Sunday, January 18, 2015

Race in media content - not all media workers are journalists

Hi there – so, on the 20th of June I made a complaint about the composition of the Letters to the Editor section in The Australian. You can judge for yourself:

(Hard to read due to size? Look in the pages sidebar)

Members of the Australian Journalists Association are compelled by a Code of Ethics to present news content in a way that is balanced and not biased.  I think that is a good way to operate, and, that principle should be applied to all newspaper content. Letters to the Editor should present a balanced selection of views, so it doesn't present any newspaper content with a racial or religious bias. To me, that seems like a fair way to treat equal members of a diverse society and indeed, your diverse readership. 

There is a myriad of poor results that stem from biased media material, which could potentially inflame community tensions. It spreads false beliefs, racist myths & misapprehensions, it misinforms the public & emphasizes a particular way of thinking that does not represent the general consensus. 

From the early 1900s people studied the practise of the use of newsmedia for social control and reform. Not long after, that aspect of the world's newsmedia was wielded by powerful interests against minorities and their interests. The Fourth Estate ethos (that is the standard of the Australian mainstream news reporting) refers to 'public interest' - without racial/religious distinctions, however.

The person compiling the Letters to the Editor section, and, in fact, no journalists whatsoever, at any Australian publication, are compelled to be an AJA member. They don’t have to be registered, compliant with a Code of Ethics, nor do they have to even be qualified journalists. Cartoonists, opinion columnists, typesetters, graphics and layout people - even the delivery van driver - you guessed it - none of them have to be AJA members - so they're not compelled to write balanced, unbiased material. 

In the wake of the horrific and animalistic murders of anti-Muslim cartoonists in France, there was quite a bit of confusion in the world's social media last fortnight about the role of opinion columnists, satirists and artists working in the media. The confusion was that some people thought (and others exploited that ignorance) the idea that ALL media workers are journalists – and this is utterly not the case. The media is comprised of large numbers of employees from vastly different fields of expertise.

Another of the problems at the moment, is the evolution of newspapers. There is some pressure to diversify and there is an overly heavy emphasis on opinion in the hope that it might make content more relevant, cheaper and more popular. It can be hard for the readers to distinguish between real news written by real, registered, qualified journalists (actual ones) and just some sundry someone’s twaddle. {One particular TV station has made a niche out of interviewing journalists about topics that aren’t journalism, or, writing-related. So, to that way-too-highly-paid current affairs producer: be brave – leave the studio – find real experts to interview – don’t do all your interviews onsite and leave early for lunch. By the way, that producer also fashioned a new unique style of reporting on terrorism that’s akin to race calling – bad trend}.

I digress.

After receiving the APC’s response (appended, with identifying details removed) I have studied the content of every Thursday’s newspaper over June and July.  While ‘world news’ reporting is clearly best left to overseas correspondents, The Australian’s main competitors as a daily, and, as a national newspaper, did not present the same race/religious-related ethical problems. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by areas such as the ‘world news’, the world-related news, and the Letters to the Editor in both The West Australian and by The Australian Financial Review. It is strange to me that The Australian doesn't pull enough letters to the editor to present a balanced range of views. Maybe you guys could throw in a competition or something.

In the response that I received (also appended below), you can see that The Australian’s response to the Australian Press Council was that the Letters to the Editor editor felt that this selection of letters under the Talking Point presented a balanced representation of all of the readers’ responses received by him. 

The APC’s response to that claim is, as you can see below, ‘okay’. How's that for gutsy, independent scrutiny? Woo-hoo!! Go self-regulation!!! (not)

They misconstrued the complaint that I made, and they didn’t refer back to me for clarification during this process – though they did liaise with the management at The Australian. In fact, I believed that the APC had merely binned my complaint as there was no acknowledgment that they received it at all. Until... I got this response: 

‘these are not the droids you’re looking for…’ i.e. 

‘nothing to see move along, madam’:



Because it’s so itty bitty I have made a page for you to read it, in bigger print :}}

The Australian Press Council is an adjudicating panel largely funded by its members, who are comprised of the major media outlets in Australia. (The West Australian doesn’t happen to be a member as they’ve created their own internal adjudication system. Whilst it was a member, a previous and very right-wing editor – clocked up a number of negative findings – mostly race-related.) The only penalties that the APC can hand out are fairly minor fines. Beyond actions against media workers for defamation, contempt of court, racial vilification, and, a variety of provisions restricting media access to documents and certain sources, that is pretty much the limit of Australia’s system of media regulation.

The Australian is roughly English-tabloid-styled, that is, it isn’t what you would consider an esteemed journal. The content where race & religion are concerned routinely leans towards sensationalism and often, social exclusion. However, that isn’t to say that the journalists (the real ones) who work there aren’t good (in fact there are regularly stories and features that are really excellent), but there is a lot of stuff in The Australian that you wouldn’t want to count on. The op-eds stink –  they are regularly, really odious. (And what on Earth is with The Australian's in-your-face witch hunt against Australian investigative journalism icon, Wendy Bacon?! Not a good look).

In the weeks after my complaint (though I’m sure there were probably heaps of complaints about that issue) the Letters to the Editor swung the other way. Letters featured a range of problematic letter-writers that extolled anti-semitism, anti-refugees sentiment, anti-left wing politics, and general racial and even gender-related bias. BUT, in all those issues, it was not as unbalanced as it had been on June 19th. I am going to look at that content in more detail over the next fortnight. 

There is an Australian 2014 civil litigation case that looks at the re-production of racially-biased material. That Aboriginal plaintiff won the first of two cases against 2 major media outlets, and it has created a precedent whereby republishing the racially or religiously biased content of any party (perhaps even letters), can be subject to litigation. It's a huge precedent that has created a whole new legal ball game for equality in all media content - and not just news, I suspect. I'll try to get hold of that finding for us all to have a read of it.

In regards to #CharlieHebdo:
May those parties who suffered and died, rest in peace. It is not the reasoning of a well individual, that creates the (false) belief that God needs them to kill for Him. 
In the legal/ethical instance of those cartoonists'/artists' (media workers but not journalists) content, there had been repeated attempts to address racially contentious cartoons, previously. It was a huge tragedy that is going to require an extreme amount of honesty and diligent debate. I was shocked & disgusted that the head of the AHRC used these murders as an opportunity to excuse & endorse the ultra right-wing 2014 attempts to scrap Australian society's protections against race-hate.