When condemnation becomes distribution

News organisations must report offensive political speech without becoming its most efficient broadcaster.

The Daily Mail did exactly that. In reporting Lisa Jane Spencer’s performance, in which she reprised ‘Aunty Lisa’ and mocked Aboriginal culture through a mock Welcome to Country, the Daily Mail quoted the performance in full. It embedded a video of the performance and promoted the article on its Facebook page. In condemning Spencer, the Daily Mail also helped to distribute a performance that predictably offended many people.

This raises serious questions about how a news organisation should report political speech that many people find offensive. If an obscure online provocateur has posted an extraordinarily offensive video, is it wrong for us to fixate on that individual? Is it wrong, for example, to demonise Spencer’s behaviour if doing so attracts sympathy and support for Spencer herself? It is inarguably good to shine a light on her performance. Yet must we quote that performance in full? What if readers cannot believe what Spencer did and need to see it for themselves? What if we avoid mentioning the performance because we are worried about increasing its circulation? That, too, would be irresponsible.

But what if the Daily Mail really was as horrified and offended by Spencer’s mocking performance as its report suggested? We are entitled to condemn the performance while presenting evidence of what we are condemning. The difficult question is how much evidence is necessary, and in what form it should be presented. While newsrooms wrestle with that balance, Lisa Jane Spencer may benefit from the attention.

Months earlier, a version of Spencer’s original ‘Aunty Lisa’ video remained on Facebook and Instagram for nine days before Meta finally removed it under its hateful-conduct policy. It was removed after being widely reported, while First Nations people described the strain of encountering the video and its comments online. Copies nevertheless extended the life of her performance, and Spencer raised more than $50,000 through crowdfunding and published further videos in a similar vein.

Despite this financial support, Spencer’s performance was rightly condemned. Yet it is troubling to see the same performance served back to those it targeted by an organisation purporting to deplore it. At the later March for Australia rally, dozens of people identified as former members of the National Socialist Network were reportedly present. The rally’s organisers described neo-Nazi activist Thomas Sewell as a political prisoner. That context makes indiscriminate amplification more troubling, because circulation can confer political significance on conduct that might otherwise remain marginal.

There is no evidence that the Daily Mail recirculated Spencer’s performance in response to the removal of her earlier video. The commercial structure through which publishers and political performers can profit from renewed attention, however, is a major part of the problem.

We have no public evidence that the March for Australia Facebook page received any payment for uploading Spencer’s performance. However, the page was registered for Meta’s content-monetisation program and appeared to be profiting from it.

We also cannot prove that every repetition of the video furthers her agenda, although the possibility remains troubling.

What does it say, however, about Meta’s approval processes that the organisers of this dog’s breakfast could publicly cast Sewell as some political prisoner?

Meta and the Daily Mail should not do anything to Spencer’s video that makes it more impressive or gives it wider influence than what she first produced. Spencer tells us how her performance came to be but added to the milieu of mocking insult is the very real financial gain she received after the earlier ‘Aunty Lisa’ spectacle. The most painful verification of Spencer’s mockery has come from the people it targeted, who have had to explain its meaning and endure its repetition.

The ad-driven news model is central to this discussion, and Spencer has benefited from it. By attracting denunciation, she can raise money.

Condemning Spencer is entirely appropriate because what she did was repulsive. Yet by circulating some of her performances, news organisations, however well-intentioned, distort the landscape. Reporting on a political performer does not require a news organisation to package and circulate her performance. Packaging and circulation create the commercial trap, while scorn and disgust do not change the underlying economics.

The online, ad-driven news model depends on engagement. Platforms can reward material that elicits a reaction, even material like Spencer’s that should provoke nothing less than disgust. Attacks on Spencer can raise more money for her, while denunciation gives a political performer another audience and a fresh grievance.

Understanding what we must see and what we are making easier to see requires discernment. Supposedly disinterested reporters look decidedly unbecoming when they condemn an item while standing to profit from its wider distribution.