Media Watch: Daily Tele’s stunt backfires
MEDIA ANALYSIS JOURNALISM ‘Could’ve been better handled’: A timeline of News Corp’s Cairo Takeaway scandal
As The Daily Telegraph admitted to a stuff-up in handling an attempted undercover story at Cairo Takeaway in Sydney last week, one of the men at the centre of it all engaged the two biggest hitters in defamation law.
DAANYAL SAEED ⋅ FEBRUARY 17, 2025
Last Friday, The Daily Telegraph’s editor Ben English released a statement admitting the paper’s approach “could have been better handled” after an attempted story at popular Sydney cafe Cairo Takeaway went off the rails.
At roughly the same time, a five-page legal letter from law firm Giles George was sent to cafe owner Hesham El Masry on behalf ofof “undercover Jewish man” Ofir Birenbaum, demanding a retraction of the cafe’s claims about the incident on social media. By Monday afternoon, the restaurant’s management had apologised on social media.
Crikey revealed last week that the tabloid planned a story with the working title “UNDERCOVERJEW”, featuring “undercover Jewish man” Ofir Birenbaum, intending to use covert video-recording eyewear to report “what it’s like being Jewish in Sydney”.
Birenbaum, who attended the cafe wearing a cap with the Star of David on it, what appeared to be a Star of David pendant, and a pair of thick wraparound sunglasses, strongly denied the cafe’s version of events that were subsequently posted to social media, as well as the suggestion that a recording was taken using video glasses.
Birenbaum, who has been described as a “friend” by fringe group the Australian Jewish Association (AJA), has engaged high-profile defamation lawyers Rebekah Giles and Sue Chrysanthou SC, who have written to El Masry and media outlets in relation to the story.
Crikey has compiled a timeline of events that led to the viral incident and the fallout that has reverberated around the media landscape this week.
February 5, 4:56pm
The Daily Telegraph reporter Danielle Gusmaroli’s internal News Corp login is used to create a story in the newspaper’s internal planning systems, with the working title “UNDERCOVERJEW”.
The “topic plan” sits in the Telegraph’s systems and is slated for February 11, despite a likely typographical error referring to January 11 in the title.
February 11, 9:00am
Instructions describing the assignment brief, reported
last week by Crikey, say to meet “Gussy” [Gusmaroli] at News Corp’s Sydney offices on Holt Street in Surry Hills at 9am, before heading to Newtown in the city’s inner west at 9:30am.
“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,” the instructions read.
The instructions were located in the metadata of a photograph of El Masry that was taken during the incident and uploaded to News Corp’s internal photo database. The photograph carried the name of photographer Rohan Kelly in the caption. However the caption was later changed, replacing Kelly’s name with the note “NO BYLINE”, News Corp sources confirmed to Crikey.
February 11, 12:08pm
For unknown reasons, a photograph of
pastafarian Keith Wass outside Newtown Station, wearing a t-shirt that reads “Holocaust never again” and a colander on his head, is taken and later uploaded to News Corp’s database, apparently for the same project. Sources told
Crikey these photos were later deleted.
Wass recently made
headlines for allegedly vandalising former NSW transport minister Jo Haylen’s electorate office in nearby Marrickville. He also appeared in court sporting a colander on his head.
February 11, 12:43pm
CCTV footage from Cairo Takeaway shows Birenbaum walking into the restaurant in Newtown and paying for a hibiscus tea while appearing to film on his phone with his opposite hand. CCTV footage from inside the restaurant, as well as the footage from Birenbaum’s phone seen by Crikey, shows him receiving the drink, lingering near the cafe’s counter without incident, before leaving the building a short time later.
February 11, 12:51pm
CCTV footage shows Gusmaroli, accompanied by video producer Jeremy Span, walking into the restaurant and speaking with a staff member, who begins a phone call before following Gusmaroli and Span outside onto Enmore Road.
CCTV footage from outside shows the staff member with their phone held aloft while following the journalists outside, where a brief and animated conversation takes place.
February 11, 12:52pm
After Gusmaroli and Span walk outside, footage from Birenbaum’s phone depicts a tense conversation with Cairo staff and the group associated with The Daily Telegraph, which escalates into an argument.
Footage taken and posted by Cairo staff shows them following the Daily Telegraph group up Enmore Road, with a staff member accusing the Telegraph of “divisive journalism”, as well as telling them that they “picked the wrong restaurant … to fucking try this shit in”.
The footage also depicts what appears to be a momentary physical altercation, with Gusmaroli heard to say “I’m not touching your phone so you don’t touch mine”.
February 12
Cairo Takeaway takes to social media with their staff’s account of events, which is widely reported.
February 12, 5:29pm
A NSW Police spokesperson tells Crikey that officers had “conducted an investigation” after a staff member at a cafe on Enmore Road reported she was “allegedly intimidated by a customer”, but that no criminal offence had been identified.
February 13, 9:10am
After reaching out to Birenbaum with questions, Crikey receives a legal threat from David Weinberg, principal of Weinberg Lawyers, acting for Birenbaum and stating that Birenbaum categorically denied the cafe staff’s version of events.
February 14, 5:00am
The Sydney Morning Herald is the first major media outlet to report on the incident with an
article titled “‘Deliberate, orchestrated incident’:
Daily Telegraph caught up in stunt gone wrong”.
February 14, 12:43pm
Crikey publishes its
first report on the incident, titled “Inside News Corp’s backfired ‘UNDERCOVERJEW’ operation”, publishing for the first time the contents of CCTV footage from the cafe, as well as News Corp’s internal documents relating to the planning of the story.
February 14, 5:31pm
Telegraph editor Ben English releases a statement, acknowledging the paper’s “approach could have been better handled”.
“The Telegraph never intended to provoke an incident at the Cairo Takeaway restaurant in Enmore, which was one of multiple venues across Sydney we visited, nor to report that its staff are antisemitic,” the statement said.
February 14, 6:41pm
The Australian Financial Review’s Paul Karp is the
first to report on a five-page letter demanding a retraction of the cafe’s claims on social media, sent from Giles to El Masry. The letter, seen by
Crikey, was circulated among journalists, with its contents
reported as Birenbaum’s “side of the story” by
Pedestrian. The chronology of events in the letter differs from the version put out on social media by Cairo Takeaway and demands a public apology as well as the deletion of the original posts made by the cafe. Notably, the letter is not a concerns notice, which is the first formal step in initiating defamation proceedings.
February 15, 2:00pm
The Sydney Morning Herald reports Birenbaum “denied he was filming using smart glasses at the time of the interaction”.
February 17, 8:35am
Crikey puts more questions to English, asking whether the
reportedassociated documentary series would go ahead, and whether the
Telegraph was aware that footage collected by Birenbaum on his phone had been distributed to media organisations.
February 17, 1:45pm
Cairo Takeaway takes to social media to apologise to Birenbaum in respect of three statements made on social media.
“Mr Birenbaum did not positively make threats against our staff,” the statement said.
“We hope this incident serves to remind everyone to act respectfully and mindfully, especially during these distressing and tense times. Additionally, we hope that journalists will start acting with integrity and stop trying to manufacture conflict and division to exploit for profits.”
