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One of the main reasons I posted the entry “Substance Abuse” was because on the initial reading of the article I felt it was suspect.

A lone voice I cried out against this validity of this story!  [/joke]

But now some others are piping up:

Sydney Morning Herald

SBS

Basically news.com.au (and the affiliates) have published a story which is not verifiable by actual fact, but certainly guaranteed to cause a stir.

In addition - as both I and a commenter

Deb (oops!) - commented on the other post - they won’t publish reasonable comments questioning the validity of the story. They have however published the dodgy “Americans suck!” comments. Which to be completely honest is not even related to the story or the “ban” - I don’t recall 300 million Americans rising up in protest of them being potentially exposed to Vegemite in their own country.

What it is kiddies - is just sensationalism. Whether they are getting some advertising dollar kickback from extra hits to their sites, or from Kraft (

<-- toeing the line here (~_^) ).

And all of you who sent a mail using the special mail link in their follow up bullshit story, set up or signed an online petition - congratulations! You have fallen for their ploy hook, line and sinker. Your membership card to the Ignorant Masses has been stamped!

There are several issues at play here:

Why would the banning of Vegemite in the US cause such a stir?

What are the true reasons for such vitriolic backlash about such a trivial issue?

Can mainstream media be trusted?

To what degree as readers should we demand for factual evidence and citations in news stories?

Why do so few people question news stories they see published?

I hope to be examining these issues over the rest of this week. In the meantime, get

one of these and QUESTION EVERYTHING.

Update: Oh what a surprise.

My fav bit:
“Mr Herndon said the FDA was surprised by the media reports.”

Reports. No mention that it was originally a single article from one reporter sent around to all the news affiliates of news.com.au. Referring to themselves as “media” and implying that there were several reports coming from different sources is a bit bloody cheeky.

There was also no mention of “Ooops! We messed up. Er sorry.”

• I think it was Deb who noted that her comment on the story didn’t get published, but anyway… I thought you might enjoy the sweet irony of this quote from the Herald Sun’s ‘Thank you for commenting’ notice:

  “Feedback will be rejected if it does not add to a debate, or is a purely personal attack, or is offensive, repetitious, illegal or meaningless, or contains clear errors of fact”

  Here’s a link to the whole blurb http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/comment/complete

  Helen
  06/10/24 08:52 PM

• Oops! My bad. That was from the Courier Mail site not the Herald Sun (all these news.com.au sites look the same!)

  Helen
  06/10/24 08:55 PM

• Nice find!

  Well they pretty much are all the same. Only the logo is different. Most stories come from the same source.

  MJ
  06/10/24 09:00 PM

• Just to further corroborate, I also posted a link to your substance abuse blog on Monday and it was not published (I think it was news.com.au). They did however, publish someone else with your link today.

  Natasha
  06/10/24 09:27 PM

• Oh thanks for telling me Natasha!

  Seems to be lurking on the Herald Sun section of the news.com.au site:

  http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/comments/0,22023,20629184-661,00.html

  Also looks like they have finally been posting some other points of view on it as well.

  MJ
  06/10/24 09:49 PM

• Ah the wonders of knee jerk reactions…  now they have lots and lots of new email addresses harvested!!

  the goddess
  06/10/25 12:12 AM

• G’day again

  Some great questions, mind if I throw in my AU 2¢ (US 1.51602¢)

  “Why does news.com.au want Australians to hate Americans?”

  There are a few sites that describe Aussie attitudes and culture (or lack thereof) vs Yank attitudes and culture (or lack thereof) better than I ever could, but for a rough summary: Down Under we have what is generaly described as “a healthy disrespect/disregard for authority”, we don’t go much for the “We’re number one” mentality. This makes the poor US as The Only Surviving Superpower™ a prime target for us. So if they do ban Vegemite, or elect Prez Dubya twice (or was it once? Either way…) then we’ll be sure to “put the boot in” about it.

  At the risk of being excommunicated from every Barbie in Oz for the rest of my life, or even worse, being deported to America, I’ll let out an Aussie national secret here…We don’t hate Yanks (although admittedly we are still not happy about Phar Lap.)

  To borrow a scene from Paul Hogan’s “Lightning Jack” from ‘94 (something that probably should be banned everywhere)...After finally working out Cuba Gooding Jr’s character is a mute, Hoges’ character makes a few lame politically incorrect jokes (the best kind ) and says something like “If you travel with me I’ll make a lot of jokes like that about you…but no-one else will!” Sure the movie was a dud, but that line sums up Oz. We call our enemies mongrels, and call our best mates mongrels. But see who we join when one batch of mongrels does something to the other batch

  I guess this is a long boring way of saying “Thanks for the SMH and SBS links above that bust the myth”

  Pete
  06/10/25 04:02 AM

• “Why do so few people question news stories they see published?”
  You should ask the Sunday Mail, they appear to have utilised this flaw in the public.
  People assume that because they hear something from more than one source it must be true. Evidence against this is this latest fiasco.

  Natasha
  06/10/25 08:20 AM

• Aside from the original lack of verifiable facts, for me there are two really disgusting aspects to this incident: [1] the deliberately inflammatory tone of the follow-up ‘email Bush’ article, and [2] that they actively moderated reasonable comments out of the online responses while publishing many that clearly broke their own stated guidelines.

  I can’t help suspecting that there is more to this than just shoddy and sensationalistic reporting.

  Helen
  06/10/25 10:09 AM

• Excellent comment Pete. Not boring at all!

  Natasha - so it seems. To be fair online all these “papers” are linked together and have the news.com.au logo on top. You would think people would make the connection.

  Although they do not always put the reporter’s byline on the stories.

  Helen - I agree. Now it is time to take them to task about this shoddy kind of work.

  MJ
  06/10/25 11:34 AM

• More twists and turns—Daniel Fogarty (the guy who was quoted in the original Herald Sun article claiming he was searched for vegemite at the US border) is a former reporter for the Geelong Advertiser (another News Ltd paper that also ran the story). Smell fishy? There’s more. The blogger, Bernie Slattery, quoted in the Herald Sun’s follow-up article is in fact sub-editor at the Geelong Advertiser.

  Looks like if it’s a slow news day these guys just interview themselves!

  Helen
  06/10/25 12:15 PM

• Excellent sleuthing Helen!

  Man what a can of worms as been opened here.

  MJ
  06/10/25 12:20 PM

• Total speculation:

  News.com.au is owned by Newscorp (a Rupert Murdoch joint - who also owns the stateside Fox Network), which lives to stir ... poop. So, stupidity aside (which is more probable), I’d say it’s more of the same Fox crap that we get here.

  Drivingmenuts
  06/10/25 01:02 PM

• Definitely a beat up. Looks like this is what happened: [1] Geelong Advertiser reported Danny Lannen wrote a very short ‘local interest’ piece about how his former colleague Daniel Fogarty (ex- Geelong Advertiser reporter) had his vegemite confiscated at the border. [2]Kelvin Healey of the Courier Mail rewrites and beats up the story. [3] Other news.com.au stable-mates also pick up and run with the story [4] Quotes are harvested from blogs and forums discussing the story [5] The story becomes hot and news.com.au is keen to keep fanning the flames to keep it alive.

  Helen
  06/10/25 01:28 PM

• Has anybody contacted the “reporter” or the paper to tell them of the discussions on this blog? 

  It does seem like a beat up and ppot stirring but to what agenda?  Simple mischief or something more sinister?  Wagging the dog?

  / conspiracy theory

  The Goddess
  06/10/25 01:58 PM

• One to submit to ABC’s media watch, maybe?

  zukas
  06/10/25 02:47 PM