The Age F**ked Up

On the 24 September 2014, I was bored and doing what many 21-year-olds do when they’re bored, which is to scroll down their Facebook newsfeed. Usually I’d find some annoying girl whinging about how her boyfriend broke up with her, or someone complaining about a fine they received in the mail, but instead I found something absolutely shocking.

Before I get into this, there are a few things that you need to know. Firstly, does the name Numan Haider sound familiar to you? If not — he was an 18-year-old kid who was seen as a terrorist suspect, who was shot dead by police on 23 September 2014, after stabbing two police officers at Endeavour Hills, Melbourne, police station.

You’re probably wondering how this incident is relevant to what I found on my Facebook newsfeed. It is relevant because the status that I saw contained a photograph of the front page of The Age newspaper that read ‘Teenage Terrorist’, with an enormous image of a young lad who suspiciously did not look like Numan Haider at all. I knew it wasn’t Numan because a previous photo that was given to the media by Numan’s family was publicised on the news the previous day.

The status, however, proved my suspicions about the innocent boy in the picture. It started with, ‘Many people know that often the media can distort the truth and sensationalise many events,’ and then continued. ‘The extremely large photo of the teenager on the right is not Numan Haider, it is someone completely different, a really nice guy I worked with at Hungry Jacks a while ago.’ And it ended with, ‘Do the media confirm these things anymore before they publish them or do they just rush and find any photos of information they can to quickly prepare a story? I’m disgusted by The Age. I feel sorry for him and hope he pursues legal action as this isn’t right!’

As a Professional Writing and Editing student, I have learnt a great deal about copyright and defamation issues, and I found it appalling how 1. The Age did not verify that the photograph was of the right person and 2. The Age didn’t get an authorisation to use this photo. You would think that one of Melbourne’s most popular newspapers would go through the correct procedures before publishing, but unfortunately that isn’t the case.
But aside from these serious issues, comes an even greater issue: what has this mistake done to the innocent teenager, Abu Bakar Alam and his family?

I decided to research this and found a video released on 25 September 2014 by the ABC news network revealing the negative impacts of this incident on the Alam family.

‘I can’t go out and I’m scared and terrified,’ said Abu.

Abu is afraid to step out of his own house in fear of being mistaken as a terrorist after his photo was released on the front pages of not just The Age but also the Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times.

‘I know that people are going to recognise me and they might harm me and my family.’

Jason Om, reporter of this video states, ‘Abu Bakar Alam has never uploaded the engagement party photo and says he doesn’t know how Fairfax Media obtained it.’

There have always been statements made talking about how ‘what’s posted on the internet stays on the internet’ but I have never heard of a photo being obtained without it even being uploaded.

It creates questions like where did Fairfax Media even get this image from? Was it uploaded on one of Abu’s friend’s Facebooks? And if so, how? Was their profile private? Public? I would like to think it was public or else we have another big issue on our hands. But this issue is not about how safe social media sites are, it is about The Age and how they messed up so badly.

Was The Age set up? Were they played by the wrong source? Or was it just a simple mistake that went incredibly wrong — whatever option it may have been, The Age definitely received a lot of backlash for it.

Comments were spread over Facebook and other social media sites such as, ‘WTF how can they make a mistake like this!’ ‘That’s fucked up, but on the bright side he’s going to be rich,’ and ‘How the fuck (The Age) are they going to correct this?’

That is a great question. How is The Age going to correct this issue? They tried to make amends with the Alam family by publishing an apology on the third page of their newspaper:

‘A photograph that ran prominently in The Age on Thursday was published in error. The photograph, featuring a young man in a suit, was incorrectly said to be of Numan Haider. We unreservedly apologise to the gentleman pictured for this error. He has no connection whatsoever with any extremist or terrorist group and we deeply regret any such inference arising from the publication of the photograph. We are reviewing and changing our internal processes to ensure such a mistake is not repeated.’

It’s safe to say that The Age tried to make this issue go away, but in the real world sometimes sorry just doesn’t cut it.

Sorry isn’t going to make Abu feel brave enough to leave his own house. Sorry isn’t going to help cure the terrorist stigma that has now been tattooed on his face, and sorry isn’t going to help him out with his goals for the future.

An article from the Herald Sun headline read, ‘Abu Bakar Alam’s family rejects apology from The Age over “Teenage Terrorist” wrong picture.’
Abu’s father, Sher Alam, said, ‘I wanted the apology on the front page in the same place and they said, “We can’t do that”. They put it [the apology] on the third page — it’s not justice.’

I agree with Sher Alam, it isn’t justice. A small apology paragraph on the third page of a newspaper does not compare with an extremely large photo of an innocent kid on the front page of a newspaper. If the mistake was made on the front page of a newspaper then it should be fixed on the front page of a newspaper too. Understandably, Abu’s family have consulted with a lawyer and will be seeking their justice.

When this controversial situation first arose, people’s reaction — besides being outraged—was to discuss how much money The Age would have to pay for their mistake if Abu’s family were to sue.

The Alam family would definitely be suing for defamation. Defamation according to the law in South Australia states that, ‘If somebody publishes or spreads false information about you, your reputation might be damaged. This is called “defamation”, and it is against the law. The law protects your reputation by not allowing false information about you to be published. If it is too late, and the information has already been published, you can sue the person who has defamed you and the court may award you damages (money) to compensate you for the damage done to your reputation.’

It would’ve been in The Age’s best interest if they just listened to Sher Alam and put the apology on the front page of their newspaper, instead of sinking their company into the ground further by losing what looks to be an extremely large amount of money to compensate the traumatising damage done to poor Abu’s reputation.

There isn’t an exact number I could give to tell you how much money Abu’s family would get, but it’s definitely going to be more than a couple thousand — but hey, I’m no expert. That’s for the courts to decide.

This mistake is something that The Age and other newspapers seriously need to learn from. Small errors like these can permanently damage someone’s reputation, their life and their well-being — and not just for the victims involved like Abu, but newspapers in general.

Newspapers have a high respect to uphold to keep their readers. Their readers need to know that the information that they’re reading is true, that it is checked, that it’s not a random image pulled off Google.

Newspapers need to check their sources, double check them and check them again and again. Just because someone claims to know someone, or pleads that this information is true, it doesn’t mean that it is. They must always fact check.

The Age newspaper has now soiled their respected Australian newspaper name, lost many of their loyal readers, and will definitely need a whole lot of help to get their ex-respected title back.