Channel Seven, 16 March, 2019

And on Sunrise this morning, where she normally gets an easy ride, Hanson was tackled about exactly that and asked if she would condemn Fraser Anning’s comments:

PAULINE HANSON: Anyone who creates, causes terrorism or loss of life is bad. I don’t support that, David. DAVID KOCH: You denounce that? PAULINE HANSON: … of course I do. I don’t support that ... DAVID KOCH: Would you call yourself a white supremacist? PAULINE HANSON: Oh God no. DERRYN HINCH: Will you vote against him in the Senate next month? PAULINE HANSON: … and for you even to suggest that is absolutely ridiculous and over the top. DAVID KOCH: Will you vote against, will you vote for Anning’s censure? PAULINE HANSON: Let’s just say … DERRYN HINCH: No, will you vote against him next month? PAULINE HANSON: No. - Sunrise, Channel Seven, 18 March, 2019

With 50 people dead from the Christchurch terror attack and another 50 injured, few would now dispute that words do matter.

And the media should remember that. As the Islamic Council of Queensland reminded us:

ALI KADRI: … the debate is not a actual, respectful debate, it’s always been about scaremongering, it has always been about creating fear and hysteria. And when you scaremonger and you create fear and hysteria, people die. - Newsnight, Sky News, 16 March, 2019

And, this weekend, Labor leader Bill Shorten backed that up:

BILL SHORTEN: Not all right-wing extremist hate speech ends in right-wing extremist violence, but all right-wing extremist violence starts in right-wing extremist hate speech. - ABC News Channel, 16 March, 2019

And Shorten also made this pointed plea:

BILL SHORTEN: Can I just say for those who believe that freedom of speech extends to hate speech and right-wing extremist hate speech: can’t you call time on this? - ABC News Channel, 16 March, 2019

No prizes for guessing who he’s aiming at.

It surely includes right-wing commentators in the News Corp papers and on programs like Sky’s Outsiders.

Host Rowan Dean and his guest Mark Latham had a chance to respond to that on Sunday.

But in the entire two-hour program there was only three minutes on the Christchurch killings and no mention of Fraser Anning, just a plea from Dean that the critics of immigration and Islam should not be blamed.

And in The Australian this morning, Janet Albrechtsen put a similar argument:

… we must stand up to those who seek to exploit terrorism as an excuse to censor views and shut down people they disagree with. The blame-gamers must not succeed in shutting down my views, or others in The Australian, or on Sky News. - The Australian, 18 March, 2019

But Australian though he is, Tarrant was not turned into a terrorist by Australia’s tabloids or right-wing commentators, however strong their anti-Muslim message.

His focus was on Europe and America. His radicalisation was online.

And his Christchurch rampage was a massacre enabled by and tailored for the internet.

Shortly before Tarrant started his killing spree he posted a link to his Facebook video on the notorious 8chan chat site:

“by the time you read this I should be going live” - 8chan, 15 March, 2019

He then encouraged the anonymous users to share his manifesto and comment. Which many did, by celebrating the horror:

“OP fucking delivered i just saw him kill so many fucking hajis” - 8chan, Anonymous, 15 March, 2019

It is disgusting stuff.

And, as the UK investigative website Bellingcat observed:

The shooter seems to have achieved his goal of providing the anons of 8chan with lulz, and with inspiration. One user hailed him as “the next Breivik”. And before much more than an hour had passed, there were already calls for other anons to follow in his bloody footsteps. - Bellingcat, 15 March, 2019

So what is 8chan?

As Forbes online explained, it is a forum:

Long known as a haven for extremist, right-wing thought, and a wilder version of the already unruly 4Chan … - Forbes, 15 March, 2019

We don’t know that Tarrant was radicalised there. But we do know that 8Chan is one of many online breeding grounds for extremist views and violent ideas. As Kevin Roose put it in The New York Times:

The internet is now the place where the seeds of extremism are planted and watered, where platform incentives guide creators toward the ideological poles, and where people with hateful and violent beliefs can find and feed off one another. So the pattern continues. People become fluent in the culture of online extremism, they make and consume edgy memes, they cluster and harden. And once in a while, one of them erupts. - The New York Times, 15 March, 2019

Much of the best commentary on this online threat is coming from America, where right-wing nut jobs and alt-white terrorists kill innocent victims on a regular basis.

And few of those commentators are surprised that it’s now happening here:

It’s worth remembering that “viral” spread once referred to contagious disease, not to images and ideas. As long as technology platforms drive the spread of global information, they can’t help but carry it like a plague. - The Atlantic, 15 March, 2019

So what if anything can be done? In the hours after the Christchurch slaughter there were calls from politicians all over the world for the tech companies to crack down on hate speech or to be cracked down upon.

Here is Democratic US presidential candidate Cory Booker:

CORY BOOKER: … tech companies have an obligation to do the right thing. And this is a case where you’re giving a platform to hate, that’s unacceptable, it should’ve never happened. - Twitter, @mattklapper, 16 March, 2019

And in Britain, the UK Home Secretary echoed that line, tweeting:

You really need to do more @YouTube@Google@facebook@Twitter to stop violent extremism being promoted on your platforms. Take some ownership. Enough is enough - Twitter, @sajidjavid, 15 March, 2019

But while law or moral pressure might just work on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the like, it’s not so clear it would work for smaller hate sites like 8Chan.

As Adi Robertson told readers of The Verge this weekend, it’s all a bit more complicated:

The past couple of years have seen a wave of deplatforming for far-right sites, with payment processors, domain registrars, hosting companies, and other infrastructure providers withdrawing support. This practice has scuttled crowdfunding sites like Hatreon and MakerSupport, and it’s temporarily knocked the social network Gab and white supremacist blog The Daily Stormer offline. - The Verge, 15 March, 2019

But, she added. And there is a but:

… the Daily Stormer quietly came back online after several bans, and Gab received very public support from a Seattle-based domain registrar. - The Verge, 15 March, 2019

Getting rid of online right-wing hate speech is almost as hard as stamping out cockroaches. But it may not be impossible.

BuzzFeed investigative reporter Ellie Hall posted a tweet from Washington on Sunday to say:

I spent a good part of 2 years reporting on ISIS internet and how the group uses social media — in 2019 it's mind-boggling to me how well the coordinated cross-platform effort to remove them from the internet worked and how there hasn't been a similar one for white supremacists. - Twitter, @ellievhall, 17 March, 2019

Well, perhaps now there will be a co-ordinated effort. And something good will come from this carnage.

Perhaps, also, the TV networks will become more cautious about broadcasting mass murder from the killer’s point of view.

And finally, perhaps, these headlines in The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun and WA’s Sunday Times will mark a more responsible attitude to scare stories and alarm about Australia’s Muslim community.

Or perhaps not. We can but hope.

Read the statements from Seven, Nine, ABC, and Sky here.