504/GWT
Journalist, filmmaker and satirist focused on extremism, disinformation, youth justice and police accountability.
Founder and Creative Director at Whatsdoin Media.
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If Spanian and copycat content creators really want to document this community before it’s destroyed by gentrification, they should have taken the time to promote the local heroes tirelessly maintaining the building after successive governments chose to forget it, not treat it like a cautionary tale.
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By Scobie McKay
The Age
Keeping young people out of prison and reducing the crime rate are win-wins for incarcerated youth and for the community.
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By Scobie McKay
Crikey
01. Scobie McKay Is Documenting The Absurdity & Tragedy of Australia’s Alt-Right Fringe
“By far one of our favourites is Whats Doin Media, a video project by Melbourne-based journalist and youth worker Scobie McKay, documenting the rise and evolution of Australia’s fringe groups. You’ll be familiar with his subjects – the hard-to-define group of conspiracy theor-ish, anti-government, alt-right folks who started protesting against COVID-19 lockdowns and just… didn’t stop. It’s easy to dismiss these people as ‘just crazy’; the truth is more complicated.
Scobie’s short documentaries capture the outrageous, absurd and sometimes very funny things that happen at fringe rallies with an incredible level of insight – essential viewing for anyone who cares about democracy, social justice or the news. We asked him about the strangest thing he’s covered (a doomsday camp) and why it’s important for young progressives to understand how fringe movements will evolve in 2024.”
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By Crystal Andrews
Zee-Feed
“The last place you’d expect to see a sniffer dog is at the entrance to your suburban train station, but that’s exactly what greeted public transport users in Melbourne’s south-east this month as part of Victoria Police’s operation to target drug possession on the network“
Reporting featured in Victorian Parliament curtesy of MLC Rachel Payne
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By Scobie McKay
Crikey
Revellers were aflush with conspiracies insinuating the former premier had been pushed from his position.
One man calls for Daniel Andrews to be hung.
One
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By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
Purchased by Aussie Cossack on behalf of the Russian Consulate, the mid-strength beers were well received by protesters.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
A video I recorded depicting a Victoria Police CIRT officer repeatedly kneeing an anti-fascist protester in the back of the head goes viral - prompting backlash on social media and mainstream media outlets.
By Raf Epstein
ABC Radio Melbourne
I asked anti-transgender protesters if they supported neo-nazis joining their platform.
“If I have to choose between paedophile groomers and some guys who are tough blokes, but perhaps a little bit misled in some of their ideology.
It’s hard man.”
Watch here
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
“One of Australia’s most notorious anti-Islam activists and former head of the far-right group United Patriots Front has converted to Islam, joining a trend of prominent right-wing figures who’ve embraced the religion for its conservative stance towards masculinity, gender roles and the LGBTQIA+ community.”
“In the eyes of a new generation of conservatives, changing societal expectations around gender norms, masculinity and LGBTQIA+ rights have superseded asylum seekers, Islamic terrorism and sharia law as the single greatest threat to Western values.
The intersection of homophobia, transphobia and misogyny between former adversaries has led to an unlikely allyship between the far-right and conservative Muslims, particularly with young men.”
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By Scobie McKay
Crikey
“Matt, a manager at Alice Spring Cinema, took a break from fixing the door to his business after a break-in to speak to Crikey. He said residents feel Action for Alice 2020 brought the attention of the NT government and the federal government to the town’s crisis, but acknowledged there are some concerns about it spreading fear in the community.“
“Alice Springs councillor and Yipirinya school principal Gavin Morris, is concerned about how social media audiences see Alice Springs when viewed through the page’s lens.”
“They do the crime, the anti-social stuff, so they get infamy on the Action for Alice page,” he said. “It gets 5000 likes, it goes around the nation.”
Morris said his students also told him that racist comments on posts were inspiring them to take revenge: “They go through and read the comments, they read the racist comments. That angers them and they want to go out and commit more crime. Retribution.”
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By Scobie McKay & Cam Wilson
Crikey
A perplexing insight into the day to day life of a ‘freedom protester’ so enamoured with Donald Trump that he dresses up as a crude caricature of him, every single day.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a group of pro-Russian protesters amassed in Sydney, calling for Australia to maintain neutrality.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
Conservative Christians flood Melbourne for their annual march against abortion rights. I discovered many of them suffer from lasting trauma that’s heavily informs their political beliefs.
By Scobie McKay Whatsdoin Media
“Over the weekend, hundreds of cars full of protesters travelled from across Australia to revolt against Dan Andrews, believing he's ushering in a new world order.”
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By Scobie McKay
Crikey
The only journalist allowed inside Muckudda Camp, this aberration of the freedom movement was completely unpredictable. It catapulted to the national stage after setting fire to the Old Parliament House, the camp attracted Indigenous and non-Indigenous protesters duped by the “Original Sovereigns' narrative. I set about getting to know the protesters, and over two days befriended many of the members of the paranoid and tight-knit camp.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
The first journalist to cover the months long Convoy to Canberra protest, a reactionary, conspiracy laced movement to occupy Australia’s capital following the easing of pandemic restrictions.
My on-the-ground reporting, convoying alongside the protesters, was widely distributed by mainstream media outlets.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
We returned to the Melbourne "Freedom" Movement, where disparate groups have united to oppose a piece of pandemic specific legislation. In this episode we explore the increased presence of evangelical Christians within the movement.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
We caught up with Dani Stani on the steps of Victoria's Parliament House, where she retold her iconic deliverance ceremony. Various religious groups have begun to grow in numbers at the Melbourne protests, which have erupted in response to the ongoing pandemic.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
In September of 2021, thousands of angry anti-lockdown protesters converged on the city in spite of pandemic restrictions.
For several days, protesters skirmished with police, who used rubber bullets, tear gas and military style vehicles to suppress the uprising.
Ami
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
Scobie is a reporter and content creator for Whats Doin Media - an online channel exploring Australia's cultural and political fringe. We discuss the recent anti-lockdown "freedom" rally in Melbourne this past weekend (Sep 18) which Scobie attended and documented for WDM.
By Scobie McKay & Jack Rowland
In Too Deep Podcast
Far-right protesters motivated by pandemic-era conspiracies defy restrictions banning Victorians from travelling further than 5km from their house, converging in Richmond for a protest.
By Scobie McKay & Jack Rowland
In Too Deep Podcast
A disparate group of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, anti-lockdown protesters and other victims of disinformation converge on Melbourne during the Covid-19 pandemic.
By Scobie McKay
Whatsdoin Media
“Alright, who here has been sending death threats to the premier?’ asked Cushla in an encrypted chat set up by anti-lockdown protesters to avoid police surveillance. ‘We should take hanging nooses to the next protest like they did in Lebanon’, said Jane, as the protesters discussed tactics on how best to dismantle the lockdown policy in place across Victoria.”
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By Scobie McKay
Arena Publishing