Media Forum: What I saw

Michael Lester In response to: We are watching you

I too was at the Forum, both to support my old profession and to hear what my friends and colleagues in the media had to say.

Dean, who Lindsay demeaning described as a sound recordist who works in the Government media office, was certainly there. Was he recording? I don’t think so.

Unfortunately it has been accepted as fact that the Government media office recorded proceedings because someone mentioned it at the forum and Lindsay broke the first rule of journalism by failing to check this “fact” by asking him.

I was skeptical though …
… as I was standing alongside Dean who spent most of the time interjecting under his breath which would have destroyed much of any recording had he been doing it. To check this out further I rang Dean to ask him. He says he didn’t record it. He asked the Premier’s media adviser Matt Rogers who also confirmed he hadn’t recorded it.

So I then rang Dr Libby Lester who chaired the forum to see where this story arose and she said she had no confirmation from anyone that it had been recorded. Given that most of the responses to Lindsay’s article responded to this assertion – and given that it also became a topic for discussion on the ABC’s Tim Cox program – I think the record needs to be corrected.

If anyone has any actual evidence that it was recorded please say so. Until then, it serves as a perfect illustration how inaccuracies in the media can have an unfortunate impact on the direction of debate and simply inflame those who feed on dine out on conspiracy theories. Mind you, journalists record people every day of their lives. We take the attitude that if it is said in a public forum it is public property, so I don’t know why it is even a subject for discussion. Surely Tasmanian Times is not advocating secrecy and censorship! If people are concerned that they might be sued for what they say, then the simply solution is not to defame anyone.

Lindsay’s criticism of Matt Rogers is also unnecessary and unwelcome. How can you ever get a decent debate and encourage proper dialogue if you attack someone for having the balls to show up to this sort of forum to listen to what is being said? Aren’t you and your correspondents doing exactly what the Forum accused the government of doing?

I have a great deal of respect for Matt Denholm, Sue Neales and Jocelyn Nettlefold and count all of them as friends. I don’t know Roison but I am sure she is worthy and sincere. Some of the tactics they described that have been used against them would be extremely annoying. However, I thought the forum was all a bit precious really. As a journalist in the 1980s and 1990s I was often attacked by the Premier of the day.

At one stage during the Wesley Vale pulp mill debate I had Robin Gray on the phone screaming abuse at me for the better part of an hour (I might have returned a bit as well) for daring to write that his Government had watered down the environmental guidelines for that mill. I know that Barry Prismall got a similar treatment. When I was working for ABC and reporting at Farmhouse Creek a group of loggers tried to roll my car over because they felt the ABC was anti-forestry (as it happens then Deputy Premier Ray Groom and Paul Lennon got them to stop).

One of Christine Milne’s advisers during the Labor-Green accord punched me in the face and left a scar (yes, actual physical abuse which Bob Brown later excused on the gorunds that “writing can incite people”) because he didn’t like a story I wrote that day.

The Groom and Rundle Governments at different times tried to freeze me out of the political round by giving stories either to my opposite number on the Examiner newspaper or to one of my own Mercury colleagues to try to undermine me. (I don’t know if this was sanctioned by those premiers or a ploy by some staffers, but the tactic failed because I had the support of my editor).

I know of one case at least where senior political party officials and minders tried to get the Managing Director of the Mercury to have me demoted from the round. One of my colleagues on another paper was stood up against a wall and held by the neck by a Labor Leader. If you go back to the late 1970s and early 1980s (when unions actually held real power) it was not uncommon to hear stories of them trying to “heavy” journalists in the public bar….and on it goes.

I don’t know of any journalist in those eras who was intimidated against writing their stories the way they saw them. And I doubt that Matthew, Sue or Jocelyn would be intimidated by the sort of tactics they described last Thursday night either – they are too experienced and tough for that.

One last comment on this point – the Walkley magazine distributed to Forum attendees opens with a piece from Chris Warren which states that between 1997 and the present more than 1000 journalists have died around the world in pursuit of news. That certainly puts the concerns raised by local media into perspective.

I’d like to make another point. Looking at the forum with the critical eye of a journalist you would have to have some concerns about what appears to be the development of a pack mentality among the senior ranks of the gallery. This is not an uncommon phenomenon and has been the subject of some debate about the role of journalism in Canberra, especially during the early and mid-1980s.

I was probably part of a similar “pack” during the Rouse bribery royal commission, although to be fair to the gallery at the time, there was actual evidence of corruption rather than suspicions, innuendo and slur. The problem with this is that when the media hunts as a pack it is very difficult for an alternative view to get a proper and fair airing. It means that journalists might, consciously or otherwise, shy away from angles that are different to the prevailing wisdom – especially if they think the intellectual weight is on the other side.

Given that it is always Lennon or (Gunns Limited boss) John Gay facing criticism in the media, it was also surprising to hear journalists claiming to be the victims. How can the barbs of a media release, read by at most a few hundred other journalists, even compare to hurt of articles and news stories read, heard or watched by tens of thousands?

There is a very old and recurring debate in journalism about whether journalists should just report the news or whether they should interpret it. It’s not easy to answer. Journalists interpret the news every time they choose an angle, or make a decision to include a quote and exclude another; or use a nice pic or one designed to embarrass or humiliate – and the ABC’s ernstwhile practice during election campaigns of counting lines (or seconds) to ensure each party has the same amount of air time is equally flawed. However, in a debate as emotionally charged and as divisive as the pulp mill, it is even more important to get the facts right and to get the balance right.

Michael Lester is General Manager, CPR Communications & Public Relations Ltd, Hobart, a former Bacon Labor political adviser, and state political reporter.

His last article for Tasmanian Times was Federation: Time for an overhaul which has particular relevance now.