Manne bites Australian

Not that it should be a surprise to anyone but Australia’s national daily newspaper The Australian has been wasting scarce journalist resources on a vendetta again. The latest victim is one of the country’s leading media writers Margaret Simons whose 2007 book The Content Makers remains the definitive account of the geography of Australian media (though someone needs to update it for the last five years). In recent weeks, The Aus has unleashed its attack dogs over claims Simons has somehow caused a breach of practice by her actions in the recent Finkelstein Review into media which in turn was inspired by the serious criminal behaviour of one of The Australian's sister publications in the UK.  There are many ways in which this attack on Simons is risible and they are all brilliantly exposed in Robert Manne’s new Monthly essay.

The point Manne is making about the tactics of the newspaper is twofold. Firstly, it doesn’t matter if your allegations are true or false you just have to make enough of them and some of the mud will stick. Secondly, it is another shot across the bows of anyone who dares be critical of the newspaper with treatment similar to Julie Posetti and Larissa Behrend which will be dragged out time and time again whenever a punchbag is needed.

The newspaper fulfils a crucial function in our democracy as one of the few media outlets with a truly national outlook. But it would appear the power conferred by being one of the central squares of Australia's public sphere has gone to the broadsheet’s head. In its constant efforts to defend itself against critics, it has warped in on itself and forgotten what it is there for: to give Australians enough information to give them a useful perspective on the important news of the day.

The biggest problem with the Australian is that appears not to want to learn from its mistakes. It never admits it is wrong. Under Chris Mitchell in particular (editor in chief since 2003) it has been front and centre in a culture war.  The newspaper and its Saturday companion have built up an armada of columnists which can recite the party line in their sleep who regularly trot out the house rules. 

There are still enough good writers at the paper to provide the news function. They cover politics, business, law and international affairs in some detail (with the help of good Murdoch sister papers such as the Wall St Journal and The Times). But their editorial and opinion pages have become barren wastelands of News groupthink where writers like Greg Sheridan, Chris Kenny, Dennis Shanahan and Christopher Pearson flourish. Even when turning to unorthodox opinion it favours those who unorthodoxy is mostly directed against the left and the greens (Brendan O’Neill, Frank Furedi, Bjorn Lomborg) .

As Manne said (and as I can corroborate from discussions with News journalists) there are many within the organisation that are appalled by the blatant and biased political tone set by the editor and his inner team. Manne reckons they should speak up which would be a better way of dealing with the issue than any outside body Finkelstein could recommend. Indeed there is a precedent when journalists at the Australian went on strike in 1975 in protest as Murdoch’s open support of Malcolm Fraser in the lead up to the election.

But it is unlikely any uprising will come from within. News is one of the last 20^th century media empires and most workers there fear for their future. It is not making a graceful transition to the digital age though it remains an extraordinarily wealthy company and very powerful in the local market. The Australian, often described as a Murdoch vanity project, is not driving any of this wealth. But it remains very influential with its high demographic readership and its access to power. Politicians of both major parties are wary of criticising it though the Greens have dubbed it hate media.

This is unsurprising as much of Mitchell’s vitriol is reserved for the party which his paper has openly called to be destroyed at the ballot box. Why it even feels it has a right to make such a recommendation is a revealing aspect of its DNA. “We know best,” it screams, and we will punish anyone who has the temerity to think otherwise. No wonder it cannot deal with the sharing tools of 21^st century social media when its views are steeped in 20^th century paternalism. It prefers intimidation to trust as a way of maintaining its authority. But The Australian is on borrowed time and not just because Murdoch will sooner or later die. Its thrashed brand is a tragedy as much of Chris Mitchell’s making as Rupert's and one which must not be repeated by whatever colonises its habitat when it is gone.

The Australian rages against the changing tide

“Little men tapping things out - points of view
Remember their views are not the gospel truth” The Jam

The insufferable arrogance of the Murdoch press in Australia knows no bounds. While News International reels from one disaster to another, with government inquiries subpoenaing both Murdochs, Rebekah Brooks hung out to dry and Andy Coulson facing criminal proceedings, the local organisation acts as if they are the ones wronged. A siege mentality has descended upon News Ltd as the certainties of its untrammelled power begin to crumble. Politicians throughout the world are finally using Murdoch’s difficulty as their opportunity to develop a backbone. Yesterday The Australian lashed out against The Age for its own dodgy behaviour in accessing ALP records, though The Age has a legitimate defence of public interest, so conspicuously lacking in the numerous Murdoch hacking cases. The passive voice of “Age accused of hacking hypocrisy” hides the fact it is News Ltd who are making the accusations.

Also in yesterday’s Australian, the news that Prime Minister Julia Gillard was thinking of launching her own media inquiry was treated with the fatuous headline “this is no time for the PM to bow to Brown”. The paper’s consistently-biased political reporter Dennis Shanahan called the inquiry an “incendiary into an already febrile political debate” and a “distraction”. The report also fed into the long-running campaign the newspaper has waged against the Greens with increasingly deranged editor Chris Mitchell openly calling for the party to be obliterated at the polls: “We believe [Senator Bob Brown] and his Green colleagues are hypocrites; that they are bad for the nation; and that they should be destroyed at the ballot box.”

The Australian follows the party line laid down by News Ltd CEO John Hartigan. For Hartigan, the News of the World hacking affair was a classic case of rotten applies, an isolated affair in one small infected branch of the company. It was, said Hartigan, “an affront to all of us who value the integrity and credibility of good journalism, the reputation of the company and our own reputations as professionals.” Perhaps Hartigan did not see the joke in his words or perhaps he did. The credibility and reputation of News Ltd in Australia was poor well before the hacking scandal. Its metro tabloids are on the nose and suffering declining circulation. Like them, its flagship broadsheet is a walking advertisement for the Liberal Party and despite its own hypocritical bleating pushes a dangerous climate change scepticism that inhibits government leadership, delays effective policy action, and allows clowns like Tony Abbott a free run in which to destroy the long-term future of this nation.

Yes, there are good journalists aplenty at the Oz and when it gets its hands out of Abbott’s pockets it is capable of good and sometimes great journalism. But as George Monbiot points out, the purpose of The Australian and all of Murdoch’s 300 or so publications across the globe is to “ventriloquise the concern of multi-millionaires”. Monbiot says corporate media is a gigantic astroturfing operation: “a fake grassroots crusade serving elite interests”. This is true everywhere to some extent but it is the Murdoch empire which has it encoded into institutional memory.

Nevertheless I don’t agree with Monbiot a Hippocratic oath is needed. Journalists and their editors need to follow their existing code of ethics and stand up to internal pressures. The biggest threat to the media industry worldwide is not declining circulations but spineless leaders in the industry who are responsible for a deepening lack of trust and a cancerous cynicism in the audience. It is time for that cancer to be cut out. It is also time to move on from Murdoch's reign of terror. Bring on Gillard’s inquiry.

Whose Australian?

Finding articles to criticise in The Australian is like shooting fish in a barrel, all too easy. It is also usually eminently resistible, like the paper itself. While the so-called national broadsheet and its weekend equivalent continue to outdo each other in paroxysms of confected right-wing rage, they are usually best ignored. However occasionally the paper publishes a particular egregious piece that so obviously serves no purpose other than the publisher’s own ends, it needs to be called out for the hyperbolic sham it is. Such an article appeared in the Weekend Australian this Saturday called “whose ABC?” penned by journalist and former Alexander Downer media adviser Chris Kenny.

The long piece appeared in the Inquirer section giving it a veneer of investigative journalism it did not deserve. This was 2,700 words of News Ltd propaganda, with complaints from a few politically motivated but unnamed sources and only one source on the record, former ABC board member Ron Brunton who despite being ideologically motivated as a member of the IPA, was only identified as an “anthropologist”. The self-serving article had a companion piece, an even more pious anti-ABC editorial that drove home the message from Kenny’s talking points.

The articles take as their starting point a piece in the Guardian (coyly described as a “progressive newspaper" by Kenny and “a left-of-centre newspaper” according to the openly more hostile editor) about ABC boss Mark Scott and his well-documented stoushes with News Ltd. The enraged Australian was anxious to do a gotcha on Scott, particularly on his use of the phrase “market failure broadcasting” which Kenny said was code for a political and cultural counterpoint to the commercial media.

Kenny achieves his aims with a remarkable leap of logic. Rather than go through the tiresome process of proving his points, he asks the readers “to assume, just for argument’s sake” the ABC critics are right. This assumption allows him to airily dismiss flaws in his argument and immediately swing into action rectifying the “problem”. Without a shred of evidence, Kenny suggests the organisation is unaccountable and then gets to the nut of his complaint, the ABC “caters for an inner-city progressive elite”. Apart from the breathtaking arrogance of ignoring how many people in the bush enjoy the ABC, it also brings in the familiar right-wing weasel words “inner-city” and “elite” which are conflated to mean “other” (never mind that it insults the paper's own demographics) in opposition to equally imprecise but culturally loaded phrases like "battlers". According to the editorial, the ABC had the temerity to turn to Qatari Al Jazeera for its Osama news instead of the less well-informed but racially more acceptable BBC or CNN. What this proves is Auntie has been the victim of "a left-wing coup" where a “coterie of like-minded inner-city” staff members “commandeered” the airwaves to broadcast to “the vocal minority that share their prejudices”.

Both editor and Kenny were keen to share their prejudices too. Kenny's ones are dated and rehashed from the culture wars of the John Howard era. There is a tired argument about Counterpoint, a program seven years old, and a tedious diatribe about David Hicks, who has not been a newsworthy citizen for over four years. He also reheats the coals of the long-forgotten Brissenden/Costello affair (which also embroiled two non-ABC journalists) from 2007 and has a moan about The Drum, the ABC’s public opinion site.

Kenny’s and the editor’s central argument is their fury over market failure broadcasting: that of “taxpayer’s funding” serving a “small audience”. The ABC audience remains a lot larger than the Australian's audience but more to the point it has always been a market failure broadcaster. Scott denied making the politically sensitive market failure statement and the actual words in the Guardian was that Scott “thinks of the ABC modestly as a ‘market failure broadcaster’”. The use of “thinks” rather than “said” suggests the Guardian is paraphrasing rather than quoting but Scott need not back away from it.

From the start of radio in the 1920s, there was a strong tradition of public ownership of broadcasting medium (except in the US where market failures are anathema) both as an information service in the service of democratic debate and decision making and also as a counterpoint to the partisan and usually right-wing press. The ABC was founded in 1932 along these lines but it also had a cultural aim inherited from the BBC. As its boss in 1934 WJ Cleary put it, the ABC’s task was to promote “the finer things in life” in order to teach people to “find interests other than material ones to live by more than bread alone”.

This paternal Reithian philosophy was conservative and hypocritical at the time - the BBC refused to cover the 1926 General Strike - and it still exists in some parts of the ABC but today’s market failure broadcasting is not about bringing ballet to the hoi-polloi. It is about defending the public’s supposed right to have free access to news in digital platforms, and this is where the ABC steps on News Ltd’s commercial toes. Whether ABC should have that right is an economic argument well worth having, though the Australian studiously avoids it in its sanctimonious stance. Perhaps they don’t want anyone looking too closely at their own market failures. One could argue given several full page ads from Telstra in the same edition, your telco bills are subsiding the Australian's own small, elitist audience.

Media miss the news in first Aussie Wikileak

Oblivious to the fact that one of the dreaded new media was providing the scoop, the Australian newspaper reported on its front page today the first Wikileaks document to mention Australian officials was “Rudd’s plan to contain Beijing”. It’s hardly surprising The Australian would go data-mining for the thing that would most embarrass the Federal Government. But it’s hardly surprising too they got it wrong.

In the haste to follow a narrow political agenda, the Oz skipped over far more substantive elements to the story. Not only that, they also misquoted Rudd. The first line of Paul Maley’s front page story said Rudd had warned the world "must be prepared to deploy force” if China didn’t co-operate with the international community.

Compare this to what the cable actually said:
Rudd argued for “multilateral engagement with bilateral vigour” - integrating China effectively into the international community and allowing it to demonstrate greater responsibility, all while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong.

Suggesting the world has a Plan Z for China that involves force is a long way from advocating it and certainly doesn't make it “Rudd’s plan”. It wasn’t just The Australian that took this slanted approach. The ABC took a similar tack with the material saying it was Rudd's "suggestion that the US use force against China in a worst case scenario”.

It was nothing of the sort and a poor way of using what was remarkable information put out in the public domain. The ABC added insult to injury by turning it into a petty domestic squabble by harvesting a meaningless quote from Julie Bishop about “disturbing reading”. Don't read it Julie, if it disturbs you.

Beyond this dross, the reportage ignores some major issues discussed when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Australian PM Kevin Rudd in Washington on 24 March 2009. Private Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and his army of Wikileaks helpers deserve praise for putting the material in the public domain nine years ahead of schedule. The cable about the meeting 09STATE30049 was marked “confidential” which is a mid-level security due to be released into the public domain in 2019.

The meeting talked about problems in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia, China was the biggest topic. Some of it was just polite platitudes with Rudd buttering up a valued friend but most of it was extremely useful and informative sharing of intel among allies.

Rudd told the Americans one possibility was the little-known philosophy of Kang Youwei which he said provided China’s idea of a harmonious world and could potentially fit in well with the West’s concept of responsible stakeholders. He also said Hu Jintao did not have the same level of power as former leader Jiang Zemin.
“No one person dominated Chinese leadership currently, although Hu’s likely replacement, Xi Jinping, had family ties to the military and might be able to rise above his colleagues,” Rudd told Clinton.

He also noticed an important distinction between China’s attitude to Taiwan and Tibet. With the former it was purely “sub-rational and deeply emotional” (because China has no intention of disturbing the status quo on Taiwan) while the more concrete hardline policies against the latter were designed not only to show who was boss in Llasa but to send a message to other minorities within mainland China.

Rudd also told Clinton the Standing Committee of the Politburo was the real decision-making body in China which then passed decisions to the State Council for implementation. He saw the new Asia Pacific Community initiative as a bulwark against any Chinese plans to issue an Asian Monroe Doctrine, but understood American reluctance to get involved in another international initiative. Rudd did say the 2009 Australian Defence White Paper was a response to Chinese power, something most people assumed but he could never admit publicly at the time.

In return for this information, Rudd wanted Washington’s intelligence on Russia so he could prepare for an upcoming meeting in Moscow. Conversation centred on the power struggle between Medvedev and Putin with both sides agreeing the President’s desire for “status and respect” could drive him closer to western thinking. But it was an outside chance.

On the AfPak situation, both parties agreed there was no point in “total success” in Afghanistan if Pakistan fell apart. Pakistan needed to drop its obsessive focus on India and attend to its western border problems.

What comes across in the cables I have read is not so much the “brutality and venality of US foreign policy” as its growing impotence. This is the reason the US is after Assange. It is the embarrassment he has caused them rather than the exposing of any international secrets that angers them so much.

The one phrase that sums up the problem was uttered by Hillary Clinton to Rudd in relation to China: “how do you deal toughly with your banker?” A damn good question and given China is our banker too, one Australian media should be asking. “Rudd’s embarrassment” has nothing on our media’s for missing the real news.

And there it rests: Lessons from Twitdef

On Tuesday, News Limited attempted to draw a line under its latest battle with new media which went under the tag of #twitdef. In a terse and tired sounding article by media writer Caroline Overington, The Australian admitted Canberra journalism academic Julie Posseti probably didn't commit a crime when she live-tweeted the words of a speaker at a conference. The broadsheet made the admission after it heard the audio evidence about what Asa Wahlquist said at the recent Journalism Education Association Australia conference in Sydney. Posetti, said Overington, had produced a “fair summary”.

Mitchell had earlier threatened to "unremarkably" sue Posetti for defamation (though given his well documented climate change agnosticism it was never clear what Mitchell thought he was defending his reputation FOR). Few people would have have been surprised to hear Wahlquist, who recently quit News after many years as a journalist, faced intense editorial pressures to conform to a party line when reporting on climate change and other political matters. It also corresponds to what I have personally heard (off the record) from other News Ltd journalists when they file copy.

Defamation was always an idle threat in this exercise. Mitchell’s real intention was to project power by creating a chilling effect in Twitter. It didn't work because Mitchell has no idea how the medium works. His non-apology apology via Caroline Overington claimed Wahlquist told Mitchell her comments were taken out of context and Posetti “should have contacted him to get his side of the story.”

Apart from the blundering suggestion Twitter must follow the conventions of “he said, she said” journalism, Mitchell also refused to accede to the truth of the matter. He still maintained Posetti had defamed him though the ambiguous sounding “And there it rests” suggested he was not going to take the matter further. After the Twitterati picked this ambiguity up, Overington issued a coda saying it simply meant “she had no more” to offer. It allowed Mitchell to maintain the pretense of keeping his legal avenues open.

Mitchell couldn’t apologise properly to Julie Posetti because it was not in his nature. Stephen Mayne sussed him seven years ago when Mitchell was first appointed editorial boss of The Oz.
“[He] is known for his hardline political views and aggressive style - The key to understanding Chris Mitchell is to know that he is a right-wing social engineer who happens to be a journalist," Mayne wrote perceptively.

New York University's Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen probably hadn't heard of Mitchell in 2003 but he certainly knows about him now. He believes Mitchell’s social engineering is a major problem.
“I think The Australian is fast becoming a malevolent force and for some reason that I do not fully understand it is not met with the sort of public opposition it deserves,” Rosen told me by email yesterday.

I contacted Rosen because I was curious to know why he injected himself into recent News Ltd stoushes against new media such as the outing of Grog’s Gamut and now the hounding of Posetti.

Rosen told me he saw it as a critical part of a larger battle.
“As the Murdoch empire faces the loss of the emperor--his lost grip or his eventual passing--it starts behaving erratically and in that state it becomes rather dangerous: to itself, but also to other people and to cultural treasures like freedom of the press,” he said.

But the Empire has an Achilles heel, according to Rosen: “Murdoch cannot master digital.”

“He tried, but the thing has eluded him. That is unacceptable for a mogul. But it is also a fact. Put those two things together--an unacceptable fact that is also true--and you have a dangerous situation for a news empire. Rupert is trying to impose an order on the digital world that it does not have. This creates problems for his editorial employees. They have to believe in an analysis that is 'shitty' but also saintly because it comes from the top. They get into trouble when they try to prove the emperor right, and behave like little emperors themselves.”

Rosen said the dynamic is being forced down through the hierarchy so that it reaches the reporters at The Oz, “who think they can impose order, knock heads and,for example, demonstrate to the blogosphere which rules it has to obey."

“Notice how often people from The Australian say there's ‘nothing special’ about Twitter, or that it doesn't get a pass, that it isn't an exception. That's the echo, way down the line, of the unacceptable fact that is also true. ‘There's nothing different going on here. We got this under control.’ When they are criticised for taking what is, in effect, a party line, people from The Australian have a strange habit of hearing criticism as a charge of conspiracy. Then they laugh at the overheated image of a conspiracy which in turn protects them against the criticism.

Rosen agreed with my suggestion that Australia’s dangerously concentrated media landscape was a reason the Twitterati have been so feisty in opposition but said there was an important second factor.

“The above ground opposition is weak. Online, there is a lot of juvenile sneering at News Ltd. which reflects how rarely the respectable people criticize and investigate what's rotten in the empire. How many journalists who were there when Asa Wahlquist made her remarks spoke up about what they heard?" he asked.

"For the professional culture of journalism in Australia, which extends to the academic centres where journalism is studied, that is a significant number," Rosen concluded.

While the Oz attempts to thrash Posetti's reputation as much as their own via #twitdef, the climate change that started it all continues to be ignored. As another journalism educator Marcus O'Donnell pointed out today "even a threat of US walkout at Cancun is relegated to p15 of SMH".

Chris Mitchell, it would appear, is not the only social engineer running mainstream Australian media.

And there it rests.
====
(The full text of my question and answer session with Rosen is attached below)
====
DB: Firstly, given your geographical position in the intensely creative hub that is New York why would what is going on in the boondocks of Australian media be of interest to you enough to take part in the debate?

JR: Within the Australian press culture, blogging and journalism academic worlds, there's a decent number of people who are interested in my work, so I have taken an interest in what's going on there, especially after my latest visit. Twitter allows them to follow me and me to follow them, which is also a big factor. At a certain point you acquire enough background knowledge that you can monitor events in another country without feeling lost; after my last visit to Australia, during the elections in August of this year, I felt I had reached that point. I know what Telstra is. I know about the marginal seats in western Sydney. I've watched Tony Jones on Q&A.

Finally, I think The Australian is fast becoming an malevolent force and for some reason that I do not fully understand it is not met with the sort of public opposition it deserves.

DB: Is there lessons from the Australian experience in the current old/new media "war" for the American mediascape?

JR: As the Murdoch empire faces the loss of the emperor--his lost grip, his inability to master digital, or his eventual passing--it starts behaving erratically and in that state it becomes rather dangerous: to itself, but also to other people and to cultural treasures like freedom of the press.

DB: Are the likes of Chris Mitchell just being Canutes trying to stop the tide or can the Murdoch Empire really stamp its authority over the old/new media landscape worldwide?

JR: Here's one hypothesis: Murdoch cannot master digital. He tried, but the thing has eluded him. That is unacceptable for a mogul. But it is also a fact. Put those two things together--an unacceptable fact that is also true--and you have a dangerous situation for a news empire. Rupert is trying to impose an order on the digital world that it does not have. This creates problems for his editorial employees. They have to believe in an analysis that is "shitty," but also saintly because it comes from the top. They get into trouble when they try to prove the emperor right, and behave like little emperors themselves.

This then draws ridicule in the new media environments they disdain but also have to participate in. Which enrages them, causing them to say and do stupid things, as Chris Mitchell did. The dynamic is being forced down through the hierarchy so that it reaches even the reporters at The Oz, who think they can impose order, knock heads and, for example, demonstrate to the blogosphere which rules it has to obey.

Notice how often people from The Australian say there's "nothing special" about Twitter, or that it doesn't get a pass, that it isn't an exception. That's the echo, way down the line, of the unacceptable fact that is also true. "There's nothing different going on here. We got this under control." When they are criticized for taking what is, in effect, a party line, people from The Australian have a strange habit of hearing criticism as a charge of conspiracy. Then they laugh at the overheated image of a conspiracy, which in turn protects them against the criticism. Sally Jackson did this just the other day:

http://twitter.com/Sally_Jackson/statuses/9104914064084992

In the case of Matthew Franklin, I documented the pattern here:

http://jayrosen.tumblr.com/post/102744512/massively-multi-player-denial-when-do-we-grok-the#comment-84775968

Even after I showed it to him, he had no idea what I was talking about.

http://twitter.com/#!/franklinmatthew/status/26621708341


DB: Is it perhaps because the mainstream Australian media scene is so dominated by one publisher, that the underground movement as represented by Australia's Twitterati is so lively?

JR: Also the fact that the above ground opposition is so weak. Online, there is a lot of juvenile sneering at News Ltd. which reflects how rarely the respectable people criticise and investigate what's rotten in the empire. How many journalists who were there when Asa Wahlquist made her remarks spoke up about what they heard? For the professional culture of journalism in Australia, which extends to the academic centres where journalism is studied, that is a significant number.

Grog rations

After reading some of Grog’s Gamut’s first posts since The Australian journalist James Massola revealed his name, I was struck by the quality of the personal detail which informed his arguments. While it was always there to some degree, it seemed Grog suddenly had more freedom to back up opinions with detailed events from his life. As a result, I tweeted last night “Reading @grogsgamut's blog with added personal experiences makes me think @jamesmassola may have actually done us all a favour.”

Grog, who has also returned to twitter, replied to me promptly: “@derekbarry they were always there - you just didn't know my name.”

I didn’t dispute either of these points. But given the way his story was "always there" I was far from surprised the pseudonymous blogger was outed when it happened. Grog’s recent rise to prominence allied to the hints about his life in his work, made me sure sooner or later his identity would be revealed. He also tempted fate by trusting Massola not to reveal something he told him months ago. And surely he knew the writing was on the wall when he appeared at Canberra Media140 in September as embedded blogger “Greg”.

I was out of the country at the time so I missed that conference and I also missed much of the heat of the Twitter firestorm generated by “#groggate”. While it was good to see social media flex its muscles against the arrogance of older players, I thought it was amusing how enthusiastically they used the journalism cliché of “-gate”.

Yet I was still angry when I heard the Australian had outed him for no apparent reason. I foresaw the likely consequences of the article - his employers would force him to cease blogging and Australia would lose a useful critical voice. Though I’d never heard of the name of “Greg Jericho”, I’ve known about the blogger called “Grog’s Gamut” for some time. His bio was of a Canberra public servant who admitted he looked nothing like his Ralph Fiennes icon. Yet this unknown part-time writer was fast becoming one of the sharpest political writers in Australia. He excelled himself in his daily coverage of the 2010 election coverage. His 31 July tour de force “bring the journalists home” article attacking poor journalistic practices caused an ABC review and put him in the wider news. But it was the Murdoch empire that was Grog’s real target and it was only a matter of time before they would launch a counterattack.

Grog said he told Massola his name ten months ago, but it wasn’t until 27 September that he was “unmasked”. Massola's article and that of his boss Geoff Elliot who defended him became notorious in the Twittersphere and a matter of much derision. While some of the criticism was over the top, neither journalist can have much complaint. They failed the basic test of newsworthiness, completely botching the justification for the outing, because there was none.

Massola’s first sentence, which should be the most important, revealed nothing new. “The anonymous blogger who prompted Mark Scott to redirect the ABC's federal election coverage is a Canberra public servant,” he wrote. It served only as a false rationale for the name in the second sentence: “Greg Jericho, a public servant who spends his days working in the film section of the former Department of Environment, Heritage, Water and the Arts.” Massola passed the blame to twitter speculation for the revelation and then attempted to justify it by saying Grog’s bias might impact the “impartial and professional” way the APS is run.

The unmasking did not sit well with the Twitterati (not least with Grog himself). They blasted Massola for his abuse of privilege, false emphasis, lack of principles and lack of care of the consequences of his actions. Massola had violated a social norm and The Australian's Media section editor Geoff Elliott was forced to come out and defend him. Elliot only succeeded in making matters worse with his pompous tone. “If you are influencing the public debate, particularly as a public servant, it is the public's right to know who you are,” he said. “It is the media's duty to report it.”

Elliot never made it clear why the public had such a right nor why it was his job to inform the public about that right, particularly when that paper has a long history of pseudonymous publication. It is not difficult to read between these few terse lines of an experienced news curator to see News Ltd’s purely political line at work aimed at destabilising a potentially dangerous enemy in a manner that was borderline unethical.

Fortunately the Australian Public Service proved Elliot and me both wrong. After a couple of weeks of silence, Grog was back online this week. He may not “deserve anonymity” that Elliot summarily stripped him of but he certainly deserved to have a voice. His employers took into account he steered well clear of his own policy area in his writing. They took the sensible position no one of reasonable mind could confuse Grog’s views with those of his employers.

Reading the newest Grog/Greg musings shows he remains fiercely partisan. His opinions haven’t changed but I detected a greater willingness to use life experiences as collateral because now he could do so without fear of consequence. Though Grog has denied this, it was this new explanatory power I sensed which made me think Massola had, quite unintentionally, done us all a favour.

Federal Court to rule on The Australian's terrorist leak source tomorrow

The Federal Court will reveal tomorrow whether it will allow Victorian Police name the source of the leak to The Australian’s journalist Cameron Stewart over last year’s Melbourne terrorist arrest operation. On 4 August 2009 the Australian printed Cameron Stewart’s exclusive. The article quoted Australian Federal Police commissioner Tony Negus saying the AFP had disrupted a “terrorist attack that could have claimed many lives”. Four men were arrested in Melbourne in Operation Neath after 400 police raided homes in the city’s northern suburbs. The four were said to have been inspired by Somalia’s Islamist Al Shabaab and about to attack a military base using semi-automatic weapons.

A great story, and Stewart had gotten the inside scoop. The Australian had learned of the operation a full week before it occurred and agreed to hold off on publication until the morning of the raid. But Victoria Police were incensed to find out the details of the operation hit the streets for the first run of the paper in the early hours of this morning and criticised it for potentially jeopardising a series of early morning raids, calling it an “unacceptable risk”. The Australian rejected the claim, saying the story was held up from early editions while the raids took place. According to the paper’s then editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell, "only papers that were sold at newsagents after the raid, and those destined for home delivery, had the raid story on page one."

The online outlet Crikey later found out the edition with the story in it was available in some retail outlets at 1.30am, some three hours before the raid started. While few if any papers were purchased, thefts of papers outside agents are not uncommon and those that do buy papers at that time of the morning include taxi drivers, which happened to be the occupation of some of the suspects. So it is fair to say, the integrity of the operation could well have been jeopardized by The Australian’s actions. But it is also arguable the operation should have been brought forward as soon as the AFP realised its secrecy was compromised.

On 9 August the police corruption watchdog got involved. In a media release Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity commissioner Philip Moss announced they would investigate an alleged security breach relating to Operation Neath. The announcement said the ACLEI investigation was part of a coordinated response by State and Federal law enforcement and integrity agencies, including the Office of Police Integrity (Victoria). “ACLEI’s focus will relate to the involvement, if any, of members of the Australian Federal Police in the alleged security breach,” the release said.

In March, Stewart won the Gold Quill for outstanding journalism at the Melbourne Press Club's annual Quill Awards dinner. In his acceptance speech for the award Stewart said he couldn’t speak about the incident due to reasons of legal confidentially. He painted the case as one of press freedom and said the lack of shield laws for sources and journalists was a disgrace. “What none of you know here is that it's been a very, very difficult and ugly legal battle behind the scenes,” he said. "But let me tell you that it is a real fight in this country for press freedom because it is a very ugly battle that we face and I hope that every single person in this room does what they can to stand up for it.”

As a result of the ACLEI / OPI investigation, a Victorian policeman was identified as Stewart’s source and suspended for leaking the information. When ACLEI and OPI drafted a report into the source of the leak, The Australian won an injunction prohibiting its publication. The case currently before the courts attempts to overturn that injunction. However the two police forces involved have broken ranks. Margaret Simons in Crikey said last week court documents show ACLEI has cut a deal with The Australian and has agreed not to publish any of the information they have obtained about the newspaper during their investigation and will also allow The Australian to review any report it writes that refers to the paper or its employees.

The Victorian agency is understandably unhappy with its federal counterpart and going ahead with the request to overturn the injunction. Simons has been covering the case from the courtroom for the last few days using the Twitter hashtag #ozleak No-one is prepared to make a call on what way the court will judge. But the case does put into question dodgy practices in the media and police. Both Simons and Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes have publicly questioned whether Stewart deserved a high journalism accolade for his work on a story that could so easily have gone drastically wrong. Was it great work in the interest of the public’s right to know or merely “a policeman blabbing to a journo about a legitimate terrorist investigation” as Holmes put it? Either way, Stewart may find nasty repercussions if he is ever forced to confirm the source in a criminal investigation.

News rings management changes as it plans for paywall

News Ltd announced a series of important management changes today affecting their Australian news operation. The most important change was the appointment of News Digital Media chief executive Richard Freudenstein as chief executive of The Australian. Freudenstein keeps his old job and the move was widely seen as a key predecessor to the introduction of online paid-for content which Rupert Murdoch announced for 2010.

The 43 year old Richard Freudenstein joined News Digital Media when it was created 2006. Prior to this he was a key member of the team that launched Foxtel Pay TV in Australia in 1995 and then spent seven years at British Sky Broadcasting. There he was a leading negotiator in Sky's 2004 $2 billion deal for Premiership football. He is also chairman of realestate.com.au Ltd and a director of The Bell Shakespeare Company.

The move also sees The Australian being moved to a new stand alone division within News Corporation Ltd as part of an "aggressive and ambitious growth strategy" for the national broadsheet. Freudenstein will report directly to News Ltd chairman and chief executive, John Hartigan in this role. Up to now, The Australian has been part of Nationwide News, publishers of Sydney's The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. "This announcement reflects the significant expansion of our ambitions for The Australian," said Hartigan in a statement. "By creating a separate division and deploying more resources, we aim to enter an unprecedented era of growth."

The establishment of a separate division should give The Australian more flexibility when it comes to negotiating its printing and distribution arrangements with News Limited's other state divisions. But this move is not really about sales of the broadsheet. Hartigan hinted as much when he said News Ltd also wanted to expand The Australian's presence online, on mobile phones and on "new platforms". Nick Leeder will follow Freudenstein from NDM into The Australian as deputy chief executive, but unlike his boss he leaves behind his current post as NDM chief operating officer. Chris Mitchell will continue as editor-in-chief of the newspaper, a role he has held since he joined the paper from the Courier-Mail in 2002.

However the news comes on the same day as the result of a survey shown at The Content Makers that showed 70 percent of Australians would not be prepared to pay for Internet content. The survey by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation at Swinburne University’s Institute for Social Research is part of the World Internet Project which is the leading international source of research on how people use the internet.

Eight hundred Australian internet users responded to the question “A daily newspaper costs around $1.50. How much would you be prepared to pay to read an online newspaper?” Another surprising result showed that “news junkies” are those least likely to be willing to pay for it. Perhaps not as surprising is that urban dwellers with limit access to quality papers (ie the ones with “Murdoch only” press) were more prepared to pay for content than those living in Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra. Nevertheless, the findings are challenging for the Murdoch empire and lend credence to crankynick’s observation in Larvatus Prodeo that the paywall may well be aimed more at corporate organisations than individuals. Time will soon tell.

Woolly Day

In September 2008, The Australian's media writer Mark Day famously wrote that blogging had all the intellectual value of graffiti on a toilet door. Day claimed this was a phrase he overheard but it is reasonable to believe he shares the opinion. And judging by his column in today's paper he hasn't backed away much from the toilet door. His headline “bloggers may howl but there’s sense in cash for content” went hunting for condemnation of Rupert Murdoch’s paywall plans and found it in the blogosphere. Here, said Day, “99 per cent of the reaction was negative ranging from the adamant ‘I will not pay, full stop’, to the slightly more wistful ‘bye-bye News’”. Unfortunately Day didn’t name his howlers so I can't tell you who he was talking about. Most of the arguments I’ve read about the pros and cons of paywalls in the last few days (in paid and unpaid media) were a lot more well-informed and reasoned than the examples found in Day’s “blogosphere”.

What makes these attacks more puzzling is that Day’s rage against bloggers are to be found in a column called “Mark Day’s blog”. And it is a proper blog (not just shovelware from the print column) because of one important addition: the ability of his audience to add comments. It was Spinopsys (itself a hybrid creation “somewhere between Twitter and a blog”) who solved the conundrum for me when he linked to a comment Day himself made on the blog this afternoon. Day piped up after most of his previous commenters had expressed strong opposition to the paywall. “There’s very limited support for paid news sites. Are we surprised?” responded Day. “No. It’s fully anticipated (along with the abuse which some of you persist with, goodness knows why) and emphasises the point I make in the column ... the blogosphere is opposed, almost by definition.”

But there was a problem with Mark Day's own definition. He conflated blog commenters with blog authors. In revealing his inability to differentiate between the two, Day showed exactly how little he knows about what is happening outside his cosy little world of club journalism. And perhaps worryingly, his opinion may just be reflecting the boss. Day is an experienced old-fashioned journalist in the Murdoch mould who has also dabbled in business (he was the last owner of the century old muckraking tabloid Truth before it collapsed in 1995). And his Australian column “On Media” is a weekly rehashing of various Murdoch mantras such as “Rump of [Packer] empire a juicy no-brainer for News” (6 Dec 2007), “don’t die in the ditch for privacy reform” (14 Aug 2008), or “Clamour for paid sites rises as newspapers struggle” (9 Feb 2009).

It is interesting that this last article is not available online, because it seems Murdoch was paying attention back in February. Day wrote that article in the wake of News Corp’s 2008 last quarter $US8.4b write-off to which Murdoch’s response that “more people than ever are hungry for news”. The problem then as Day saw it was not a lack of readers but a lack of revenue caused by the industry’s giveaway culture. He said that the idea of paying for newspapers when the content is freely available on the net is “insanity, [and] a lunacy, that by all logic must be reversed”. Day canvassed the idea of a universal payment system that might involve digital coins or tollway digital passes (Charlie Brooker also toys with micropayment “magical coins” idea today in the Guardian). But even at a few cents a pop (Day suggested $30 a month), the end result of such a system would be a two tier system of Internet access where only the wealthy will not worry about how many hundreds of impulse clicks they might do in a day. Yet Day did get close to a possible solution to the problem. The $30, he said, “is what most people pay their internet service provider to deliver it now”.

The Internet, as he reminds us, is not free now. We generally accept we must pay for broadband connection fees. It is the ISPs and mobile phone companies whom we happily pay so we can get access to our Internet news. Could it be possible that people might pay an extra $20 or $30 up front and allow service providers and content makers to divvy it up? While the telcos and ISPs won’t warm to having their income streams tampered with, the smart ones will be those who hook up earliest with the big content providers and work out a deal. These partners will have some chance of surviving the carnage that will be unleashed by paywalls. Oddly enough, I expect the redoubtable Day will also somehow ride out the storm. Like some white-haired Lear, he’ll be found howling somewhere on the electronic heath, spitting out invective against his ungrateful daughters in the “blogosphere” who never appreciated the good work he did in dividing up the kingdom.

Australian Press Council throws out Fiji judge’s "main burden"

Today’s edition of the Fiji Times had an article about a recent Australian Press Council (APC) judgement of interest to the troubled islands. In truth, it wasn’t great journalism from the Times and deservedly had no by-line as it was almost a direct word-for-word steal from the council judgement itself. And the one addition by the Times sub-editor was mostly incorrect. The headline read “Judge’s gripe upheld”, however according to the APC, the gripe was dismissed “in the main burden”. Nonetheless the case is an interesting one, and one that says a lot about the murky world of the Fijian political and judicial system.

The case was brought by the Australian-born Justice Jocelynne Scutt, who is currently a judge of the High Court of Fiji. The WA-educated Scutt is a distinguished human rights lawyer and former Anti-Discrimination Commissioner for Tasmania. She raised the complaint with the APC about an article in The Australian published on 10 March 2008. This article by Nicola Bercovic was entitled “Judge criticised over Fiji posting”.

Bercovic’s story related how Scutt was appointed to serve on Fiji’s High Court in November 2007 hearing primarily on family law matters. Scott was offered the job after six expatriate judges from the Court of Appeal resigned the year before over concerns about the acting chief judge appointed by the supposedly “Interim” Bainimarama government. The article quoted Fiji Women's Rights Movement spokeswoman Tara Chetty who said they could not support any judicial appointments by the interim government. The article quoted two other prominent Australian lawyers who also questioned Scutt’s decision to take the role.

A few days later (APC says 15 March, but I can only find an article on 13 March), The Australian followed up with a second article from Chris Merritt entitled “Jocelynne Scutt named in human rights report”. This article gave some of Scutt’s background and then implicated her in “a major report on the rule of law in Fiji prepared by the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute.” Merritt claimed that Scutt was involved in proceedings that were "a chilling use of judicial powers" against free expression. Scutt was unavailable to comment.

However my reading of the IBAHRI report (available here in pdf format) does not fully support Merritt’s insinuation that Scutt was responsible. In the matter cited, Scutt was one of three judges who had judicial concerns about a Fiji Sun article criticising the Interim government’s choice of judges. It was Justice Shameen who had four issues with the article but they did not find against the paper. Scutt did not comment and nothing further came of the case (though I agree it does have “a chilling effect”).

Merritt’s article and the IBAHRI report both quote Angie Heffernan, the director of Fiji's Pacific Centre for Public Integrity. Heffernan had called on Scutt to resign after she (Scutt) commended the Fiji Human Rights report which cast doubt on the credibility of the 2006 Election (and provided Bainimarama the excuse he needed to launch the coup). Heffernan said the report contents were now sub judice and Scutt compromised her position “reflect[ing] the disturbing developments within the judiciary since the December 5, 2006 military coup.”

Justice Scutt complained to the APC that The Australian articles were 'highly critical', 'highly defamatory' and 'damaging'. She sought a retraction of the published materials and the publication by the newspaper of an apology. She claimed her appointment was not political as it was made by the President of Fiji on the recommendation of a Judicial Services Commission and not by 'the military-backed regime'. However The Australian dismissed this complaint as “disingenuous” and the APC agreed.

They also agreed with the paper that Scutt’s high profile made her a genuine subject of public interest. Her acceptance of a judicial appointment in a country under the control of a military regime was a newsworthy story, it stated. It was also unimpressed by her claim that the fact the matter of judicial appointment in Fiji was currently sub judice meant the articles should not be published at all. The APC dismissed this by saying “[t]his provides no effective or convincing justification for her complaint.”

The APC was critical of The Australian’s initial inability to obtain a quote from Scutt prior to the publication of the first article. But even then they noted she declined to comment when finally contacted. "This refusal by Justice Scutt to provide comments based on her belief that, as a judge she was 'not able to speak on the matter'," wrote the APC, “did not preclude the newspaper from continuing to report, and comment on, her appointment.”

The only complaint upheld (and with it the dubious rationale for the Fiji Times headline) was that The Australian went too far linking Scutt with the military regime. These were the statements about "links with Fiji's military rulers" and "is involved with the military regime", which incorrectly implied collaboration with the regime. The APC said the newspaper offered no evidence to justify these statements. Nonetheless Scutt can take little comfort from the judgement. The current political situation in Fiji is too damaged for a truly independent judiciary to function properly. I agree with Greg Barns in another article in The Australian from August last year that Scutt should resign. “If she does that, she will be helping to restore democracy to Fiji and will enhance her standing in the eyes of her peers and the Australian community,” wrote Barns.

An analysis of the use of sources in 'The Australian' newspaper

Sources are a crucial part of the news process and warrant careful attention to their use. This report is a contents analysis of use of sources in the coverage of the ongoing Iraqi conflict in The Australian newspaper The analysis covers a period of four weeks in August/September 2007.

While journalists see themselves as impartial and objective in the tradition of the fourth estate, this analysis of sources in Australia’s only national masthead found that coverage of events is skewed in several ways. The study found a preference for western sources over Iraqi ones and also found a preference towards political and military sources. Least objectively perhaps, the study also found a pronounced bias of sources in favour of continued military intervention. While the researcher recommends further analysis, the use of sources in the study period show that the debate over Iraq in The Australian has been framed in terms of its impact to the West - not Iraq.

Methodology:

This media contents analysis is based on a diary of all news articles about the conflict in Iraq in The Australian newspaper during the four weeks between 25 August 2007 and 21 September 2007. 44 articles were chosen for study, approximately two articles for each day of publication.

The full list of articles is included in Appendix A at the end of this essay and attached in the accompanying news diary. The criterion used for inclusion in the analysis was any news article that was predominately about the Iraqi conflict. Therefore stories about political reaction in Washington, Canberra and elsewhere were included even though the locale of these stories was outside Iraq itself. Op-ed articles and stories that appeared in feature pages were excluded from the analysis.

For each of the included articles, the use of human sources was examined. Direct quotes and paraphrasing from named and unnamed sources were included for analysis. Where the source was from a written report or another news article it was excluded from the analysis.

This left a total of 112 sources across the 44 articles, an average of approximately three sources per story. The source data was then examined by three criteria: nationality, occupation, and whether it could be determined if the source was in favour of, neutral towards, or against continued military occupation. The latter criterion was determined either by either the context of the words or the official role of the speaker.


Literature Review:
Hall's "Policing the Crisis" (1984) provide a good analysis of the tendency towards the use of “authoritative” sources which limits the frame of any given debate. Schultz's "Reviving the Fourth Estate" (1998) forensically examines the media’s fourth estate ‘watchdog’ role while McChesney (1997), Breit (2001) and Pilger (2002) discuss the problems caused by the corporate concentration of ownership of the world’s media and the international power these corporations weald. Benedict Anderson 's "Imagined Communities(1983) defines a useful framework for seeing the media as a key part of a nation’s “imagining”. Meadows's "A Return to Practice" (2001) draws on Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci to define the media as cultural resource that attempts to redefine journalism as a conversation not as an elitist alliance between journalists and their sources. White's "Reporting in Australia has a useful primer on sources that is important reading for working journalists.


Analysis:

The media has long claimed for itself the fourth estate position of society’s “watchdog” which it underpins with notions of objectivity and professionalism. But such objectivity is problematic for a commercial entity such as The Australian, a Rupert Murdoch owned newspaper. His News Limited is the archetypal global media firm and is one of the five largest transnational media corporations in the world that own and manage the world’s principal sources of news and information. It is news they transmit in politically safe ways. It is also transmitted in a consistent manner. None of News Ltd’s 174 newspapers worldwide, including The Australian, editorially opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. This study of sources seeks to examine how these biases manifest themselves in a Murdoch masthead four years later. This is important because newspapers are a crucial part of the “imagining” that creates the concept of a nation. This analysis will attempt to show their interpretation of news is the “freedom of the powerful”.

Figure 1 below shows a breakdown of sources by nationality. Firstly, the articles showed a marked tendency to rely on American sources. 65% of all voices in the study period were from the US. And 84% of all voices were from English speaking countries. Only 12% of all voices were Iraqi. The lack of local sources show a truism in news gathering that source obsession gives too much priority to the person that yield the news than the news itself.

Figure 1: Analysis of interview sources by nationality
Total= 112
USA 65%
Iraq 12%
Australia 11%
UK 8%
Others 2%

Figure 2 below analyses the role of the sources used. The striving for objectivity in journalism gives rise to the practice of obtaining media statements from ‘authoritative’ and ‘accredited’ sources. The study bears this practice out as a total of 76 % of all sources are from the ruling elite of politics and the military. All bar one source was male (Hillary Clinton was the sole exception). The skewing towards a mostly male elite class reinforces the notion there is an over-accessing in the media of those in powerful and privileged positions.

Figure 2 analysis of sources by role of source
Total = 112
Politician (or spokesperson) 44%
Military (or spokesperson) 32%
Others 24%

Figure 3 below shows the bias of the sources in terms of their view on the continued presence of Coalition troops in Iraq. The number of pro-presence sources outnumbered the anti-presence sources by a margin almost three to one. Such disparity in views chosen is not reflected in the views of the community served by The Australian newspaper. The most recent Newspoll (another News Ltd company) on Iraq (10/07/07) showed 67 per cent of respondents were in favour of either bringing home all Australian troops immediately or setting a definitive date for them to return. Given the significant contribution of the media to the way in which we ‘imagine’ our community, such results show a jarring disconnect between the views of the media and the public they profess to serve.

Figure 3: Analysis of sources by their stance on the continued presence of the US-led forces in Iraq
Total=112
Clearly in favour 61%
Clearly against 22%
Neutral or could not be determined 16%


Figure 4 below analyses the 25 anti-presence sources from figure 3 to determine their nationality. 86 % of all these sources were from the US and Australia. They mostly represented political parties opposed to the military engagement. In four weeks, The Australian published the voices of just two Iraqi opposed to the US-led presence. In the media’s favoured way of setting up topics, they maintain what the Birmingham media group describe as “strategic areas of silence”.

Figure 4: Analysis of sources against the continued presence of the US-led forces in Iraq by nationality of source
Total=22
USA 54%
Australia 32%
Iraq 10%
Other countries 4%


Conclusion

Through an analysis of sources, it is possible to argue The Australian newspaper has several pronounced biases in its coverage of the conflict in Iraq. These favour a profile of American male privileged elites who favour continued involvement of US-led forces in Iraq. These biases often manifest themselves by as much as what sources are not used (women, Iraqis, and non-privileged citizens generally) as the powerful ones that are used.

But perhaps this is too large a claim for a four week analysis period. The war in Iraq has been going for four years. A complete analysis of four years’ data from The Australian of the same criteria would leave a researcher with more solid grounds for drawing this conclusion.

====

Appendix A: full list of considered articles
date page title author total sources
25-Aug 2 Bush and Howard to talk Iraq Greg Sheridan 2
27-Aug 12 Iraqi PM lashes out at Clinton over
sack call AFP, AP 2
27-Aug 14 Bush recasts defeat in victory quest Sunday Times 10
29-Aug 9 Sarkozy calls for Iraq pullout AFP 1
29-Aug 12 Prepare for long war: UK general The Times 2
29-Aug 12 Arms supply investigated Agencies 0
31-Aug 1 Surge working: top US general Dennis Shanahan 2
31-Aug 10 Shia rivalry forces cleric to cease fire
Agencies 1
1-Sep 1 Bush in warning to Rudd on troops Geoff Elliott 3
1-Sep 13 Rebuild Iraq police force, urges panel Reuters, AFP 4
3-Sep 11 confidence in US plan surges across
Baghdad Sunday Times 4
3-Sep 12 US Anger at Brits move out of Basra Sunday Times 4
3-Sep 11 UK troops give up Basra base The Times 6
3-Sep 11 Bush heads down under via the war zone Geoff Elliott 0
4-Sep 11 Bush in surprise detour to Iraq Geoff Elliott 2
4-Sep 14 President signals troop withdrawal Agencies 2
5-Sep 14 Engagement may have reached its
high-water mark Geoff Elliott 1
6-Sep 1 Face-off on Iraq looms for Rudd Dennis Shanahan 2
6-Sep 9 Iraq war 'remains winnable' Mark Dodd 2
7-Sep 1 Bush charm fails to sway Rudd on Iraq P Karvales 2
7-Sep 13 Iraqi police force should be scrapped,
says report AP 2
8-Sep 12 Petraeus to suggest gradual cut in forces AFP 2
10-Sep 11 paying the Sunnis to fight al-Qaida Sunday Times 3
11-Sep 9 British troops remained at Basra Palace
at insistence of US AFP 2
11-Sep 9 Military chiefs split on success of surge The Times, 2
12-Sep 1 Iraq troops surge working Geoff Elliott 1
12-Sep 2 Troop withdrawal not an option: PM Mark Dodd 4
12-Sep 15 Democrats turn on the general they
welcomed The Times 1
12-Sep 15 Protests muted, at least from the publicThe Times 3
12-Sep 15 After a half hitch, a knotty reckoning The Times 1
12-Sep 15 US winning war: Petreaus The Times 4
12-Sep 15 Petraeus to visit UK to defuse Basra rowThe Times 2
13-Sep 8 Bush challenged on Iraq war plan The Times 9
14-Sep 9 Heat on Clinton over Iraq criticism David Nason 4
15-Sep 13 Bush bid to build bridges is too late Geoff Elliott 2
15-Sep 13 Sunni tribes vow to avenge murder of
pro-US leader Agencies 2
15-Sep 13 America stands alone as a mighty
world power for good The Times 0
17-Sep 1 Barmy armies' pitch battle in Iraq Martin Fletcher 2
17-Sep 11 War in Iraq all about the oil Graham Paterson 1
18-Sep 11 Greenspan backs off 'Iraq war for oil'
claims Reuters 2
20-Sep 8 Iraqis ward off attack by al-Qa'ida AFP 3
20-Sep 8 Blackwater guards 'fired without cause' MCT, AP 4
21-Sep 11 Democrats lose Senate bid to win troops
more home time AP 2
21-Sep 1 Labor policy on troop withdrawal
is a big con Dennis Shanahan 2

The Australian: media contents analysis of Islamic people and countries

Abstract:
This article is a contents analysis of the representation of Islam and Islamic people in The Australian newspaper. The analysis finds that while articles about Muslim countries and people are plentiful, the coverage is skewed both in terms of local news and the types of stories that make the news. These stories more often than not relate to terrorist activities and confirm existing simplistic stereotypes about Islam and Islamic people.

Methodology:

This media contents analysis is based on a diary of news articles about Islam and Islamic people in The Australian newspaper between 30 June 2007 and 14 July 2007. The full list of articles is included in Appendix A at the end of this essay.

The criterion used for inclusion in the analysis was any news article that either predominately featured a Muslim country or Muslim people. Therefore stories about the London / Glasgow attacks and the subsequent arrest of Mohamed Haneef were included even though the locale of these stories was mostly in Australia, the UK and Haneef’s native India. However stories about the Iraq War which were mostly about US or Australian policy or otherwise Western reaction were excluded from the analysis. Op-ed articles and stories that appeared in feature pages were likewise excluded from the analysis. As a result 142 stories were selected for media content analysis.


Literature Review:

This research relies heavily on two academic papers. Waleed Aly’s The Clash of Ignorance is an exploration of how Western culture’s division of Muslims into ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘moderates’ is a misunderstanding that strips Muslims of complex political identities. Arthur Saniotis’s Embodying Ambivalence: Muslim Australians as ‘Other’ examines the pariah status of Muslims in Australia.


Analysis:

Figure 1 below shows the list of main stories that were selected for analysis. The two major stories of the period were the London/Glasgow attacks and the related subsequent detainment of Haneef in the Gold Coast, Australia. Together these accounted for 39.4% of all Muslim related stories during the study period.

Figure 1: Analysis of contents by story type where there were 3 or more articles during the period under review
N= 142

story No of articles Percentage of Total
London/Glasgow attacks 31 21.8
Haneef 25 17.6
Red Mosque siege 11 7.7
Islamic terrorism 8 5.6
Iraq war 8 5.6
Palestine 4 2.8
Alan Johnston 4 2.8
Others 49 34.5


In nearly all of the listed stories above (65.5% of the total) there is an element that equates Islam with terrorism. As the Glasgow Media Group pointed out, news is a cultural artefact – it is a series of socially manufactured messages which carry many of the culturally dominant assumptions of society. Muslim Australians have been consistently marginalised and misrepresented for over one hundred years. The large instance (17.6%) of the Haneef story as terrorist motif (or non-story, given that he was eventually released without charge) shows that little has changed today. Saniotis argues that in the current climate of fear of terrorist attack western discourses continually render Muslims as ‘bogey’ people who must be put in their place. Edward Said believes that it is the fate of Islam to be regarded as a monolithic thing of fear and hostility. Yet away from the clamour of a highly visible extremist minority, Islam is alive is with ideas, debates and discussions on the contemporary and future significance of the religion. Very little of this lively discourse is reflected in Australian news coverage.

According to Waleed Aly, Islam in the post September 11 West has been transformed from a diverse expressed international faith to a narrow political identity. Aly’s argument is that engagements with Muslims are presented in symbolic “fundamentalist” and “moderate” binaries which, he states, becomes an exercise in “crude taxonomy”. This crude taxonomy is demonstrated in figure 2 below which showed the 24% of all headlines contained variations on the pejorative terms of “terror”, “bomber”, “militant”, “radical”, “Islamist” and “jihad”. Aly claims that the nuances and attention to detail afforded to western cultures and traditions are not matched when dealing with Muslim communities. Witness The Australian headline on 11 July “Fifth Aussie held in Lebanon over Islamist links”. It is difficult to imagine a similar headline if the “Aussie” in question had “Christianist links”.

Figure 2 analysis of headline content by keyword
N=142

Keyword No of articles Percentage of Total
Terror or terrorist 11 7.7
Bomb or bombers 10 7.0
Militant or militancy 4 2.8
Radical 3 2.1
Islam or Islamist 3 2.1
Jihad or Jihadist 3 2.1
Others 108 76.0


Figure 3 below shows that the value of proximity as a crucial news factor. 35.9% of all Muslim stories were Australian-based. Cultural bias in defining proximity is also an important factor with a further 19% of Muslim stories emanating from the UK. The proximate angle is often used to heighten fear in the newspaper’s readership and turns it into a discourse of ‘matter out of place’. The first sentence in 2 July’s lead story about “Home-grown Jihad threat” stated without attribution that “Up to 3000 young Muslims in Sydney alone are at risk of becoming radicalised by fundamentalist Islam” (The Australian, 2 July 2007, p.1). These 3,000 people, like millions of others worldwide, are being judged by the parameter of their religion.

Figure 3: Analysis of contents by lead country where there were 3 or more articles during the period under review
N=142

Country No of articles Percentage of Total
Australia 51 35.9
UK 27 19.0
Pakistan 17 12.0
Iraq 10 7.0
Palestine 9 6.3
Indonesia 7 4.9
Lebanon 6 4.2
Iran 3 2.1
Others 19 13.4



Conclusion
The sample of articles shown in the analysis reveal a tendency for simplistic reporting of Muslims and Muslim countries. Articles about terrorism outweigh political and social matters. Such misrepresentation of Muslims is a process that contributes considerably to ‘Islamophobia’ (Saniotis, 2004, p. 49). The terrorist discourse itself is simplistic and lurid and does little to unpack the complex sociology behind it (Ely, 2006, p.32). Finally the selection of articles is skewed towards an Australian and Anglo-centric bias with very few in-depth articles about Muslim nations in the period under review.

Appendix A: full list of considered articles

date lead country headline story page
30-Jun Australia riddle of sheik's contacts Lebanon arrests 1
30-Jun Australia wife says detained man
no militant Lebanon arrests 4
30-Jun Egypt Egypt moves to ban mutilation FGM 12
30-Jun Palestine mosque not for politics terrorism 12
30-Jun Pakistan teargas disperses a flood of protest cyclone 17
30-Jun UK faithfully honing the killer instinct terrorism 21
2-Jul Australia home-grown jihad threat London/Glasgow attacks 1
2-Jul Australia fifth suspect held in British terror hunt London/Glasgow attacks 1
2-Jul Australia afghan stay will be longer: Downer afghan war 5
2-Jul Australia dangerous liaisons in two countries ties by blood and radical Islam terrorism 5
2-Jul Australia Doctor defies Canberra’s demands for Habib file Habib 5
2-Jul Saudi Arabia barely veiled menace terrorism 10
2-Jul UK UK alert on Iraq-style attacks London/Glasgow attacks 11
2-Jul UK failed bomb left forensic goldmine for detectives London/Glasgow attacks 11
2-Jul UK London suspects home grown London/Glasgow attacks 11
2-Jul Afghanistan coalition assault kills 65 afghans afghan war 12
2-Jul Iran Iran in crisis after cleric's murder cleric murder 12
2-Jul Malaysia Anwar condemns malaysian police state Malaysian politics 13
3-Jul UK terrorist cell not yet neutralised London/Glasgow attacks 7
3-Jul UK London plot led police to Glasgow London/Glasgow attacks 7
3-Jul Palestine Hamas sends 'terror mouse' to martyrdom Hamas Mickey Mouse 8
3-Jul Pakistan nuclear villain 'virtually free' nuclear 8
4-Jul Australia doctors linked to terror plots Haneef 1
4-Jul Australia modern militant recruits himself Haneef 1
4-Jul Australia medic was nothing out of the ordinary Haneef 1
4-Jul Lebanon arms supply charges for Aussies in Beirut Lebanon arrests 1
4-Jul Lebanon charges laid in Beirut Lebanon arrests 1
4-Jul Lebanon boxer freed in Lebanon tells of days of torture Lebanon arrests 8
4-Jul Australia no cause for alarm says pm London/Glasgow attacks/Haneef 8
4-Jul Australia ex-Guantanamo inmate Habib still rated a risk Guantanamo 9
4-Jul Australia doctor passed background checks Haneef 9
4-Jul Australia educated mix of recruits targeted Haneef 9
4-Jul Australia gold coast Muslims in the dark over bomb suspects Haneef 9
4-Jul Australia extended detaining powers sought Haneef 9
4-Jul Australia review of APEC security plans as trade talks begin Haneef 9
4-Jul Australia making charges stick easier said than done Haneef 9
4-Jul Australia bombs aimed at the heart of a democracy London/Glasgow attacks/Haneef 14
5-Jul Australia family reels from dishonour of arrest Haneef 1
5-Jul Australia doctor member of sleeper cell' Haneef 1
5-Jul Australia PM to stand firm on Iraq Iraq war 1
5-Jul Australia Scotland yard to question Haneef Haneef 8
5-Jul Australia bomb link doctor under siege at home Haneef 8
5-Jul Australia Indian officials to meet suspect Haneef 8
5-Jul UK police probe rocks Beatles's peaceful penny lane London/Glasgow attacks 9
5-Jul UK travellers stranded by bomb scares London/Glasgow attacks 9
5-Jul UK suspect a student zealot London/Glasgow attacks 9
5-Jul UK those who cure you will kill you London/Glasgow attacks 9
5-Jul UK extremists pick professionals brains London/Glasgow attacks 9
5-Jul UK Scots Muslims rally to fend off backlash London/Glasgow attacks 9
5-Jul UK suspicious gas bottle leads to arrest London/Glasgow attacks 9
5-Jul Malaysia legal bid by Anwar rejected Malaysian politics 10
5-Jul Palestine nightmare is over for BBC hostage Johnston 11
5-Jul Palestine revived Hamas desperate to deliver Johnston 11
5-Jul Pakistan Bhutto vows to take on Pakistani militant red mosque 11
5-Jul Pakistan mosque leaders defy surrender deadline red mosque 11
5-Jul Australia religion is the root cause of terrorist threat Haneef 16
6-Jul Australia police can hold doctor for four days Haneef 7
6-Jul Australia phone calls and family ties focus of global probe Haneef 7
6-Jul Australia justice at risk in climate of fear Haneef 7
6-Jul Australia meeting on Islam no recruitment camp Haneef 7
6-Jul Australia scare unites two leaders London/Glasgow attacks 7
6-Jul UK Glasgow suspects left suicide note London/Glasgow attacks 8
6-Jul Palestine Hamas misses out on wages of peace with west Fatah-Hamas 8
6-Jul Indonesia Indonesian fights Papuans with rape and murder West Papua 9
6-Jul Pakistan red mosque leader caught in escape bid red mosque 9
7-Jul Australia six doctors questioned over terror Haneef 1
7-Jul Australia radical group faces ban London/Glasgow attacks 1
7-Jul Australia hospital staff in protest at racism Haneef 6
7-Jul Australia driver talked of confidential job Haneef 6
7-Jul Australia suspects rejected for state health jobs London/Glasgow attacks 6
7-Jul UK Cambridge trio linked to bombs London/Glasgow attacks 13
7-Jul UK cyber jihad trio get jail London/Glasgow attacks 13
7-Jul UK Glasgow airport attackers both wanted to die say police London/Glasgow attacks 13
7-Jul Palestine Hamas denies paying ransom Johnston 14
7-Jul Pakistan women and kids flee red mosque red mosque 14
7-Jul UK terrorists outmatched London/Glasgow attacks 17
7-Jul Palestine Alan Johnston's release Johnston 30
7-Jul UK shift in terror tactics London/Glasgow attacks 30
9-Jul Australia border security tightened Haneef 1
9-Jul Australia new raids target gold coast doctors Haneef 1
9-Jul Iraq Costello cleans up Nelson's oil spill oil 4
9-Jul Indonesia Indonesia travel alarm terrorism 4
9-Jul Pakistan raid on kingpins too risky Al Qa'ida 11
9-Jul Israel Israel to free 250 Abbas loyalists Fatah-Hamas 11
9-Jul Iraq truck blast one of the deadliest Iraq war 11
9-Jul UK al Qa'ida role in car bombs London/Glasgow attacks 11
9-Jul Pakistan colonel shot dead as full assault on mosque looms red mosque 12
9-Jul Indonesia new Acehnese political party divides former rebel comrades Aceh 13
9-Jul UK why healers turned hands to terror London/Glasgow attacks 15
9-Jul UK moderates need to take on jihadists London/Glasgow attacks 16
9-Jul Australia violent agenda carefully veiled hizb ut-Tahrir 18
10-Jul Australia terror evidence may be lost after police 'bungle' Haneef 1
10-Jul Australia new visa cross-checks ramp up security Haneef 4
10-Jul Indonesia Indonesia irked at fresh travel warning travel warning 4
10-Jul Indonesia Suharto sued for stolen billions Suharto 8
10-Jul UK radical stuff' found in Indian’s homes bomb plot 9
10-Jul Germany interfaith footy kicks goal for peace football match 9
10-Jul Iraq it’s a lost cause so get out now: top us paper Iraq war 9
10-Jul Pakistan cleric calls for Pakistan uprising terrorism 9
11-Jul Pakistan scores die, children flee as troops storm mosque red mosque 1
11-Jul Australia kids pay Hicks jail visit David Hicks 8
11-Jul Australia lawyer's new bid to free Haneef Haneef 8
11-Jul Lebanon fifth Aussie held in Lebanon over Islamist link Lebanon arrests 8
11-Jul USA al Qa'ida 'moving to blast American city with n-bomb' terrorism 8
11-Jul Indonesia Indonesia travel warning 'crying wolf' travel warning 8
11-Jul Palestine Abbas calls for foreign force in the Gaza strip Fatah-Hamas 11
11-Jul Iran Tehran's tunnel to 'protect nuke site' Iran nuclear 11
11-Jul Iraq Iraqi officials warn against early US troop withdrawal Iraq war 11
11-Jul UK plotter helped design air parts London/Glasgow attacks 11
11-Jul Pakistan mosque infested by hardcore militancy red mosque 11
11-Jul Pakistan Musharraf may declare state of emergencyred mosque 11
11-Jul Indonesia alarm in Jakarta at separatist symbols Aceh 12
12-Jul UK Grandma marries son of Bin Laden bin laden 3
12-Jul Australia Downer v Nelson on troops reque st Iraq war 3
12-Jul Australia Iraq-schooled jihadis a threat terrorism 3
12-Jul Australia call of duty throws lawyer in the limelightHaneef 4
12-Jul Australia Indians angry at AFP over Haneef Haneef 4
12-Jul Philippines marines killed in search for priest Abu Sayyef 9
12-Jul Palestine Hamas MPs boycott cancels parliament Fatah-Hamas 9
12-Jul Iran Iran nuclear armed in two years: Israel Iran nuclear 9
12-Jul UK Failed London bombers sentenced to life London/Glasgow attacks 9
12-Jul India car bomb designs on hard drive London/Glasgow attacks 9
12-Jul Pakistan media barred from mosque victims red mosque 9
12-Jul UK al Qa'ida 'to punish' UK over Rushdie Rushdie knighting 9
13-Jul Australia I am not a terrorist: doctor Haneef 1
13-Jul Australia Reasons to hold Haneef stretch thinner by the day Haneef 1
13-Jul Australia politics may have steered course Haneef 2
13-Jul Australia blast car driver not man who applied for health job London/Glasgow attacks 2
13-Jul Australia crunch time for doctor Haneef 2
13-Jul Iraq Iraq team hold together as their land is torn apartAsian cup 3
13-Jul Iraq Iraq bank's $350m theft Iraq 10
13-Jul Iraq Basra blames British for big,bad man-eating…badgersIraq war 10
13-Jul Pakistan Al Qa’ida regroups in Pakistan to pre-9/11 levels al Qa’ida 11
13-Jul Pakistan mosque bodies may be women, kids red mosque 11
13-Jul Libya US ends 35-year Libya freeze US-Libya relationship 11