Anti racism campaigner Dr Stephen Hagan said he has received death threats following a fake news story about supposedly "racist" milk.
While Dr Hagan led the campaign to rename C**n Cheese, he said there's no truth to reports that he's turned his attention to Pauls’ Smarter White milk.
Dr Hagan told The Point that that it began when a journalist from the Daily Mail contacted him for a response to a sarcastic social media post from One Nation’s Mark Latham.
The post was one of several on the “Mark Latham’s Outsiders” Facebook page mocking the C**n Cheese decision. It suggested that “evil snowflakes” would next target brands that contain the word “white”.
One post shows an image of the Pauls' brand is accompanied by the words “surprised the mob haven’t cancelled my favourite milk”.
Dr Hagan said the Daily Mail journalist incorrectly framed his response.
“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.”
The Daily Mail story was picked up by other media and retweeted as fact by Latham and One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson.
The post by Mark Latham's Outsiders Facebook page Source: Facebook
A Facebook post by Nine’s Today Show echoed the false claim that Dr. Hagan was running a new campaign and attracted more than 31,000 comments.
“It’s awful stuff to see,” he said.
The article by the Daily Mail that says Dr Hagan wants to change the name of Smarter White milk. Source: Daily Mail website
“I asked Channel 9 Today Show and I asked Pauline Hanson, One Nation to take down that Facebook post because I’m getting a lot of hate mail and they wouldn’t take it down.”
He has referred the matter to police and said they have informed him they will look into some of the more offensive and threatening comments.
Dr Hagan is an author, newspaper editor, documentary maker, university lecturer and former diplomat.
