Monday, December 23, 2013

Liberate your lumpiness

The absence of the Letters to the Editor section in the quarterly, The Walkley Magazine, makes it seem like my union may not want to know what my response is to their commentary pieces (op-eds). So after observing this over several consecutive quarters, I will write some feedback here. Who knows, they may even be so fabulously enthused by my considerations that they make space for a Letters section in the March edition...okay, maybe not...

At the moment the union is running a campaign about surveillance over-reach - a very worthy (and long overdue) cause. Interestingly, most news outlets' buildings feature CCTV prominently, both inside and outside of their workplaces, and it's pretty much everywhere their reporters report from. That has been the case for many years without these veritable bloodhound news presenters questioning where all that data goes/went. Previously, a non-issue, more appropriately relegated-to their minds, to the geek in the corner cubicle wearing the tin hat who writes the IT section. It seems now, geek is chic. Incidentally, eavesdropping from inside the news pack (unavoidable at times), I can tell you that very few of their conversations between takes are worth repeating (and presumably, not worth surveilling) - 'how does my hair look', 'where are we getting lunch', 'how long till we finish', 'I can't recall if I fed my pet rock today' (etc etc ad naus)...

(this image has featured everywhere, don't know who did the drawing, if you do, email me)

In this issue there are several, lengthy op-eds on the topic of surveillance over-reach from excellent writers, and interestingly evident were the politics of their positions within their own authoritarian institutions (that their media organizations represent). No disclosures about that or self-examination of the bits they left out. Masters has written a whole book about bits being left out, so that seems reasonable enough especially for an op-ed. However, leaving in the "lumpy bits" provides a safeguard from authoritarian hype or self-censorship that usurps the independence, and individual brilliance of a journalist.

My favourites in that mag are always the cartoonists, (btw I dearly miss The Daily Flute) and am in awe of these artists' ability to say so much, often wielding NO words at all.

Though I really enjoyed all of those comment pieces, I was flabbergasted at John Safran's Lumpy Thruthiness (The Walkley Magazine, Issue 78, p.9) - like he reached into my life and my computer and grabbed onto all the lumpy bits - plenty of them. It was a piece about his deviation into true-crime or non-fiction writing for his latest book. Safran admits an early career game changer after he felt an inner conflict when a producer dubbed into a doco on an abattoir, extra mooing noises to make it sound more dramatic. I'm sure it must have sent him spiralling into comedic rather than 'serious'journalism documentary production. His case study in this article is a journo who gets exposed for similar dubious editing practices, called Dais(e)y...hmmn... I'm sensing a theme...

In the process of researching and writing Murder in Mississippi, "I spent ages trying to omit these inconvenient bits and still make the story work..." (that's the lumpy truths he's talking about there).

In my genre of writing, nothing is cool - almost invariably human rights doesn't get mainstream commissions, and by and large it doesn't get commissioned in the said quarterly either - it's all lumpy truth. Anything that doesn't fit the stereotypical good guys-bad guys pop-media news formula, or slickly-spun, glossy and twaddle-ish authoritarian hype = lumpy truth. As a freelancer, I've been contending with my own industry-determined lumpiness for several years.

Safran mentions being stiffed over a statement by the (local) Attorney General - released (gifted more likely) to a local journo a couple days after he'd made his media enquiry to the office. If Safran had have been writing news (if he were a freelancer), this practice would have caused him to be "gazumped". This means that because someone beat him to the story he would have lost his (story) run, and it would have rendered the story virtually unsaleable to any other news outlets - a very nasty strategy that has in the past been aided and abetted by unethical (and perhaps unlawful) police/govt surveillance of journalists.

The surreptitious, usually unmentionable favourites game played by most Attorney Generals' flak catchers, which undermines independent reporting? It's just more lumpy truthiness. This is one of the pearls from the PR game bag of tricks levelled by govt spinners towards freelance journos very frequently in Australia.

This dirty flak tactic was actually exposed about a decade ago in these two pieces by Phil Dickie - whose indignant, angry and fiercely independent news reporting helped prompt and inform the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption in Qld. Lumpy truth in that one, for sure - other reporters were exposed before, during and after for complicity in covering up police and govt corruption. It had become a pervasive culture of self-censorship and probably flak fatigue. Fitzgerald, along with a few other govt corruption  inquiries since, recommended greater controls over govt spin doctors' activities and budgets.

Amid swelling redundancies in the MSM in Australia, a word of advice for any new-ish freelancers who find themselves in this situation and who haven't bumped up against these mercenary PR constraints before - don't be deterred, "lumpy truth" has its own organic appeal for readers who like the whole truth. Essentially, this is the reason that people are turning away from the old media institutions, and in doing so, democratizing news, by seeking out more independent media outlets.

The clip below is from Rashamon (1950), a movie that studies the multiplicity or subjectivity of truth. The whole movie is available on You Tube but the clip below is just a few minutes.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Copyright warning

This is a brief reminder that all of the work and ideas contained on this blog are subject to strict copyright.

They are the intellectual property of the writer of the blog and, as such, any re-publication of them requires the permission of the author, who is a freelance journalist. 

On one occasion, work was taken from here and republished in a MSM publication - a tabloid, no less, without my permission and that thief was paid for my hard work, which he shamelessly put his name to without any attribution. The perpetrator in question - related to a former police commissioner, then omitted balancing details to skew the copy in favour of corrupt and inept police. Such actions will not be tolerated to any extent.

The current state of the media industry in Australia also means that because there is no legal requirement for people to be qualified or registered to work as journalists, sometimes inexperienced or pressured media workers can subsequently make the mistake of appropriating work that belongs to others (particularly where is it published for free in the Blogosphere or on the Wiki) without realizing that their actions constitute stealing.

Please feel free to enjoy the work here - for free - but understand that if you wish to republish any words or copyrighted images you MUST ask for my permission. 

If you wish to quote or refer to a case study that I have examined, you must give appropriate attribution

I am aware of MSM journalists who avoid attribution, for a variety of reasons - you shouldn't feel tempted to do this with Daily Magnet material because I will name and shame you, repeatedly and relentlessly, AND, in contrast, I will quote your work and give your theft full attribution.

Please also be aware that if you are found to be using material that is my intellectual property without my express permission, swift legal action will be taken against you & your publisher or agency.


Kissy, kissy, Magnet.