January 18, 2018

Has the Toronto Hijab Hoax story ended?

Has the Toronto hijab hoax story ended?
It amounted to nearly a week of breathless commentary, anxious reporting and political finger pointing over something that didn’t happen.

The ‘family’ at the centre of this story issued a written apology to “every Canadian” for the national angst we suffered because their kids, (not just the little girl), made up a story about a scissor wielding attacker who cut up an 11 year old’s hijab as she walked to school last Friday morning.
So? Is that it?
It’s certainly not the end of it for the family and the kids involved. They will always be the ones among their friends, peers and neighbours who told “the lie” that got way out of control. And that will be there penance.
There remains a constituency of Canadians who want the apology to be made publicly in front of the media – just as the false accusations were made. We should all be thankful they didn’t choose that route.
Otherwise, the story will fade in the media because there are other squirrels to chase. But there are some important questions to be asked and answered yet.
First, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) needs to explain how this little girl and her family were trotted out in front of media? With all due respect to my friend Ryan Bird, manager of corporate and social media relations at the TDSB, this was not wasn’t the family’s decision to meet the media. They were invited by TDSB manager for media relations and issues management, Shari Schwartz-Maltz.
Schwartz-Maltz should have known better. She didn’t just mis-manage an issue – she created one.
Second, the Toronto Police have to share some of the blame here. I realize the news conference spectacle was stage managed by Schwartz-Maltz, but I can’t remember police ever making a ‘victim’ available to the media before the investigation had barely started. Victims, never mind a minor, are never identified in a case like this. Police should have stepped in and stopped the family from making their media appearance.
Then there is the role of the media in all of this. (Forgive me, but this might get down in the weeds for the news nerds.)
You certainly can’t blame media for reporting the story quickly. Toronto Police tweeted out the report of an assault at 8:33am and had a suspect description posted about an hour later. It was an urgent and a disturbing story.
But there are small things throughout the various reports that stand out for me. One thing is the role the younger brother played in all of this. The Toronto Star noted that he offered an eye witness account of the suspect attacking his sister for a second time.
According to the Toronto Star reporting, "(he) said he watched as his sister’s attacker again approached her, scissors in hand." He made the story all the more believable.
For whatever reason there was no suggestion in the aftermath that these siblings were co-conspirators; all the focus was on the big sister. (Although, I suspect little brother had some explaining to do at home.)
It makes me wonder if the school mate who loaned the girl a spare hijab took part in concocting the tale or if she was caught up like everyone else.
I’m not sure it would have made a major difference in the reporting of the assault, but I find it hard to believe more wasn’t reported on how the story was told at school. Who was the first adult to get involved? Who saw the damaged hijab? What was the victim’s emotional state when she arrived at school? (She was a pretty cool, collected customer standing in front of mics and cameras.)
It’s not that it was poor reporting, but there was far more sizzle than steak in the offering. Whether it’s a general lack of resource or experience, the first reporting never felt complete.
But when I went back to find the reports from last Friday to see whether there were video clips that might answer some of those questions – low and behold, the stories had been scrubbed from the sites of two television news outlets. A third still had the ‘first story’ as copy but the video attached was the ‘updated’ version of the story, which only dealt with the police conclusion that it was a hoax.
To add to some questionable editorial ethics, newsrooms don’t seem to be naming the little girl in the updated stories. Some have gone so far as to blur her face out of photos taken at last Friday’s news conference.
Lemme get this straight. We were okay naming Khawlah and showing her face when she was considered a victim – which is contrary to conventional journalistic practice. But now that the story’s been proven a lie, she is nameless and faceless?
Really? It’s as if the story never happened!

---

Return to davetrafford.com