CITIZEN REPORTER
The Examiner is surely sailing very close to the wind on accusations of ‘cash for comment’.
At best the Examiner are leaving themselves open to accusations of privileging corporate pro-pulp mill opinion at the expense of other community and business voices.
Over the last six weeks The Examiner has run ‘the world according to Robin Gray’ on the front page, closely followed by a pulp mill hard sell by former premier Paul Lennon and then yesterday another pulp mill sell by the Gunns Chairman John Gay.
Gunns, if not being the Examiner’s biggest client would be close to it.
Throughout the pulp mill assessment Gunns constantly published in the Examiner a large quantity of ads, including special sections. Many have speculated as to whether this valued corporate client’s business contribution influences the opinions of the newspaper.
Word is that Gay’s comment in yesterday’s Ex. arrived at the paper without being asked for.
From Gunns new PR firm perhaps? Indeed.
At that point the Ex. still had a choice as to whether to run the piece. But they did run it.
Why?
I doubt whether Fiona Reynolds would have been too happy about this, knowing full well what kind of reaction it would elicit.
That the Examiner with all the recent controversy about pro-pulp mill bias would publish this highly contentious PR puff piece for Gunns says so much about how much influence that Gunns wields at this newspaper.
Perhaps it is time that some hard questions were asked about existing business relationship between the Ex and Gunns.
How much pressure is the Ex under from its major advertisers?
Does the Examiner view the financing of its daily paper through advertisers as an inherent bias?
Did Gunns pay for space allocated to the Gay piece or is there an implicit understanding between the two parties that Gunns’ ongoing business with the Ex. constitutes sufficient compensation?
Does the Ex. acknowledge that marginalising certain voices in favour of corporate and advertising interests contravenes the standards of journalism?
How many CEOs or business owners in Launceston would love the free space to spruik their business?
Are all approaches from local business treated equally?
As far as I can ascertain the Ex. did not invite other stakeholders to have a right of reply. It is possible that the Ex. did offer Senator Brown the right of reply, but the problem here is in doing so, whilst the Ex. might appear to be acting in the interests of balance they are in fact assisting Gunns to run a campaign. Indeed, the Gay puff piece was clearly aimed at Bob Brown for a reason. So that Gunns could reframe the pulp mill debate as a Jobs vs. Environment. Greens vs. Jobs. Gunns vs. Bob Brown. The same tired old paradigms.
Meanwhile other local stakeholders including local business and residents are excluded and left frustrated and angry.
For the Examiner to play this game would be unforgivable.
The other noticeable feature of Gay’s comment was that he dropped the federal minister right in it on the minister’s recent parliamentary claims about pulp mill jobs.
How many jobs did Minister Burke claim last week the Gunn pulp mill would provide? 9500 (8000+1500).
Funny that. John Gay himself Chairman of the board said today in the Examiner 1600 long-term jobs. No mention of 8000!
If my project was really promising 8000 jobs I wouldn’t forget to mention that. John Gay did today.
Mr Gay and Mr Burke are clearly at odds on jobs at Gunns’ pulp mill. Who is lying?
Has Mr Burke the federal forests minister misled the federal parliament?
Who in fact did write the federal minister’s statement?
