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“We’re all responsible for the media,” says Rashna Farrukh, now former Sky News employee.

The New Zealand terror attack where over 50 lives were lost on Friday 15th March, saw a range of emotions take over social media.

What started with outpours of condolence and dua, in particular from Muslims, quickly turned to outrage towards media outlets. Many were outraged with how media outlets chose to report the story, from the perpetrator being referred to as “angelic” and baby photos being used.

The attacker had streamed the attack on Facebook live with a camera on his head, many said the video looked like a video game. Some media outlets took the decision to play the footage, including Sky News Australia.

Farrukh reflected in a piece on ABC at how she felt her time at Sky had led to her feel “like I compromised the very reason I went into journalism — a search for truth — for a foot in the door.”

View this post on Instagram

Walked out of my last exam like “eh, good enough” 💁🏽‍♀️👋

A post shared by Rashna Farrukh (@rashna_) on Nov 14, 2018 at 11:10pm PST

She documents some of the moments in which she felt a conflict while working for Sky News.

“As a young Muslim woman, I had many crises of conscience working here, but the events of Friday snapped me out of the endless cycle of justifying my job to myself. On Saturday, I finally sent in my letter of resignation.”

Farrukh says she compromised her values and beliefs to stand “idly by a I watched commentators and pundits instil more and more fear into their viewers.”

She notes that while she recognised that journalists need to get a foot in the door to get their career going, “where we get our start matters too” and she urges other journalists to not be a part of something that they do not stand for as no matter how small the role, it can help to “legitimise radical views present in the fringes of our society.”

“Even as young journalists, we should act on our morals now rather than at some point in the future where we assume that we will have more of a say.”

Farrukh’s sentiment has been echoed across the Muslim community in that the media has played a part in the New Zealand terror attack.

The Ceo of Sky News Australia has since released a statement claiming “on Friday, in line with other Australian broadcasters, we ran heavily-edited and carefully selected video that featured no vision from inside the mosque, no shootings and no victims”.