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What happened to journalistic integrity?

By Baz Bardosen - posted Thursday, 15 August 2002


This concerns The Age newspaper, and in particular its coverage of the asylum seeker issue.

As a media analyst by trade I have spent the last 3 months or so looking at how The Age handles this issue, and as a result have become concerned that little things like the truth and facts, seem to be largely brushed aside in the stampede for the moral high ground.

As Noam Chomsky points out, it is often what is omitted that helps ‘manufacture consent’, along with the judicious placement of visual images, the invocation of peer-group pressure, and the reduction of complex issues to emotive catchcries.

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The Age has a voluntary code of conduct which states:

"Staff should seek to act always in the best interests of the public … rather than for the benefit of sectional interests."

Also, "staff should seek to present only fair, balanced and accurate material."

And, "photographs should be a true representation of events."

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance code of ethics for journalists states that a journalist should "report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis." It goes on to state that personal interest or belief should not stand in the way of "accuracy, fairness or independence". By these standards The Age falls short on this issue.

First, about 90 per cent of asylum seekers are young males. When The Age writes about this topic, published photographs in almost all cases depict children, or family groups, but certainly not groups of young males. A child or family group will traditionally elicit a different emotional response in Western culture. The Age is also miserly with the full range of available facts. According to government figures for example, more than 95 per cent of people who illegally enter Australia and seek asylum are allowed to stay after a processing period under a year. This is despite quite some evidence that nearly all are making secondary movements to arrive here and face no danger by staying in Indonesia. In fact many have been living and working there for some time. All are free to return whenever they want. Although no one likes to be detained, it’s hard to see the huge humanitarian disaster. Other media ran the story that Pakistanis were posing as Afghans, and even being trained at special camps to dupe Australian authorities. Members of the local Afghan community also spoke out in favour of mandatory detention on the basis that Pakistanis had been behind the Taliban, and they had every reason to be fearful if they were released into the wider community. In fact, some suggested even more stringent detention and screening processes. The Age gave this only cursory mention. It’s hard to imagine that ignoring these details is in the "best interests of the public".

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In an interview on Lateline (21/05/01) Mark Aarons, the author of War criminals, welcome said: "there’s no doubt at all over the last 10-12 years, a significant number, dozens probably well over 100, senior Afghan war criminals have emigrated to Australia …" They include, "…. a senior official in the KGB-controlled security police, the HUD, notorious for the rounding up and slaughter of not only military ... but also of innocent civilians in the most brutal ways …"

Can The Age newspaper categorically assure the general public that no one who is currently detained, or has arrived here illegally, is a war criminal, a terrorist, a common criminal, or carrying a serious infectious disease? If they can then we must abolish mandatory detention straight away. If not we have to accommodate the fact that if people arrive with no identification, and they may have good reasons for doing so, it will take some time to establish that they pose no threat either to the wider Australian community or to smaller ethnic groups that have come here to flee persecution. This surely is what we mean by the "best interests of the public".

The issue of humane treatment recurs in The Age. Descriptions of conditions in detention include having access to Foxtel, air conditioning, regular meals, places of worship, medical attention and so forth. Annoying and boring perhaps but not inhumane. Whether or not detention should be overseen by private companies is an issue that needs to be addressed separately, and certainly a strong code of conduct needs to be in place. However it cheapens our sense of the word if it is used to describe frustration at the glacial pace of bureaucracy. People who have come from a war zone would be expected to find this an improvement.

The UNHCR states that a refugee is someone who has every reason to fear for their lives if they are returned to their place of origin. The Vietnamese who arrived here as ‘boat people’ fit that criteria in most instances, since those who were on the Allied side in the conflict faced torture or death. As former allies we also had an extra obligation. The Age is incorrect to liken that situation to the current one. People seeking asylum from the Middle East have usually been living in Indonesia for a period of time, often working, and under no immediate threat. In fact, according to the ABC’s Four Corners, our government actually helps cover their costs. They have access to UNHCR processing, which many avoid. They are also in a culture compatible with their religion. In order to arrive here illegally by boat they also must have a reasonable degree of buying power, something the Vietnamese certainly didn’t have. By UNHCR standards most are ‘economic’ refugees. The UNHCR actually criticized Canada for accepting too many "economic" asylum seekers on the basis that it undermined the system, encouraging people to claim ‘refugee’ status where it wasn’t valid and take up resources needed for the placement of people facing immediate threat.

The Age has taken to the use of the word ‘demonise’ with some relish reminding me of how it seemed like the entire nation’s journalistic community decided overnight to describe the hapless Dr Hewson as "embattled", and right on cue he became just that, followed by "deposed".

According to The Age the Prime Minister "demonises" illegal arrivals and Muslims. Was this the same Prime Minister who visited a mosque after September 11, and explicitly stated that a reaction against Muslims would not be tolerated? Both he and the Immigration Minister have stated, and continue to re-state, that Australia’s immigration policy will not be racially motivated. Contrary to the impression often given by The Age, the current government continues to honour obligations towards refugees, and accepts the vast majority of people who arrive illegally, even where their status as actual refugees is blurry. People are only deported where a strong case is established against their claim, or when they are due to face some form of criminal justice or so forth. And this is a tiny percentage of cases. In the absence of any real evidence that the Prime Minister is a sinister white supremacist it seems it is enough to imply it. Never mind that it is also possible to conclude from the available evidence that he may have the "best interests of the public" in mind, including those who have come here to flee oppression.

In The Hindu, India’s national newspaper, (May 19, 2001) a story appeared about Pakistani asylum seekers posing as Afghans. The UK government sought to deport some 6000 of them on the basis that they were ‘economic’ asylum seekers and according to the UN faced no threat by returning home. Unless The Age has new information, we also have every right to return those who seek unfair benefit from the refugee program. In fact the UN prioritises those who face immediate danger. An argument could be mounted that by accepting people who don’t qualify, we stand to jeopardize humanitarian efforts.

The Age needs to clarify if Robert Manne is a staff member. For a commentator he receives an amount of print space seemingly beyond many regular staff. His pieces invariably occupy the largest section of the commentary page, taking up the dominant top left portion. An illustration accompanies, usually spelling out his carping, whining viewpoint in laborious detail. Both the positioning and the illustration ensure that his point of view receives priority. No one in print media is ignorant of the value of positioning or illustrations accompanying print.

Equally The Age seems happy enough to allow the history of mandatory detention to slip by, perhaps enticing the uneducated reader to form the view that it is a personal project of Philip Ruddock. It was of course a Labor Party innovation, so if it is such an awful thing, perhaps they should be held responsible in some part. Certainly when it was first introduced we didn’t see the journalistic or entertainment communities showing the moral indignation they now show.

The Age may argue that opposing viewpoints are given an airing, but on one occasion at least this involved running a well-reasoned piece from the Immigration Minister down the bottom, underneath a much larger and illustrated piece from the ever-present Robert Manne, which surprisingly enough was economical with fact and laced with vilification of all things Liberal. I would also have thought that the enormous coverage given to organizations such as the Refugee Action Collective, a front for unions with an explicit political agenda, surely constitutes ‘sectional interests’? Or is there a typo in the code? Maybe it should be ‘right-wing sectional interests’, because left-wing ones are clearly fine. In fact the more the merrier. Let’s add ‘Australians Against Racism’ and prominent entertainers who are of course members of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance! They can have all the coverage they want!

The Age seems to be content to be rather flexible with the interpretation of its own code of conduct, and somewhat less flexible when it comes to presenting an even-handed reporting of the facts. The question is, why bother even having a code if it is not scrupulously adhered to? Why not just be upfront and say "Howard has to go and we’re only going to print the news that suits that agenda, even if it negatively impacts upon the wider community or the smaller ethnic groups we claim to care about"? When you start trying to determine what people should think you run the risk of polarizing those who have an enquiring nature and wish to make up their own minds on issues, based upon a fair representation of all of the facts. As a regular Age reader I look forward to an improvement in this area.

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*** SHORT BIO HERE - HUGHIE'S MISSING

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