MEAA and ethics

Crikey, Margaretta Pos , former MEAA Tasmania Branch president, writes: Re. “Toohey’s Walkley dummy spit: a stunt” (yesterday, item 19).

Yes Margaret Simons. There are grave issues of journalistic principle at stake. How can you try to trivialise Paul Toohey’s stand as a dummy spit or political posturing? There are two serious issues. First, that MEAA federal secretary Chris Warren could think of muzzling members with a code that calls on journalists to report to police and councils when they arrive in Aboriginal lands and inform them of what they intend doing, even if a handful of NT-based journos had approved it. Second, that it took journalists two weeks to realise that this Stalinist code was in the offing, and then only after it was aired by a Walkley-winning journalist who isn’t a member of the Alliance. The first issue is surely self-evident to self-respecting journalists. The second highlights our apathy. The new code was published by MEAA online on March 7th. On March 14th, reference was made to it in Warren’s weekly E-Bulletin. Did anyone read it? The story broke on March 20th, when Toohey’s justifiable anger was splashed on the front page of The Australian.