Character assassination of an individual who posed a question in Q&A

[mofosyne]

This is a bit disturbing. Duncan posed a question in Q&A to the panelist as shown in the video in this twitter message: https://twitter.com/QandA/status/729641940245880833

Soon enough, hit pieces is appearing in multiple major newspaper attacking his character rather than the question. It is essentially attack the message kind of approach and is bad for public discourse no matter how good or bad the person is.

• https://twitter.com/damonheraldsun/status/730717838634180608 : “ABC HERO A VILLAIN” front page on 13th May 2016

• http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/05/12/09/29/qa-battler-duncan-storrar-undeserving-of-cash-says-son : Some journalist dug up his son and used his estranged son to attack his credential as a father (he is currently caring for his daughter)

This is essentially bad for democratic discourse and if not addressed will cause other people to self censor if they know they will essentially have an entire media arm digging up every skeleton in the closet.

[tserong (Tim Serong)]

As someone (or probably several someones) have pointed out on Twitter, there can be nothing that this guy has done in his entire life, no matter what anyone might think of him, that invalidates his point and his question.

[Nuclear_Pi (Josh Kelly)]

I think its absolutely appalling behavior on the part of the various newspapers, but it may actually encourage discourse rather than suppress it. People are already reacting negatively to such an obvious hit job and I doubt I’m the only one who is now more resolved than ever to stand up should the opportunity arise.