The Australian newspaper claims to support free speech. Earlier this year, News Ltd (which owns The Australian), in conjunction with other media organisations launched the "Australia's Right to Know" campaign, aimed at reviewing the increasing restrictions on media freedom. The Australian even has a web page, titled "Your right to know", dedicated to freedom of speech/freedom of information articles.
But while (quite correctly) demanding that freedom of speech not be unreasonably restricted for its journalists and editors, the Australian hypocritically fails to apply the same standards to itself. When Tim Dunlop, whose excellent blog Blogocracy is on the News Ltd site, published a post containing well-reasoned criticisms of The Australian editorial, the post vanished from the site, as did Tim for almost 24 hours. Thankfully Tim is back, but his post isn't. It's content has, however, been picked up and reproduced on some other blogs, such as Larvatus Prodeo (see comment of Darryl Rosin) and the Poll Bludger.
The content of the post is reproduced below as a protest against the hypocritical and unreasonable censorship by The Australian/ News Ltd. If other bloggers are reading this - please consider also reproducing the post. Lets show the mainstream media that the one proven way to make something more popular is to try and censor it!
The content below is copyright of Tim Dunlop. Anyone citing this content, please make sure that it is properly attributed to Tim's blog - Blogocracy.
Who says the mainstream media don’t pay attention to the blogosphere? This extraordinary story relates to this week’s Newspoll results and the way The Australian reported it. Peter Brent runs the excellent psephological blog called Mumble. It’s one of a number of blogs that run analysis and commentary of opinion polls, and others include OzPolitics, Possums Pollytics, and Poll Bludger.
Yesterday, Peter Brent noted that he had fallen foul of some of those at The Australian:
A courtesy call from Editor-in-Chief Chris Mitchell this morning informed me that the paper is going to “go” Charles Richardson (from Crikey) and me tomorrow. Chris said by all means criticise the paper, but my “personal” attacks on Dennis had gone too far, and the paper will now go me “personally”.
No, I’m not making this up.
If they only get as personal as I get with Dennis, then it should be tame, as I don’t believe I’ve ever criticised anything other than his writing. And to think I described Dennis, in a chapter in a book being launched this month, as (with no sarcasm) “a fine journalist”.
All very strange. And - I’d be lying if I didn’t admit - a little stomach-churning.
The editorial is up this morning and yes, they do “go” Peter Brent. They defend themselves in the strongest possible terms and attack, specifically and generally, just about anyone who disagrees with them, particularly “Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.”
There are a number of things to say about all of this. The first is that the editorial is as much concerned about charges of bias against The Australian as anything else. This is how it begins:
THE measure of good journalism is objectivity and a fearless regard for truth. Bias, nonetheless, is in the eye of the beholder and some people will always see conspiracy when the facts don’t suit their view of the world. This is the affliction that has gripped, to a large measure, Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.
If bias is in the eye of the beholder, then there are a lot of “beholders” out there who think The Australian is biased, particularly in its coverage of polling data. The evidence for this is not just to found in the blogosphere but on their own pages where their columns and articles often fill up with criticism from their own readers accusing them of spinning information in favour of the Howard Government. In attacking the “online commentariat” they are also attacking a sizeable sampling of their own readership.
The latest bout of charges of bias were prompted by this week’s Newspoll and many people, including me, were struck by the way The Australian chose to cover the story. For instance, Bryan Palmer at OzPolitics wrote:
“When I first glanced at today’s headlines — Howard checks Rudd’s march — Kevin’s sizzle not snag-free — Howard finds fertile ground for support — I was expecting to read about a polling improvement for the Howard Government. What I found was a flat line.”
What’s interesting is that The Australian seems to believe that only they are capable of objectivity and they reject entirely any charge of bias. This is odd given that Chris Mitchell himself has said:
“Can I say something about The Australian’s contribution to the national political debate. It has made, as a newspaper, a remarkable contribution, I think back over the last 10 years that this government has been in office and I think of the positions taken by The Australian newspaper.
“It has been broadly supportive, generously so, of the government’s economic reform agenda. And it has been a strong supporter, consistently… of industrial relations reform. Its only criticism of the government is that it might not have gone far enough.”
…I think editorially and on the Op Ed page, we are right-of-centre. I don’t think it’s particularly far right, I think some people say that, but I think on a world kind of view you’d say we’re probably pretty much where The Wall Street Journal, or The Telegraph in London are. So, you know, centre-right.
It is precisely that “generous” “broadly supportive” “right-of-centre” tilt that people are responding to when they see Newspoll reported the way it was this week. For the editorial to deny that any such tilt exist seems disingenuous.
So I think the editorial is ill-conceived and way off the mark in singling out Peter Brent in the way that it does. His site largely confines itself to interpretation and in doing so, provides a great service. The idea that he can’t comment without the editor of The Australian ringing him up to say they are going to “go” him is disturbing.
Still, I think it is fair to say that News Ltd, including The Australian, has opened itself to comment and criticism from its readership more so than Fairfax, the other major news organisation. They have embraced readers comments and “blogs” more fully, and this site alone is evidence of that. So while most News news stories and columns allow reader comment, the same is not true of Fairfax. You can, for instance, comment on Dennis Shanahan’s and Paul Kelly’s columns, but not Michelle Grattan’s or Gerard Henderson’s.
But having embraced such an approach, they have to accept that not everyone is going to agree with them or buy into their particular take on a given issue or, indeed, their own self-image. The Australian is, of course, completely free to defend themselves, but it might also pay them to reflect on why so many people see them as the “government gazette” rather than just dismiss nearly all such criticism as “a waste of time”.
July 13th, 2007
Posted by
Unsilenced |
Media, Democracy, Blogosphere, Freedom of speech |
2 comments
Having just written about Andrew Bolt's inability to understand the concept of politics of fear, it was interesting to read Tony Coady's excellent article titled "Fear drives a bid for censorship" in The Age. Coady critiques the proposal for banning creation or reading of materials that "advocate" terrorist acts. As Coady points out, what constitutes advocacy or terrorism is not well-defined, or defined so broadly that "praising Nelson Mandela's role in freeing his country from racist tyranny, in part by armed struggle" could fall under the definition of proscribed conduct.
Is banning material that "directly or indirectly counsels or urges doing a terrorist act or directly or indirectly provides instruction on doing a terrorist act" (whatever that means) justified? Is is likely to produce a positive result?
Freedom of speech is precious in a democracy, but it is not, and should not be, absolute. In Australia implied constitutional protection for freedom of speech is very narrow and limited to political matters. Even America recognises some limits on its constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech. Limits are necessary - words can do more harm than sticks and stones, especially in the world where technology allows you to spread the word a lot faster and a lot further than you could lob a stick. Words can start riots, incite violence and even direct genocide. But words can also remedy ignorance, break down barriers and counter prejudice.
Is it really likely that reading material "advocating" terrorism will make a terrorist of someone who would not otherwise be inclined to become one? Is banning such material likely to stop those who are so inclined? Or is it more likely to create a situation where such material will be available "underground", but there will be no opportunity for discussion and debate? The destructive words will still have their influence where they are likely to cause most harm, but will be out of reach of the remedial influences of discussion and debate.
Fear is not a great influencer of sound law-making. Under its influence those proposing to ban materials "advocating" terrorist acts have reverted to the state of a frightened child, who closes his eyes and thinks that because he can't see the thing that is frightening him, that thing can't harm him. Such badly thought out, knee-jerk ban is bad for freedom of speech, as Coady points out. But it may also be bad for discouraging terrorism, helping to create that dark, underground zone where harmful words can multiply and fester, undisturbed by the light of rational discussion.
Thanks for reading.
June 2nd, 2007
Posted by
Unsilenced |
Australian politics, World politics, Media, Terrorism and war on terror, Freedom of speech |
no comments
A few days ago I couldn't help but marvel at the hypocrisy of Mark Vaile who stated that holding a high office in Australia carried a "great expectation of total transparency". His statement was of course right in principle, but how sincere is the belief of the Howard government in transparent and open government?
The Westminster system is based on the principle of the government accountable to parliament and the parliament accountable to the people. Party discipline has had an impact on that principle, but not on the basic notion that the government must be accountable, transparent and open. Look at it from the starting point of democracy - if democracy is about people making a choice by casting their vote, they must have adequate information to make it an informed choice, otherwise there's little point in having a choice in the first place.
Howard government has not been accountable, transparent and open. Yesterday, Kevin Rudd moved to censure the government for failing to disclose how much (tax-payer) money the government intends to spend on "climate change" advertising campaign (no doubt designed to explain away the government's lack of action). The failure to disclose the spending to parliament is consistent with past conduct of the Howard government - it failed to disclose such information when requested by a Senate Committee. Non-disclosure to parliament certainly demonstrates contempt for the Westminster principles of government accountability, however there are other means of gaining information that exist, or are supposed to.
One of the great modern inventions, theoretically designed to improve openness and transparency in government are the Freedom of Information Acts, which exist at both the State and Federal levels. Less than a month ago, Howard criticised the apparent lack of transparency of the Victorian government, citing an example where a newspaper had to spend some $40,000 in legal costs in an attempt to obtain access to certain government school documents under FOI. Yep, that's bad.
But what the Howard government does itself is much worse. Yesterday, it was revealed that the government attempted to charge a union almost half a million dollars and said it would take 12 years to produce less than 400 documents under FOI.
The National Tertiary Education Union sought documents relating to industrial changes in universities which forced the universities to put all its staff on AWAs, with some $450 million in funding tied to compliance with this government directive (anyone still think that the government intends for employers or employees have a choice over AWAs?)
The Government wanted $455,000 to fulfil the request and said that it would take more than 12 years to locate and peruse the 347 relevant files. Now either the government has a really, really bad filing system or transparency and accountability are not on their agenda.
A SMH journalist didn't have much more luck with trying to obtain a copy of "market research" the government did into its workplace advertising, on which the government spent almost 2 million dollars of tax payer money. One might think that if our money is being used, we might have the right to know what's in the report. Not so, according to the Howard government. The journalist was told that he could have the report, but only after the election for "public interest" reasons. That's right, it is in public interest for the public to be kept in the dark about what is being done with their money.
The trend towards closed government was highlighted in a 2004 speech by Jack Herman of the Australian Press Council. Herman noted that the Howard government was becoming increasingly more secretive and obstructionist in its approach to FOI applications, especially on controversial matters.
The fees quoted for non-personal FOI applications had increased more than three-fold between 1998 and 2001, with a quoted fee of over $600,000 on one occasion. Some departments had an average asking price of more than $10,000 per application.
When this practice is viewed in light of the fact that it is applied only to the more controversial applications, lengthy delays in processing the applications (although the 12 years quoted for the NTEU must be a record!) and the increasing use of "conclusive certificates" to bar access to documents altogether, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the government has been doing its best to avoid transparency and accountability.
And without an accountable and open government, can there be a true democracy?
May 30th, 2007
Posted by
Unsilenced |
Australian politics, Howard government, Media, Freedom of speech |
2 comments
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