Media response to ‘Apex gang’ tells its own story
The alarming and at times hysterical media coverage of so-called Apex gang-related crime in Melbourne in recent months is cause for concern, but it also serves to reveal how the Australian media chooses to portray different sections of the community and its ability to control the narrative through a sustained effort to whip up fear and anxiety.
Broadcast, print and digital media outlets have gone out of their way to ensure young males of African and Pacific Islander heritage are perceived by the wider population as the latest major threat facing Australian society, based on the conduct of a tiny section of those communities. This ‘threat’ has also repeatedly been portrayed as Apex-related.
By contrast, since Moomba weekend and the so-called ‘riots’, there have been more than 15 shootings across Greater Melbourne and the surrounding areas, 2 resulting in fatalities. Yet the spate of gun crime has not generated anything close to the same amount of news coverage and pearl clutching commentary. Let alone the rush to associate the crimes with one specific racial group or culture.
Following the Toorak Road carjacking and subsequent home invasion on 25 April, the media built upon and amplified the Moomba theme, broadcasting and publishing reports that were littered with references and links to earlier Moomba articles and Apex. If the mainstream media was your only source of information, you could be forgiven for thinking we are facing “an unprecedented and terrifying crimewave” engulfing Melbourne, as the Herald Sun calmly reported, led by an out of control, gun-toting and knife wielding horde of youths more than 100 strong. To cite just one typical example, on 26 April Fairfax ran with the headline ‘Police blame Apex after men with baseball bats bash driver, steal his Mercedes’. The very same article goes on to state that Assistant Police Commissioner Bob Hill “hosed down suggestions that most of such crimes were committed by Apex members, saying affiliations were ‘loose’.” Hill stated the violent carjacking was not linked to Apex and was instead the work of hardened criminals. Hill went on to warn: “We are prompting this criminal enterprise for no particular reason.” Adding that, “A lot of it is attributed to Apex and I don’t think it’s warranted.”
No connection has been established to confirm the alleged offenders responsible for the car theft and subsequent home invasion are members of any Apex gang, with the police only stating the suspects were “known to them”. We know they were young men of African and Pacific Islander appearance. That’s it. Yet mainstream media outlets did not hesitate to leap on the story and cement in the minds of the public a direct link between this event and Apex. The same blurry cameraphone footage from Moomba was rolled out and the message was clear: If you see a group of young males of African or Pacific Islander appearance, day or night and anywhere in the greater metropolitan area, chances are they’re members of the Apex gang. You should be afraid, suspicious and you should treat these people as criminals by default.
In one of the most disturbing examples of print media coverage, a comment piece published online by The Age on 26 April, with the headline ‘Apex predators need reality check, real engagement’ revealed in the URL what may well have been the original headline of the piece: ‘Apex predators need to have their teeth pulled’.
Along with talk of deporting children, this signals a particularly sinister turn of events. In addition, this type of unhelpful and inflammatory commentary validates members of the public in their own below the line commentary, which is often vitriolic and incites retaliatory acts of violence to be carried out against random members of marginalised communities. This all amounts to a toxic, dangerous and deeply irresponsible environment to create and then perpetuate beyond its relative merits.
A Factiva database search reveals there was negligible Apex gang print media coverage prior to the Moomba Festival weekend, followed by a huge spike in the ensuing month and a half. Google Trends mirrors this pattern in terms of ‘Apex gang’ online searches.
There are young people who before mid-March had never heard of a small gang founded by a group of kids and named after a street in Dandenong, but who will now have searched online, engaged with youths their own age on social media and discussed the Apex gang. Rival gangs will emerge in an effort to gain some of the social status and attention media outlets are so keen to bestow, and we’ll blame videogames, cultural differences, race, and religion. Meanwhile, commercial network executives will be rubbing their hands together as their news division lays down an advance payment for another lucrative crime mini-series in a decade or so.
To its credit, the Victorian police force has been at pains to point out Operation Ares is tasked with investigating the ‘events’ that took place at Moomba, and not the Apex gang specifically. They have also gone to great lengths to outline the dangers of blaming or vilifying any one section of the community for the actions of a group of people from a range of backgrounds and ethnicities. The same goes for Operation Tense, which is charged with tackling the rise in car theft, burglaries and street crime. This hasn’t prevented various media outlets from portraying these taskforces as specifically formed to hunt down and dismantle Apex.
Politically and in the public eye, it is far safer for the Victorian Police Chief Commissioner to resort to dumbed down and simplistic slogans such as ‘Grand Theft Auto generation’ as the key reason behind disaffected young people resorting to anti-social behaviour, crime and violence. It would take courage for a senior police officer to ask members of the public to consider a more complex explanation. That these actions are the result of the lack of effective infrastructure in place to combat social alienation, facilitate education, community integration and heal past traumatic experiences. These young men need to feel as though they have a future and a stake in Australian society.
Instead the taskforce formed by the police to investigate the Moomba Festival disorder was named ‘Operation Ares’, after the Greek god of war. Of the 41 alleged offenders arrested so far for taking part in anti-social behaviour at Moomba, 33 are under 18 years of age. What constructive message are we sending to young men and boys in the community by telling them they are now at war with the police? The current situation is sending exactly that message, loud and clear, to practically all youths from ethnic minority backgrounds in Flemington & Kensington, Dandenong, Broadmeadows, Footscray and beyond.
No one is attempting to condone or excuse criminal or anti-social behaviour. We all have choices and clearly the vast majority of young people in these communities and throughout Australia do not react in the same way when faced with similar challenges. Nothing happens in a vacuum, however, and to respond with shock and indignation is disingenuous, especially when the signs have been there for some time that we have created a situation primed for this type of social unrest.
If you warehouse specific groups of people in deprived outer suburbs, provide them with inadequate support, skills and education, and therefore limited options, a small portion of people, typically young males, will always feel disenfranchised, resentful, unheard, unseen and unwanted. Without a firm sense of belonging, positive role models, family support and viable pathways out, they are liable to go elsewhere for direction, engagement and to feel part of something larger than themselves. This is not a new social phenomenon and has always been true no matter where you come from.
We need to ask ourselves: are we more interested in understanding, taking collective responsibility for, and subsequently addressing this issue? Or are we content to read salacious headlines, watch the same video footage one more time, and never question why a small group of youths from disadvantaged areas are going to high profile family events en masse to act up on a day celebrated by all Melbournians? Perhaps they are declaring ‘We are here too.’ We also have choices when it comes to interpreting and responding to that message.
