Dr Stephen Hagan suing Nine and Daily Mail after stories led to online racial vilification

The Kullilli academic says he was deliberately misrepresented by the outlets in stories suggesting he wanted to launch a campaign against Paul's Smarter White milk.

The Channel 9 Today Show post that says Dr Hagan wants to rename Pauls' Smarter White milk Source: Facebook

Key Points

• Dr Hagan complained to the Human Rights Commission in March of this year about the articles published by the Daily Mail in 2020.
• The articles inferred that Dr Hagan would pursue a campaign to rename Pauls 'Smarter White' milk after his successful campaign to rename Cheer Cheese.
• Alleged false information published in the articles was shared by One Nation members and by Nine Entertainment's Today Show.

Dr Stephen Hagan is suing two media outlets for articles that resulted in his racial vilification.

The Kullilli man lodged a complaint against both the Daily Mail and Nine Entertainment with the Human Rights Commission in March of this year. The first hearing took place on Monday.

Dr Hagan alleged he was misrepresented in articles published in 2020 by the outlets and was then racially vilified online.

He is being represented by Barrister Kieran Smark, who won Erin Molan's defamation case against the Daily Mail.

In 2020, Dr Hagan successfully campaigned to have the name of a controversial cheese brand renamed to Cheer Cheese. In August, he was contacted by a Daily Mail journalist to respond to a social media post from One Nation's Mark Latham.

Posted on 'Mark Latham's Outsiders' Facebook Page, the post mocked the Cheer Cheese rename and suggested that "evil snowflakes" would next target brands that used the word "white", including 'his favorite milk'.

Dr Stephen Hagan lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over the articles published in 2020.

Dr Hagan claims he told the journalist he had no intention to campaign on the milk unless there was large support from the Indigenous community.

However, later that day the Daily Mail published an article titled 'EXCLUSIVE: Indigenous activist who forced C**n cheese from shelves now wants Pauls to consider scrapping 'Smarter White' milk brand - because it's offensive to Aboriginals'.

“I said, ‘mate I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I drink soy milk’. He wrote a story and implied that I was running a campaign. And then, again, all the hate mail came," Dr Hagan said.

The Daily Mail continued to publish articles on the alleged campaign, including one which was reshared on Facebook by One Nation senator Pauline Hanson.

Nine Entertainment's morning show, The Today Show, also shared the article by putting a poll on their official Facebook page.

Despite Dr Hagan's request for the poll to be removed, it remained online until he lodged the HRC complaint.

It had garnered over 130,000 comments by that time, some of which racially vilified Dr Hagan who reported them to Queensland and New South Wales Police.

Dr Hagan also experienced racial vilification or death threats when campaigning for the cheese brand rename.

"I get phone calls, I get emails, I get letters in the mail," he told NITV in January of 2021.

"The really bad ones I send on to police and I've sent plenty on to police to investigate.

"Police have been around to some people's places and they've spoken to them and said 'they don't pose any threat'.

"But it's not to be taken lightly, I certainly don't take it lightly."

According to The Australian, who Dr Hagan spoke with prior to the hearings, he is seeking $250,000 from each publication and One Nation for the Facebook post.

He is also seeking an on-air apology from Today Show hosts Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon, an apology from Senator Hanson on her Facebook Page and a published apology from the Daily Mail.

Nine Entertainment and the Daily Mail have been contacted for comment.