News Corp asylum seeker cartoon 'prejudicial' but in public interest, press council says

A cartoon published in a News Corp newspaper which conveyed offensive stereotypes about Middle Eastern and asylum seeker men did not breach press standards because it was justified in the public interest, the press watchdog has ruled.

The Australian Press Council investigated a cartoon by Warren Brown, published in the Daily Telegraph in February 2019 during the medevac debate, which portrayed a bearded man with a head covering, long tunic and sandals, chasing a female nurse or doctor.

The man, who was drawn with pointed teeth, was chasing the fleeing woman around the then member for Wentworth Kerryn Phelps, who put up the medevac bill.

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The cartoon accompanied a news story about an asylum-seeking man who had been transferred to Australia for medical treatment and had been charged with allegedly touching two nurses on the buttocks.

It was published during the debate over the medevac procedures, which give clinicians a greater say in medical transfers of asylum seekers, which were eventually legislated with the support of crossbenchers, Labor and the Greens.

The press council accepted the newspaper’s argument that the cartoon brought a real-life example of issues raised in the medevac debate to life and found there was sufficient public interest in commenting on the case.

“The council notes that in isolation the cartoon would certainly convey several offensive stereotypical inferences about asylum seeker men or men from the Middle East,” the report said.

“However, the council accepts it was in response to the charging of the man accused of sexual assault and intimidation and in the context of the political debate taking place about medical evacuation of asylum seekers.”

“The council notes that even when read in this context the cartoon still conveys a level of stereotypical offence and has a prejudicial inference that the man was guilty although not yet convicted. However, the council accepts that there was sufficient public interest in commenting on the case of the man in the context of the charges against him and the political debate.

“The council considers that to the extent there was substantial offence or prejudice caused it was justified in the public interest.”

The ruling is in line with last year’s decision by the council to clear a Herald Sun cartoon that depicted Serena Williams jumping in the air and “spitting the dummy” after losing a match to Naomi Osaka.

The News Corp cartoon by Mark Knight drew global condemnation for what many saw as a racist, sexist cartoon.

Brown has argued his cartoon was a response to the awkward timing of the charges against the man which coincided with the debate over the medevac bill.

“While the medevac debate was going on, the very thing that was raising concerns – ‘what if the medevac Bill allowed undesirables into Australia?’ – may have happened,” Brown said. “No doubt this case would be an untimely distraction for Kerryn Phelps.

“Hence the cartoon – the alleged offender chasing a nurse around an exasperated Dr Phelps, saying, ‘Do you mind not doing that until I’ve got the bill passed?’.”

Complainants said the Daily Telegraph had failed to take reasonable steps to avoid offence and prejudice in the depiction of the man by Brown. The man had “pointed sharp teeth with his mouth open to suggest hunger, his hands drawn extended as claws and a lascivious facial expression while chasing a white woman implied asylum seeking or Middle Eastern men are savages and a threat to white women”.

Complainants also suggested the newspaper had implied Middle Eastern men should not be provided with medical intervention because they are dangerous and that asylum seekers are “dirty, predators and dangerous”, according to the council.

But the Daily Telegraph argued that Brown’s drawing was very much in the public interest and went to the very heart of public debate.