TODAY (Monday, 4 February 2013), in the County Court of Victoria, a legal gun will be held to the head of journalists.
Forced before the Court to reveal the identity of a source will be Australia’s hottest and most prolific two man investigative team, Walkley Award winners Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker of The Age. They are journalistic gamechangers.
They do what ASIS can’t or won’t do.
They do what ASIO can’t or won’t do.
They do what the Australian Federal Police can’t or won’t do.
They do what State police can’t or won’t do.
They do what Customs Police can’t or won’t do.
They do what ASIC and other regulatory bodies can’t or won’t do.
They do what politicians can’t or won’t do.
They do what anti-corruption bodies can’t or won’t do.
They write what other media can’t or won’t write or publish or even acknowledge.
And, among other things, they write what the Reserve Bank of Australia doesn’t want us to know about. Corruption. Dirty money.
I have great respect for McKenzie and Baker, and not just because Richard Baker was my student when I taught Ethics and News Reporting at Deakin University. I make no claim whatsoever on his formidable talents.
My students invariably teach me more than I teach them.
I believe journalism is a vocation and it is the nearest thing to religion that I know.
One of the more sacred Commandments of Journalism, is that of protecting our sources.
Even if such protection for sources was not enshrined and sanctioned in our Code of Ethics, most of us would instinctively do this.
