Unbalanced and distorted media coverage doesn’t help sensitive matters of free speech and international conflict

Disruption by students of a presentation by retired British army Colonel Richard Kemp on Wednesday at the University of Sydney, has been followed by some extremely unbalanced and distorted media coverage. This coverage omits key events that happened during the affair and makes inaccurate claims about what actually did happen. This disappointing reportage has appeared on sites such as J-Wire (Riot at Sydney University,Protest at Sydney University – the video and Sydney University: Violent protest under investigation) and the Australian Jewish News (Anti-Israel protesters run riot at Sydney uni). As someone who was present at the lecture and witnessed the affair, this reporting comes across as unhelpful and sheds far more heat than light on the sensitive issues around this event. I should also be clear as I write this, in the interests of full disclosure, that I witnessed events as a member of the audience and that I did not take part in nor support the students' protest.

Col. Kemp, while taking a break from an Australian fundraising tour for the United Israel Appeal, was set to give a public presentation titled Ethical Dilemmas of Military Tactics in Relation to Recent Conflicts in the ME: Dealing with non-stated armed groups.

The advertisement of Kemp's lecture posted on J-Wire quotes Kemp as declaring: “during Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in the combat zones than any other army in the history of warfare” and noted that Kemp is “an outspoken supporter of Israeli conduct in its armed conflict with Hamas.”

Indeed during this lecture he remarked that “I was in Israel during the 2014 summer conflict and I do believe that the IDF in their attack on Hamas in Gaza… were doing everything they could to protect civilians”.

Israel’s most recent offensive on Gaza in July and August last year according to the UN  claimed the lives of over 1400 Palestinian civilians, including 521 children. One foreign national and five Israeli civilians also lost their lives in the conflict.

Several minutes into his presentation, a group of around a dozen students entered the room, chanting “Richard Kemp, you can’t hide, you support genocide”. The students then proceeded to address the audience on their concerns about the lack of free speech at the University of Sydney and their criticism of Kemp’s support for the Israeli military's practice in using military force against Palestinian civilians.

After a few minutes of chanting and heated arguments between the students and some audience members in the lecture theatre, University security staff proceeded to forcibly remove the students from the lecture theatre. Col. Kemp’s presentation resumed after this.

Understandably this is a sensitive and emotive topic. Thus is falls on respectable media to be even more scrupulous than usual in presenting an accurate and balanced picture of events. Unfortunately the hasty reportage by J-Wire and the Australian Jewish News of the affair has not lived up to these important journalistic standards.

Articles by the Australian Jewish News and J-Wire somehow fail to mention that at the event on Wednesday one of Col. Kemp’s supporters physically assaulted two Sydney University staff members in the audience. The same individual also attempted to damage and seize the property of these two Sydney University staff members. This violence is of course a serious issue and these events were reported to NSW Police who arrived on the scene.

This serious omission is linked to a second serious problem in their reporting of this event. A photo has emerged, apparently taken during the Kemp lecture, posted by the Australian Jewish News whose caption claims that: “A shocking photo has emerged of Professor Jake Lynch holding money to the face of a Jewish student during yesterday's anti-Israel protest at Sydney University.”

Unfortunately the Australian Jewish News did not wait to hear and publish Prof. Lynch's account of what happened before publishing this claim. I have personally spoken to Lynch regarding this photo, and the Australian Jewish News' claim sharply contradicts Lynch's account. Lynch states: “There was, by this time, a great deal of anger in the room and a great many people standing up and moving around. One of them was a lady with dyed orange-red hair, probably in her 50s, who started to behave more and more violently. She threw water over people’s heads, used some pretty industrial language. I was recording some of the events on my iPhone and she seemed to take exception to this, kicking out and catching me (twice) in the groin”.

Lynch also confirmed that “she also attacked” another member of the audience who is also a colleague of his. (Note: I have omitted mention of this other person's name who was also the object of assault as I am unsure as to whether it is appropriate to publish their personal details online at this time).

Lynch continues: “In vain did I (a) tell her to stop and (b) try to get the security guards to intervene. Eventually I had the idea of showing her the banknotes I was carrying in my pocket to emphasise the point I then made to her, that she would leave me with no choice but to take out a private prosecution for assault, and that this could cost her a lot of money.”

The Australian and the Daily Telegraph has published similar accounts of Prof. Lynch's statement. Even Prof. Lynch's emotional critics on Facebook who have claimed to have also spoken to Lynch about the photo report a similar account from Lynch and admitted that after the photo in question was published that no hard evidence had emerged contradicting Lynch's account.