A Late Arvo Tabloid Terror Special as Terror Terrorists try to Terrify Enmore ...

 

A friend sent this yarn along to the pond, noting that it was in the pond's back yard and that it was worth repeating to whomever might listen.

It was by Carrie Fellner and ran in the SMH under the header‘Deliberate, orchestrated incident’: Daily Telegraph caught up in stunt gone wrong (for those troubled by the soft paywall, it's also in the archive).

The original has some illustrative snaps, the pond will content itself with the yarn ...

It’s the oldest adage in journalism: don’t become the story.

Yet a Daily Telegraph news crew found themselves firmly on the wrong side of the camera this week, with the police called in following a stunt gone wrong involving a man wearing a Star of David cap at a popular inner-city eatery.
Extraordinary vision has emerged of the newshounds being berated as they are pursued down a Sydney eat street “with their tails between their legs” by a hospitality worker who admonishes them for their “divisive journalism”.
The commotion erupted at midday on Tuesday at Cairo Takeaway, an Egyptian restaurant with a cult following on Enmore Road in Newtown.
The restaurant has been a vocal supporter of Palestine on its social media pages.
According to the restaurant’s version of events, a Jewish man wearing a Star of David cap entered the premises and ordered a tea before making a series of provocative comments to staff, in an apparent attempt to goad them into a heated argument.
Two Daily Telegraph staff dressed in black, along with journalist Danielle Gusmaroli and the man in the white hat on Enmore Road.
“Our staff members were subjected to a deliberate, orchestrated incident … at our establishment,” the restaurant’s owner, Hesham El Masry, claimed to the Herald.
El Masry alleged the agitator in question appeared to be working in concert with a Telegraph news crew.
Reporter Danielle Gusmaroli was waiting on the street near the restaurant with a photographer and videographer in tow, El Masry claimed.
He added that the news crew appeared poised to film an “orchestrated confrontation”.
“We are deeply concerned by what appears to be a premeditated attempt to provoke our employees while being filmed without their consent,” El Masry said.

Here the pond should confess that most days of the week the pond saunters past the Cairo. 

When it started, the pond's partner didn't think it would take, but they worked at the vibe, and hipsters loved it.

You can see the vibe ... basking in the Enmore sun, being seen and seeing, and getting into the gustation...

The food's pretty good too ... with an Egyptian twist, though they dodge'd putting up the prices (fear not, hipsters like to pay to be hip).

The pond doesn't mind the street art ... you can see it from all angles ...

In short, classic Newtown in Enmore, just across the way from the theatre ... and it's hard to argue with anyone getting a tad agitated about ethnic cleansing.

The reptiles, however, were intent on stirring up a jihad, a crusade, a holy war ...

El Masry said his staff were shaken by the incident but showed “remarkable professionalism”.
“Local community members who witnessed the incident were visibly disturbed by the calculated nature of these actions, and many stepped forward highlighting the vulgarity of the actions they had witnessed,” he said.
The tables were turned on the reporters as they took off from the scene accompanied by the man in the cap.
An unidentified woman turned the camera on them and began scolding them for their behaviour as the group made their way up Enmore Road.
“I’ll do exactly what you did to me, filming,” the woman says to them in the footage, posted to social media platform X.
She accused the reporting team of “divisive journalism”.
“Look at you in shame, look at your tails between your legs,” she said.
“You picked the wrong restaurant … to f---ing try this shit in.”
The footage ends in a scuffle as Gusmaroli is heard to say: “I’m not touching your phone so you don’t touch mine”.
A Cairo Takeaway employee reported the matter to local police.
“Officers attached to Inner West Police Area Command have conducted an investigation after a staff member at a cafe on Enmore Road, Newtown, reported she was allegedly intimidated by a customer,” a police spokesperson said.
“Following inquiries, no criminal offence has been identified.”
The man in the cap was identified by the restaurant in a social media post. His lawyers issued a response marked “Not For Publication” when this masthead contacted him with questions about the incident on Wednesday, and he otherwise failed to respond.
The Herald also contacted the Telegraph, including asking editor Ben English whether the restaurant’s version of events was accurate and who the story was commissioned by.
English and Gusmaroli both failed to respond.

Stop right there, the pond has heard of the contemptible Ben English, but who is this contemptible Gusmaroli? 

The Terror gives a whiff of her work and her pretensions...

Actually, Danielle "bizarre" is attempting a wretched sting of the lowest kind, one even foot in the door TV journalists might have had second thoughts about ...

So this is what an "award-winning" "senior reporter" gets up to when working for the Terror, trying to stir up race hatred, ethnic and religious divisions ...

Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia Aftab Malik labelled the reports “deeply disturbing”.
“Such behaviour is reckless and irresponsible and I will be following up to ensure these complaints are being taken seriously,” he said.
“I call on anybody undertaking such reckless behaviour to stop and think about their actions.”
El Masry said his staff had been profoundly moved by the support they had received from customers and the broader community in the wake of the incident.
“Our small business, Cairo Takeaway, has proudly served the Sydney community for eight years, welcoming customers from all backgrounds and walks of life,” he said.
“We are immensely grateful for the thousands of messages of love, wellbeing and compassion.”
The restaurant has used its social media presence to advocate for Palestinians and had a mural painted on its wall by a local graffiti artist to show solidarity with people in Gaza.
“Our mission extends beyond hospitality and commerce – as global citizens we believe that our support and advocacy for the oppressed must never result in the suppression of others,” El Masry said.
“Our values are rooted in creating a safe, respectful environment where every one of our staff, community members and customers alike are treated with respect and dignity.”

Independent Australia picked up on the story with videos etc, and with any luck, the Cairo will make out like a bandit ...

Crikey also ran with it, Inside News Corp’s backfired ‘UNDERCOVERJEW’ operation, The Daily Telegraph planned a story featuring an ‘undercover Jewish man’ using covert recording eyewear. CCTV footage shows it didn’t go as planned. (paywall)

This had some nice details, if you happen to think acting like an agent provocateur, a sneak, a snitch, a stoolie, a rat fink undercover stool pigeon, is the way to do journalism:

...A News Corp operation sending an “undercover Jewish man” to a popular Egyptian cafe this week backfired when staff called the police following an altercation with Daily Telegraph journalists.
Internal files seen by Crikey show the outlet planned to use covert video-recording eyewear in the making of the story, which it internally named “UNDERCOVERJEW” and sketched out a week in advance.
Earlier this week, the head chef at Cairo Takeaway in Newtown, Sydney, posted footage to social media of an argument between Cairo staff and a News Corp journalist, videographer and the undercover individual after they had left the cafe.
Notes made in The Daily Telegraph’s internal planning system give insight into how journalists planned the story. They detail an aim of reporting “what it’s like being Jewish in Sydney”, secretly filming with video glasses, and identify the undercover Jewish man as Ofir Birenbaum — an individual described as a “friend” by fringe group the Australian Jewish Association (AJA). The system notes also outline The Daily Telegraph’s intention to send Birenbaum into various neighbourhoods to film people’s reactions...
...The Daily Telegraph, which has yet to publish anything about the encounter, had planned the story as early as February 5, when a file in News Corp’s internal planning systems titled “NSW_DT_

UNDERCOVERJEW_NEWS_JAN11” was created by Gusmaroli’s account. The January 11 reference was likely a typographical error.
The company’s internal database also includes photos taken by photographer Rohan Kelly, including one of Cairo Takeaway owner and restauranteur Hesham El Masry. The file also has instructions describing the assignment brief: 
"Meet Gussy at Holt Street call on arrival at 9am and head to Newtown for 930am. Undercover Jewish man Ofir Birenbaum sees what it’s like being Jewish in Sydney. Will secretly film with his video glasses. The aim is to walk down main streets in Newtown, Blacktown, Bankstown, Arncliffe (might not do arncliffe it the worst perhaps) and film peopls reactions to this jewish man in their neighbourhood. Needs discreet photos of the guy walking down these streets to accompany the yarn. Speak to pic desk for a brief."
A News Corp source told Crikey that by the morning of February 13, the story had no further progress in News Corp’s backend beyond having had photographs uploaded to it under embargo. 
Birenbaum has featured in News Corp publications a number of times. In December 2024, Birenbaum appeared on Sky News after claiming he had been moved on by police at a pro-Palestinian protest in the Sydney CBD. In November 2023, he was quoted by The Australian after being involved in a rally outside Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi’s office, pictured wearing an Israeli flag as a cape. 
The Daily Telegraph has produced an undercover story like this before. In 2011, it published an undercover report with journalist Clementine Cuneo donning a niqab and travelling to two different suburbs of Sydney — the affluent Hornsby and highly-Muslim populated Lakemba — to compare how she would be received.
The Press Council, of which The Daily Telegraph is a member, requires publications to avoid “publishing material which has been gathered by deceptive or unfair means” and “causing or contributing materially to substantial offence, distress or prejudice” unless doing so is “sufficiently in the public interest”. 

And so on and on, and of course, the disclaimer ...

Crikey put a number of questions to Daily Telegraph editor Ben English about the purported use of covert filming glasses and whether the publication had abided by Press Council principles in the process of producing the story. 
English did not respond for comment. 

The pond does wish they'd stop calling it Newtown, which might be technically correct, and is certainly more trendy and so has hipster star power. 

But locals know the location as Enmore Road in Enmore. 

Enmore, dowdy wannabe suburb, might not officially begin until Simmons Street, but dammit, Enmore Theatre is the heart of Enmore, and it comes before Simmons Street, too. 

It's like the ABC, always talking about the inner west somewhere out Strathfield way, when everyone knows that the inner west ends at Ashfield ... (the pond will allow arguments that it stops at Stanmore).

On the upside to all this local reptile fuss, the invading reptiles didn't manage to start a war, they just scuttled away like Sydney cockroaches are wont to do; on the downside, it's depressing how nothing has changed in gutter yellow tabloid journalism since the days they did start a war ... because if the sting had succeeded, who knows what rabble rousing might have followed ...

What a contemptible rag it is, full of yellowbelly scum, and how pleased the pond is to have cut it from its diet of reptile stews..