Sunday, April 07, 2013

Making Oz news fairer

It's been 22 years since the culmination of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody into 339 recommendations, few of which, have received any greater attention than how to stifle reform and pay lip service to them. The mainstream populist media play a big role in normalizing  problems that warrant urgent reform, by publishing the views of authorities more prominently than those of individuals involved in rights violations and human rights-related issues.

The Royal Commission improved public awareness of human rights, prisoner abuse and Aboriginal disadvantage beyond merely those tragic cases that were examined, it created a societal expectation on the government that it must lift standards, and a knowledge that sub-standard conditions caused death and suffering, and it established a shared belief that such human rights violations were unacceptable to the voting public. 

The widespread, insidious racism that is passed off with the innocuous term, 'systemic racism', which erodes the basic human rights and quality of life of Indigenous people, is not attributable to one particular government - don't be conned by political spin. Successive governments (of both major parties) have perpetrated, via a racist malaise, human rights abuses against the vulnerable. Disadvantaged sections of society are under-represented in positions of power - most particularly in Parliament and it is this disparity that causes them to be the convenient, collateral damage of the policies and the pop-media-reactive laws from every government that passes through our Parliament.

Notably, this occurs, seemingly, all without word of complaint(in the public eye) from disadvantaged parties, their voices are rarely heard in MSM news, because outlets are not interested in equitably representing the concerns of minorities when the interests of the powerful pay better - this co-exists with an industry that is in flux, amid changing markets and widespread redundancies.

How can the MSM undo decades of complacency over racist government spin that was run as copy by under-staffed newsrooms?

In no place is the lack of balanced media scrutiny more apparent than in the discourse about prisons and prisoners - and we can see political leaders from both Federal and State government breaking the laws of the land to attempt to prejudice courts, where a court-related story has become a political football.

In large "exclusives" about Aboriginal issues, individual Aboriginal citizens who are involved in the issue, and Aboriginal stakeholders, are often not interviewed at all.

We are a country that almost without exception has non-Aboriginal Aboriginal affairs ministers presiding over Aboriginal people and controlling their interactions with society and with the political process like they're wearing AO Neville's hat; disability ministers who have no disability; and, ministers in justice-related portfolios who have never experienced injustice or disadvantage and have little concept of equality or fairness.

This problem is exacerbated by the unique nature of Australia's media, wholeheartedly lacking in diversity, largely tabloid-driven and overly focused on infotainment. The end result of this is that the perverse or trivial stories that are published, regularly feature more prominently than important news, and subsequently, also serve as a handy tool for dumbing down readerships and keeping them compliant to the whims of the powerful. 

A great story that seeks to fulfil the Fourth Estate and demonstrates strong ethics, will often be undermined by a sub-editor, either inadvertently or ignorantly, adding a racist title or photos to accompany the copy; or a contrary, inflammatory beat-up will be placed right next to it.

Contemporary MSM journos can suffer from cubicle syndrome and can be isolated from unofficial sources. Older police rounds reporters will outline their experiences of having to work hard on their beat, building a strong rapport with all sources. The best, are still identifiable by their thorough and timeless copy, having unearthed fresh leads by handling all sources equally rather than sitting back getting gifted with heavily spun leaks from police sources that result in inflammatory and baseless fictions.

In the last year alone, the incarceration rate for WA's Indigenous male prisoners has hiked up to almost 45% from 42% and this is unusual in any justice system in the world.
Effective journalism has the power to create desperately needed social reform by re-directing that political pressure - the power of the media can be used for good purpose but harnessing that power via strong ethics, decency, compassion and fairness in a mining-driven economy that produces a third of the nation's GDP, is...how likely? 

There can be substantial barriers to good local journos prompting that growth in our society, and following in the tradition of the Fourth Estate (traditional media values are much stronger in other countries). There is also the danger that in some unhealthy workplaces, the earnest efforts of good journos can be stifled and their reputations marred by a dysfunctional editorial culture. ###

For non-journos, here is a simple explanation of the term "the Fourth Estate," which gets bandied around a lot - especially at the moment with the discussion about media regulation - the link talks about ethics and motives in newswriting.