ABC article alleges caucus concern over Fatima Payma being "guided by god". Smells of a character assassination to me.
ABC article alleges caucus concern over Fatima Payma being "guided by god". Smells of a character assassination to me.
The West Australian senator has told colleagues she is seeking religious guidance on her next move but is expected to make a decision on quitting her party today.
This is fucked reporting right? The quote they use as evidence is her saying something is "in God's hands". Elsewhere articles are run using quotes of her praying to god.
This is like, extremely normal lexicon for even casually religious people right? I'm an atheist with a pretty negative view of religion and to me this looks like pearl clutching.
Lots of extremely normal people say "I am praying for guidance" when they're reflecting on something. That in isolation doesn't mean they expect a hedge to catch fire and tell them what to do...
If our standard is pollies never mention religion then we might want to do some stuff about the Lord's prayer, the oaths, and the magical mace of the Royal cult.
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I have no issue with the ABC reporting. They've reported this fairly straight. I do have issues that we are spending a lot of time talking about a senator that none of us had heard of a week ago. I have issues that the author of this piece is on the other side of the country to the senator in question. I wouldn't be surprised to learn she hasn't even met the senator. That said, I respect that she gave the senator more airtime than she gave the supposed concerns of caucus:
Senator Payman said the suggestion she was "being guided by god" in her decision-making and would campaign on other "Islamic propositions" was an insult.
"I don't know how to respond to that question without feeling offended or insulted [at the suggestion] that just because I am a visibly Muslim woman I only care about Muslim issues," she said.
Fair enough. Both Senator Payman's response and the reporting of it. Sounds like the drama is coming from those 'faceless men' we all love so much.
It's a higher standard than tabloid rags but I feel like they're doing this a massive disservice by repeating it at all, especially without adding context such as the number of times various senators have mentioned religion, the mandatory religion in Parliament, and consequently that this is obviously an islamophobic smear campaign.
Their own stats say that very few people read more than the first paragraph (I can't find them but they had this whole campaign on it using their metrics). It's obviously inflammatory and most readers won't remember the nuance, they'll remember vague concerns of scary Muslim god stuff and not supporting Israel.