The Truth Is More Interesting, Part 1: Why Cult Survivors Deserve Better Than Media Sensationalism
Updated: 3 days ago
This is Part 1 of a three-part series: the article and its fallout (Part 1), what the trial was actually about (Part 2), and what ethical reporting looks like (Part 3).
At the recent Decult conference in Christchurch, I had the pleasure of hearing Dr Christine Marie’s keynote, From Informant to Impact: When Justice Needs a Megaphone. Christine spoke about how her story of being sex trafficked was sensationalised in the media in the past, and how she was made to look responsible for her own abuse.
I felt that in my bones, because I’ve had my own sample of it.
At the close of the conference, Decult founder, Anke Richter, returned to the topic and shared her insights into how the media can help or harm cult victims too. She specifically referred to careless headlines that were not trauma-formed.
This kind of reporting needs to stop.
Attention is cheap, truth is not
The media has enormous influence over public opinion, and that comes with responsibility. But attention spans are short, and many outlets depend on clicks to survive. In that environment, detailed truth-telling gets buried under headlines designed to provoke.
Cult survivors in the media
Cults are a favourite target for this treatment. The strange beliefs, the dramatic rituals and the family rifts make good clickbait. What makes a better story is how coercive control actually works, and that is almost never what gets published.
Even the court in my trial recognised this dynamic. Writing about McKay’s videos, the judge observed: “Sensational allegations and graphic imagery are likely to be successful in the competition for views, shares and likes.” Cults understand the attention economy as well as newsrooms do, which is exactly why reporters need to be careful not to do their work for them.
What happened to me
I took David McKay, leader of Jesus Christians, widely known as “the kidney cult”, to court for defamation, and I won. Afterwards, journalist Tom Cowie wrote a follow-up for the Sydney Morning Herald under the headline “Renee beat the ‘kidney cult’ in court, but her own daughter testified against her”.
I’ll be honest: I was upset when I read it. I want to explain why, and I want to do it without making this a personal attack, because I think the issue is bigger than any one article or any one journalist.
Tom Cowie was never present in the courtroom for any part of the trial. His article was written primarily from the Judge’s judgement, and my only contact with him was a very brief phone call in which no clarifying questions were asked about my daughter’s testimony. I don’t know what pressures he was working under. But by leading with that testimony, the article played into the narrative McKay was putting forward, and it didn’t reflect what the court actually found.
The focus on “witchy” things, and on my interest in ancient Egypt, gave readers a narrow impression of what the trial was about. I feel strongly about this, given the long history of men demonising women as “witches.” That trope deserved to be challenged, not echoed.
Three years on, the landscape around cults and coercive control has changed dramatically, largely because of the Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into the Recruitment Methods and Impacts of Cults and Organised Fringe Groups (see the reports here). Its report was tabled in July 2026 and made 39 recommendations, including criminalising group-based coercive control.
As we heard at the conference, its findings are now being referenced by other Australian states and territories, and in international politics. I’d like to think that with what we now know, stories about cults would be approached differently.
A story about a mother holding a cult leader accountable for discrimination, harassment and bullying is far more powerful than a story about her spiritual interests. And I believe my daughter’s testimony can’t be separated from the environment she lives in.
The ripple effect
That single article has become a point of contention whenever I speak about my experience with McKay. Undoing its impact is something I now have to do.
I realised this a few months ago on the Trust Me podcast, when I was asked about the “witchy” things. Given that they were such a minor part of the trial, those questions were confusing unless you saw the trial through the very narrow lens of that article.
Fortunately, the hosts were open to hearing what the trial was really about. One of them, Lola Blanc, is Christine Marie’s daughter, so I was in safe hands. Without my having to confront the misrepresentation head-on, she let the story of the trial be told on my terms. That is what supportive media looks like. (I’ve also spoken about the trial on the Unchurchable podcast, and written a personal reflection on it.)
If the headline was about my daughter’s testimony, what did the courtroom actually hear? In Part 2, I set out what the trial was really about, from freedom of religion to a private email about Rudolf Steiner, and what it was like to spend five days being cross-examined by the man at the centre of it all.
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