Journalism is not a crime

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) is a member of the Australian Press Council and is viewed by government as a union. The MEAA report in 2018, entitled Criminalising Journalism, had a foreword from the CEO, Paul Murphy, who said: “There’s almost universal acceptance of the maxim ‘Journalism is not a crime’. One exception is Australia’s parliament – it begs to differ.” (Dobbie 2018, p.3).

In 1987 and up to 1989 Gerald Fitzgerald, QC, was the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry which looked into “Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct”, according to his covering letter with the report on 3 July 1989. The commission had investigated many documents, interviewed many witnesses, and had a large number of people assisting them. By the end of the Commission of Inquiry, Fitzgerald said in his report “Parliament and the media are two of the most important means by which information about the operations of Government reaches the public.” (Fitzgerald 1989, p.358).

The problem since then, has been how much the government has changed how the media can work. The government, re-elected in 2016, introduced their updated law in 2017 (DCA, online). Now MEAA differs with them.

In 2019 the MEAA report was entitled The Public’s Right to Know as the government treatment of journalists became worse. Murphy said the government are “looking to operate in secret, shroud their activities and suppress all the information about them, discourage freedom of information searches, pursue and punish whistleblowers and place barriers in the way of journalists seeking to tell the truth of what governments are doing in our name.” (Dobbie 2019, p.3). MEAA created the Journalist Code of Ethics in 1944. It was updated in 1984, and endured a major analysis between 1994 and 1999 (MEAA, online). It is now 12 items long. MEAA’s Code of Ethics, Item 8, says “Use fair, responsible and honest means to obtain material. Identify yourself and your employer before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast. Never exploit a person’s vulnerability or ignorance of media practice.” Most journalists understand this and write as they follow the code, yet the government still gags them with their new draconian law, passed by both houses on 16 October 2017.

Pearson sees it different, with a blog titled “The MEAA Code of Ethics: all spin and no stick” (Pearson 2013, online).  He said MEAA, whilst they have a good ethic code, does not use ‘discipline’ against journalists who turn up their noses at it. Even for MEAA members, identifying themselves is often not done when television teams stand outside of a court and try to capture those leaving a case, especially if they have lost it. An ‘interview’ may not specifically happen at that environment, so television teams simply film whatever they want to broadcast. Yet journalists continue with major investigative stories which seem to work against Item 8.

Tanner et al said “the interaction between journalists and ‘vulnerable’ sources features has been a key element of journalism ethics texts…” (Tanner et al 2010, p.88). A research report was undertaken about how journalists and news media write on the ‘vulnerable’ society and publish with respect. The researchers said they had recognised that the use of the word ‘vulnerable’ could create a stereotype problem (Pearson et al. 2010, p.90), and that some of the media may have a ‘media coding sheet’ which, prior to publication, can assist them (Pearson et al. 2010, p.92). These sheets may exist in many public media and can find out ‘what is the topic’ to ‘is the treatment of the topic positive or negative.’ (Pew Research Centre, online).

Bromley said the serious issues that journalists have become close to are predominantly near to the vulnerable society, including: “land grabs; environmental degradation; dangerous working conditions; the treatment of indigenous peoples; strike breaking; miscarriages of justice; criminal impunity; child abductions; medical misconduct; excessive profiteering; poverty; sexploitation; disenfranchisement; discrimination; extremism; police brutality, and migration…” (Bromley 2017, p.224). The government’s new law attempts to stop media from delving into many issues they now see.

Carson said that Australians need a degree of confidence in the “capacity of the mainstream press to adequately scrutinise corporate power and its influences on the state”, which has been traditionally in our lives (Carson 2014, p.728).  She said investigative journalism was an important area to cover, and it is expensive, but Australians follow this because they see this as a much better journalistic field for those who become the ‘vulnerable’ society. Many journalists agree with this, acknowledging that there are “effective collaborations across national borders” and there are many investigative journalists who now prepare a collaborated report (Gearing 2014, p. 62).

Simons et al wrote of the impact that journalism has in society, and said investigative journalism is “[j]ournalism that requires substantial original inquiry by the journalist(s) which results in the creation of an evidentiary basis for a story or stories, without which that story/those stories would not have existed.” (Simon et al 2014, p.1409). They also said the journalistic business does not mean “impact” or “propaganda-based”, as suggested by corporate interests, but more “dissent, openness and diversity” (Simon et al 2014, p.1404).

MEAA supports the journalists’ privilege (Fernandez 2014, p.118) but still supports ethics. Stories had to be proven true. Many revolve around people who are seen as ‘victims’ and include ‘whistleblowers’ who told of people who have broken the law but were not caught.  Some of the journalists who recently investigated are listed below and may be accessed online.

Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie

Four Corners in November 2014 ran a story by Baker and McKenzie which looked at how people with disabilities were abused – often sexually – by carers who worked for Victoria’s care provider, Yooralla. McKenzie told how “complaints were ignored and whistleblowers targeted, their warnings not acted upon”, resulting in “two men employed by the organisation - and now allegedly a third - went on to rape and sexually abuse disabled clients.” The story led to a demand of the federal government to hold an inquiry to “discover the extent of the problem and prevent it happening again in the future.” (McKenzie, ABC online). The commission took years until to really set up, but started on 4 April 2019 (Royal Commission, online).

Aged people have the right to live without abuse.

Louise Milligan – Cardinal George Pell

Milligan’s report in 2016 was of the allegation of Cardinal Pell’s abuse of church boys. She had first found out about it by reading a Herald Sun front page story about police investigation of Pell, but she didn’t believe it then because the story didn’t include their source or quotes. She said “The thing that stood out to me was that we'd just had this royal commission talking about how we needed a better approach in the criminal justice system to dealing with these types of proceedings and I felt like it was 1985 and it had all been ignored.” (Johnson, ABC News online). Milligan built relationships with people who told of the sexual abuse that Pell did, including the family of one victim who committed suicide. It took Milligan 3 years to find the information she used for Pell to go to court – and to jail.

The Catholic church owes remorsefulness to the people.

Dan Oakes and Sam Clark – The Afghan Files

In 2017 Oakes and Clark began the stories of the Australian force in Afghan by publishing the Afghan Files on ABC, which ABC said “can reveal that some of the cases detailed in the documents are being investigated as possible unlawful killings.” (Oakes & Clark, ABC online). Earlier this year, 2019, the AFP used a warrant to search the ABC offices and took away thousands of pages of information of the Afghan files. The Conversation article said that even Australian’s Prime Minister, amongst others globally, “can act with impunity to intimidate - and even silence – journalists…” and “If law enforcement in … Australia can lodge doubts and instil fear in the minds of journalists and their sources, or if they can get news organizations to shy away from controversial stories, then these raids will have served their purpose…” (Socolow, online June 2019).

This government works for the people, not for themselves.

Adele Ferguson, Nassim Khadem & Lesley Robinson – Abuses of power by ATO

Ferguson et al wrote an article for Sydney Morning Herald about the ‘whistleblower’ people who have been found guilty of revealing government department’s secrets specifically Richard Boyle who had worked for ATO in Adelaide (Ferguson, SMH online). He was up for a sentence of 161 years for his alleged illegal copying of documents from ATO and passing that on to Ferguson. Khadem included information about the government’s ‘Black Economy Taskforce’ in an article on 14 January 2019 (Khadem, ABC News online) which requires a person charged with tax assessment fraud to prove it is wrong, rather than ATO prove that their information is correct.

ATO is still abusing their power, and Richard Boyle may suffer.

Ethics are the blood for journalists. MEAA stressed this in Principle 8, and it stands out over the years – and yet ethics can mean something very different for a journalist who is blocked by the court or the government for doing what they have been trained to do – printing the story. When journalists, such as the ones mentioned above, have applied their ethics even when they don’t match with Principle 8, the journalist’s ethics still mean something.

If this legislation is ‘draconian’, maybe it should be changed again.

Bromley, M. S., 2017, ‘Investigative Journalism and Human Rights’, in: Tumber,
H. and Waisbord, S. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights. pp.
220-228, Routledge.

Carson, A., 2014, ‘The political economy of the print media and the decline of corporate investigative journalism in Australia’, Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 49, Iss. 4., Routledge.

Department of Communication and the Arts, n.d., Updating Australia's media laws, Commonwealth of Australia, accessed 18/09/19: https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/television/media/updating-australias-media-laws

Dobbie, M., 2019, The Public’s Right to Know, Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance, NSW, Australia.

Dobbie, M., 2018, Criminalising Journalism, Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance, NSW, Australia.

Ferguson, A., Khadem, N. & Robinson, L. 9 April 2018, Blowing the whistle on the tax office’s 'cash grab', Sydney Morning Herald, accessed 21 September 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-14/treasury-black-economy-crackdown-proposals/10702602

Fernandez, J., 2014, ‘Journalists’ confidential sources: Reform lessons from recent Australian shield law cases’, Pacific Journalism Review, AUT Pacific Media Centre, Auckland, New Zealand.

Fitzgerald, G.E., 1989, Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council: Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct, GoPrint, Brisbane, Australia.

Gearing, A., 2014, ‘Investigative journalism in a socially networked world’, Pacific Journalism Review, Vol. 20, Iss. 1, Sydney, Australia.

Johnson, N., 4 March 2019, 'The toughest story I've ever done': Inside Louise Milligan's investigation of George Pell, ABC Backstory, accessed 20 September 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/investigative-journalism/2019-03-04/how-louise-milligan-investigated-the-george-pell-case/10867884

McKenzie, N., 24 November 2014, Four Corners: In our care, ABC Four Corners, accessed 24 September 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/in-our-care/5916148

Oakes, D., Clark, S., 11 July 2019, The Afghan Files, ABC News, accessed 20 Septemner 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-11/killings-of-unarmed-afghans-by-australian-special-forces/8466642?pfmredir=sm

Pearson, M. 2013, The MEAA Code of Ethics: all spin and no stick, Journlaw, WordPress, accessed 13 September 2019: https://journlaw.com/?s=The+MEAA+Code+of+Ethics%3A+all+spin+and+no+stick

Pew Research Centre n.d., Human coding of news media, 2019 Pew Research Centre, accessed 18 September 2019: https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/about-content-analysis/human-coding-of-news-media/

Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, First Sitting, Commonwealth, accessed 24 September 2019: https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Simons, M., Tiffen, R., Hendrie, D., Carson, A., Sullivan, H., Muller D. & McNair, B., 2017, ‘Understanding the civic impact of journalism’, Journalism Studies, Vol. 18, Iss. 11, Routledge.

Socolow, M.J., 11 June 2019, Investigating the investigative reporters: Bad news from Down Under, The Conversation, accessed 21 September 2019: https://theconversation.com/investigating-the-investigative-reporters-bad-news-from-down-under-118425

Tanner, S.J., Pearson, M., Sykes, J. & Green, K. 2010, ‘Researching journalists and vulnerable sources: issues in the design and implementation of a national study’, Advances in Communication and Mass Media Research, Atiner, Athens, Greece.