After almost two weeks of unbridled hysteria from supposed women’s rights activists and every clout-chasing media and social media wannabe, we still don’t know exactly what took place in that Pullman Hotel suite.
Nor do we know if any aspect of it, beyond the illicit drug use, was criminal.
What we do know is that we have a lot of hypocrites with platforms spouting wild generalisations about all sorts of critical issues.
To claim that any discussion about the “Pullman Five” – as Isaac Heeney, James Jordon, Riley Bice, Nick Blakey and Chad Warner are now known – must be focused entirely on claims of sexual assault, and that any discussion of football matters is an affront to female victims, is frankly absurd.
Football programs should be able to discuss football matters without being accused of gross misogyny.
To suggest that the individuals’ status as footballers has nothing to do with the coverage of the issue is either deeply dishonest or naive.
The reason for the saturation coverage and unprecedented scrutiny is directly tied to the fact that the Pullman Five are footballers.
On the same day that “toppies” were hired for an early morning session of debauchery with five Sydney Swans players, a woman was stabbed in Frankston after leaving a gymnasium allegedly by a man who had hours earlier stabbed another woman in a Frankston street.
Coverage of those alleged crimes was scant, even after Raaz Alizada was charged with several offences, including two counts of intentionally causing serious injury.
These cases did not generate debate from the activist class about the important issue of violence against women.
The focus on the Pullman Five is precisely because they are footballers; incredibly dumb and untrustworthy who betrayed personal relationships by paying for women to attend their hotel room.
But that does not mean they are guilty of any criminality.
This is a fact lost on many during the height of the hyperbolic coverage.
In their haste to make the incident representative of every grievance women have about men, the commentariat have blithely disregarded foundational legal principles, such as the ‘presumption of innocence’.
Rita PanahiColumnist and Sky News host
Born in America, Rita spent much of her childhood in Iran before her family moved to Australia as refugees. She holds a Master of Business, with a career spanning more than two decades, first within the banking sector and the past ten years as a journalist and columnist.