Shortly following the posting by a major Sydney newspaper of the incident involving a glassing at a hotel in Camden, a dossier of articles around street violence was rolled out with surprisingly little weight given to its shocking contents.
The story on the glassing that took place in the Camden Hotel was almost a verbatim copy-and-paste of the police report – issued just 10 hours earlier. While the hotel was not named in the police report, it was effectively named in the headline of the story in the Daily Telegraph: Campsie man charged after alleged glassing at a Camden hotel.
The Street Watch published 10 hours after that report detailed a number of incidents – most specifically 6 brawls that took place in Greater Sydney in the previous six days.
Every one of these brawls – involving multiple violent offenders – took place away from licensed venues, and frequently during daylight.
And yet not one of these incidents made any kind of mainstream news (at least not that I could find). Is this not absolute proof of the biased nature of the media that choose to cherry-pick unavoidable events in licensed venues to imply anecdotal evidence of proof?
Brawls
Lady Cutler Ave, Bankstown
9pm Tuesday, 24 March
Palmer St, Darlinghurst
3:06am Wednesday, 25 March
Percy St, Bankstown
8:21pm Sunday, 29 March
Marist St, Parramatta
8:20pm Sunday, 29 March
Second Ave, Kingswood
8:03pm Sunday, 29 March
George St, Liverpool
6:31 am Monday, 30 March