60 creative lab sbs speaker vivid

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I S S U E
WALKLEY
INSIDE THE
MEDIA IN
AUSTRALIA AND
NEW ZEALAND
83
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MARCH–MAY 2015
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YOUR WORK
Journalism is
under surveillance
Press freedom at
home and abroad
Peter Greste • Quentin Dempster
Philippa McDonald • Joseph Fernandez
Josh Taylor • Brent Edwards • Ward O’Neill
Smart new
mobile tools
• Your must-have mojo kit
• A day in the life of device editors
• BBC fights ebola on WhatsApp
THE PRESS FREEDOM ISSUE – JOIN THE CAMPAIGN – #30DAYS
> CONTACTS
AND PARTNERS
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& Arts Alliance
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PRESS
of press freedom
FREEDOM
AUSTRALIA DINNER 2015
Friday May 1, 2015 • Sydney
www.walkleys.com
EVENT DETAILS
Exposing the corrupt, scrutinising the powerful and
ensuring the public’s right to know is getting harder than
ever. In the Asia Pacific, journalists face grave dangers.
With 39 journalists and media staff murdered in targeted
killings last year, our region is the most dangerous in the
world – but our journalists keep pushing on.
Time: 7.00pm
Show your support at the 2015 Press Freedom Australia
Dinner, hosted by MEAA and The Walkley Foundation and
supported by the International Federation of Journalists.
Hear from veteran investigative reporter and Gold Walkley
award winner Ross Coulthart on how Australia’s national
security regime threatens every journalist.
2 THE WALKLEY MAGAZINE
Date: Friday May 1, 2015
Venue: Ivy Ballroom, Ivy,
320 George Street, Sydney
Keynote speaker:
Ross Coulthart
MC: Sandra Sully
Ross Coulthart
Sandra Sully
Dress: Cocktail attire
Tickets: Media and not-for-profits $140 corporates $300.
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RSVP: FRIDAY APRIL 24, 2015
> STAFF
& CONTRIBUTORS
Editorial
Newsbites
Staff
Editor: Jacqueline Park [email protected]
Commissioning editor: Clare Fletcher
Assistant editor: Lauren Dixon
Editorial staff: Kate Bice, Mike Dobbie,
Megan Stafford
Editorial interns: Jacob Reid, Stephanie Youssef
Subeditors: Lucy Tumanow-West, Jo McKinnon
Cover illustration: Sam Wallman
Design: Louise Summerton
Production management: Magnesium Media
Solicitors: Minter Ellison Lawyers
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this magazine
are not necessarily those of The Walkley Foundation
or the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance.
> OUR
4
6
MEDIA
Connie Levett
Glen Le Lievre
Mark Little
Paddy Manning
Neil Matterson
Stephen Mayne
Malarndirri McCarthy
Philippa McDonald
Hattie O’Donnell
Ward O’Neill
Mark Phillips
David Pope
Ella Rubeli
Peter Sheehan
Greg Smith
Josh Taylor
Sam Wallman
Jane Waterhouse
Andrew Weldon
Cathy Wilcox
Robyn Williams
Jane Worthington
United we stand
By Peter Greste
A tribute to the media community for their support
The Walkley Magazine, the only forum for discussion of media and
professional issues by and for journalists, welcomes contributions from
journalists, artists and photographers. To maintain the tradition and be
worthy of the Walkleys, The Walkley Magazine aims to be a pithy, intelligent
and challenging read, and to stand as a record of interesting news in the
craft and profession of journalism. It is published four times a year and
guidelines for contributors are available on request.
FREEDOM
Security tips the scales against liberty
5
Fishing for metadata aims to net sources
9
Gloves on in fight to hide digital fingerprints
What young women want
10
Inquiry puts spotlight on official
information delays
By Mark Little
Journalists today have a role as the archivists of now
By Jane Waterhouse
The team behind Birdee know there’s much
more to young women than sex and nail polish
Communities of concern create user-pays news
By Dan Fletcher
Beacon connects independent journalism with
crowdfunded support
Watchdog or lapdog?
By Paddy Manning
Have a lack of resources and experience blunted
the teeth of Australian business journalism?
This old dog thrives on new tricks
Secret journos’ business
11
Australian broadcasting sounds the retreat
as Canberra’s cuts bite deep
12
> FOREIGN
35
By Philippa McDonald
Five years on from Ampatuan massacre, journalists
in the Philippines still live in fear
> REVIEWS
23
> TECHNOLOGY
By Ward O’Neill
Memories of camaraderie at a French cartooning
festival, now shadowed by the events of Charlie Hebdo
How Crikey made it to 15 years
By Stephen Mayne
A blurring of the lines between journalism,
whistleblowing and political activism
24
44
38
By Trushar Barot
The BBC embraced WhatsApp to share public
health information in West Africa
40
By Ivo Burum
A comprehensive guide to help you outfit your
mobile journalism toolkit
42
Talking “mobile first” journalism with device
editors from around Australia
By Malarndirri McCarthy
The cultural integrity of First Nations people can’t
be disregarded in newsgathering if black and white
Australians are to better understand one another
> PHOTOJOURNALISM
Black and white scenes, for a life rich
with colour
46
By Eddie Jim
The story, behind a Walkley-winning photo essay
> STORYOLOGY
By Penny Chapman
Even in creating fictional worlds, we must first
plunder the real and know it as intimately as we can
Ebola app creates information lifeline
Small screen, big picture
The mapping of songlines and the telling of news 16
Writing from the inside out
37
By Paul Byrnes
Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ portrait of
Edward Snowden, is revelatory
Tools and toys help you find your inner mojo
LECTURE
By Andy Huang and Hattie O’Donnell
Lessons on storytelling, entrepreneurialism,
technology and culture
33
CORRESPONDENCE
Facing the danger
15
31
By Quentin Dempster
All of a Twitter!
Free speech – a fun but dangerous business
30
By Joseph Fernandez
Whistle while you work
By Ella Rubelli
A visit to US newsrooms inspires awe at the legacy
and adaptability of media
29
By Brent Edwards
21
By Mark Phillips
Unions have been publishers as long as they’ve
existed. Now they’re moving online
28
By Josh Taylor
Creating a ‘town square’ for workers online
> CENTENARY
27
By Mike Dobbie
Witnessing the unwatchable
Everything we learned at Storyology
CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME
> PRESS
By Chris Warren
By Robyn Williams
Science and medicine have always been enormously
popular with audiences
Contributors
Trushar Barot
Peter Broelman
Brian Brownstein
Matt Buchanan
Jon Burton
Ivo Burum
Paul Byrnes
Les Carlyon
Penny Chapman
Jason Chatfield
Quentin Dempster
Andrew Dyson
Brent Edwards
Rod Emmerson
Nonoy Espina
Joseph Fernandez
Dan Fletcher
Lindsay Foyle
Matt Golding
Peter Greste
Andy Huang
Eddie Jim
Mark Knight
> CONTENTS
> PAYING
18
Harry Gordon
> ON
19
TRIBUTE
45
THE COVER
Melbourne-based artist Sam Wallman spies behind
the screen to illustrate our “press freedom under
surveillance” theme. See Sam’s observations from
Storyology on pages 16-17
THE WALKLEY MAGAZINE
3
> EDITORIAL
Working together to make real change for journalists
Christopher Warren stepped down as federal secretary of MEAA on March 31.
This is his farewell editorial
L
ong, long ago in a galaxy far away, a group
of young journalists – cadets and D grades
as we were then – decided that something
had to be done about our union, the
Australian Journalists Association. And
with the arrogance that comes in part from
youth and in part from being on The Sydney
Morning Herald, we decided that we were the
people to do something about it.
We wanted a union that to our mind was more
militant, more prepared to fight for the rights of
journalists both industrially and professionally,
more responsive to the changes that technology was
already bringing to our craft. That push spilled in
to the 1980 general strike – the first national strike
by newspaper journalists. It ran for a month and
very much shaped our attitudes and our union.
One thing led to another and in 1987, I was
elected as federal secretary of the AJA. And now,
28 years later, I’m stepping aside from that role.
Our union is almost unrecognisable from what
it was then. We’ve amalgamated, of course, to
form MEAA as the voice of all Australia’s creative
professionals. We’ve become both a more
centralised union – a national union, rather than
a federation of state branches. At the same time,
we’ve become much more decentralised, with
house committees and delegates and activists
controlling the day to day campaigns.
Our communications back then were based on
land lines, telex machines and post. Recognising
the opportunities of communications technology
has been central to building our union.
One of my first acts as federal secretary was to
install a network of fax machines in our offices.
As a result of that twin approach – using
communications technology and building power
for working journalists – we’ve achieved some
big wins over that time.
Winning the “four weeks for each year of
service” formula for redundancy payments out
of the afternoon newspaper closures made a
significant difference to the lives of journalists.
Fighting to have redundancies voluntary – still
a battle – meant people can make their own
decisions about their lives, rather than having
them made for them.
Between 1985 and 2005, real wages for
journalists increased significantly. At the top
end, this reflected an increased value in the skills
we bring. As demand pushed up rates at the
top, we did two smart things: First, we tried to
capture these higher pays within new rates in our
agreement, and, second, we worked to push up
the starting rate for cadets and what we now call
Grade 1 so that in real terms those rates are now
about double what they were.
It’s a matter of pride that we’re the only
union in the English-speaking world that has
won payments for the secondary copyright
uses of material, either through payments from
the Copyright Agency Limited, through the
annual copyright bonus at Fairfax or through a
component built into the pay at News Ltd.
Thirty years ago, few journalists got access to
superannuation. Now, all employed journalists do
and we have our own $4billion Media Super fund.
Nothing that we’ve achieved over the past 30
or so years has been an individual act. We took
the organisation from where we found it and,
hopefully, take it forward for the next generation.
Our union has always been extraordinarily
lucky in the calibre of its officials. Our founders
in the AJA were people like Bert Cook and Tom
Mutch, the first employed federal secretary
Sid Pratt, who guided the union through the
depression, the world war and the tensions of
the Cold War for 35 years, and my immediate
predecessors, Neal Swancott as federal secretary
and John Lawrence as the federal president.
John deserves the credit for answering the
question that bedevils all creative unions – are
we an industrial organisation or a professional
organisation? John forced the union to accept
that the answer is: Yes. We’re both and both are
inextricably linked.
The senior staff who’ve worked directly with
me as Assistant Federal Secretaries: Anne Giles
and Mark Ryan – the first person I employed
as an industrial officer and who later served as
Assistant Federal Secretary until he died in 2011.
Over that time I’ve worked with literally
hundreds of great people and I’m sorry not to be
able to mention them all.
The senior employed staff taking over
responsibility for the union – led by our new
CEO Paul Murphy – together with the staff
we employ around Australia should make us
all confident that this union of ours will keep
going from strength to strength. As the Duke of
Wellington said of his army at Waterloo: I don’t
know what they do to the enemy, but by God
they frighten me!
The other thing that makes our union great is
the calibre of the volunteer honorary officers who
give up their time to bring their ideas and energy
to the union. They’re the people the Tories mean
when they talk about union thugs. But they’re the
people who make the union what it is.
Again, there are too many to acknowledge by
name, so a few key categories and people.
Among the senior officers of the AJA and, now
the Media section of MEAA, we’ve been blessed
with long-term continuity in our senior activists
– Alan Kennedy, Ruth Pollard, Tom Burton, Jane
Singleton, Philippa McDonald and the recently
re-elected team of Gina McColl, Michael Janda
and our current President Stuart Washington –
all terrific journalists and great activists whose
strategic and tactical sense has been invaluable to
me and to our union.
And my first Federal President and the longest
serving Barry Porter – a great figure in our craft,
great sense of humour, a great mate.
One of my proudest organisational
achievements has been building the Walkleys
from a relatively sedate dinner into a year-round
program promoting great Australian journalism.
We’ve had some outstanding staff in the
Walkleys, led by Executive Director Jacqui Park
and great commitment and work of journalists
to the program led by Walkley Board chairs –
Tom Burton, Paul Bailey, Malcolm Farr, Laurie
Oakes and Quentin Dempster.
The other major organisational achievement
has been our engagement with the International
Federation of Journalists including establishing
and building the IFJ Asia Pacific office which we
host in our office in Sydney. They do great work
every day to advance the rights of journalists
around our region.
It was a great honour to me to be the first
– and still only – non-European president of
the International Federation of Journalists and
I always appreciated the support I received in
that role from the members, officers and staff of
MEAA. Some of the people I’ve met through that
work have been simply inspiring. They taught me
that journalists will always place themselves at the
centre of the struggle for democracy and freedom
of expression, whatever the cost.
These are difficult times for our craft and
for our union. We’ve lost jobs and we’ve lost
opportunities.
But what hasn’t changed is the commitment
of journalists to our craft and our union. And
I’m confident that the journalist community will
grasp the opportunities that the future holds out
to us to shape the 21st century in new media,
just as we did the 20th century with the old.
Christopher Warren
Federal secretary, MEAA
> OUR
MEDIA
United we stand
Al Jazeera’s Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy were awarded the Royal Television Society of the UK’s Judges’
Award in recognition of their “outstanding contribution to the advancement of television journalism”. In his acceptance speech,
Greste paid tribute to everyone in the media community who helped campaign for the three journalists’ release.
T
SAM WALLMAN
his award isn’t a surprise of course – we knew
about it even before I was released from
prison a few weeks ago. But my heart is still
beating as though I just ran here from Cairo.
I speak for all three of us – Baher, Fahmy
and me – when I tell you that we are truly honoured
and humbled to receive this award. There are the
usual thank yous of course – to the judges and our
extraordinary families who’ve been through hell
and back. But there are also a few other points I’d
like to make while I’ve got a platform.
We journalists are a cranky, cantankerous lot.
We are almost impossible to organise. We are by
nature argumentative. We’d much rather compete
than cooperate. And in fact about the only time we
ever move in the same direction is when there is a
bar in the room.
And yet, throughout our detention, the
media have somehow abandoned the habits and
instincts of a lifetime to line up behind us in an
extraordinary way.
I’m not a student of media history, so I really
can’t say it with any certainty, but I’d be willing
to bet that journalists have never united around
a single common cause in the way that they have
ours. I know how important it has been.
For us, in prison, of course we knew a bit about
it. We were aware of some of the demonstrations;
we’d heard about the zip-the-lips campaign and
the letters. We knew the subject was consistently
coming up in news conferences and interviews.
And most surprisingly, some of our most vocal
supporters were Al Jazeera’s direct rivals, such as
CNN and the BBC, who’d normally rather eat their
own babies than acknowledge the opposition.
At a personal level, it was hugely empowering. It
helped put rods of steel into our spines, because we
came to understand that this was about something
far bigger than the three of us alone. It was about
the universal principles of freedom of expression,
about the public’s right to know. And we knew you
were right there with us.
But I also know that we really had no idea of just
how extraordinarily broad and unified that sense of
purpose turned out to be.
This matters not just because of the impact on us
and our case. Right now, the very idea of a free press
is increasingly under attack from everyone, from
groups who take the heads off journalists through
“I’m not a student of media history,
so I really can’t say it with any
certainty, but I’d be willing to bet
that journalists have never united
around a single common cause in the
way that they have ours.”
to individuals who shoot up a magazine office in
Paris or a free-speech conference in Denmark, to
governments trying to limit the scope of our work
with draconian legislation.
What you did was serve notice on anyone who
would attack those most fundamental principles
that we are united. You made it clear that these
are things we are prepared to fight for as one. And
whatever happens from here, we must not lose that
extraordinary singular voice.
The other point I’d like to talk about is just
how honoured Baher, Fahmy and I feel to be
supported by some of the most impressive
professionals in the industry.
After all, the plain fact is that in Cairo, we were
doing nothing particularly radical or extraordinary.
Our work was, I’d have to admit, pretty pedestrian.
But that was because given the environment at the
time, we knew we needed to play it safe. We quite
deliberately avoided the boundaries.
But I’ve come to realise that amongst the gongs
for genius, our community also needs to celebrate
the banal. I don’t mean to be self-deprecating here.
Quite the opposite. Remember – we are the media
– the means by which information flows. When
we are doing our jobs properly and freely, we allow
a healthy society to talk to itself. The conversations
are not always particularly dignified or edifying and
at times they aren’t even especially rational. But in
the same way that a family works out its differences
and holds itself together by talking and arguing and
getting to know one another, so the media helps
keep our society from falling apart.
I know a lot of people would argue that social
media has taken over that role, but we’ve learned
rather tragically that social media tends to create
silos. Small fringe groups retreat from the centre,
talking only amongst themselves, becoming ever
more radical as they become more isolated. So
if any part of the community is cut off… if we
are denied the opportunity to include everyone
in those often rather ordinary stories and
conversations… if we can’t question and challenge
and involve everyone, I think we run the very
serious risk of our societies becoming not more
unified but more fragmented.
So, although this might seem rather counterintuitive, I’d like to accept this award not only on
behalf of Baher and Fahmy, who’ve stood up and
defended the principles of press freedom with
courage and determination, but also for the 99 per
cent of us who didn’t come up here tonight. Because
that routine and generally unrecognised work that
we all do is also worth celebrating and fighting for.
(See more at www.rts.org.uk)
Peter Greste is a journalist for Al Jazeera. He
won the 2014 Walkley Award for Outstanding
Contribution to Journalism
STOP
#30Days
SPYING ON
JOURNALISTS of press freedom
f /30DaysOfPressFreedom
#30Days
5
> NEWSBITES
Digital streams bring new responsibilities for journalists
Katharine Viner has been guaranteed a place on
the shortlist of candidates to succeed Guardian
editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger later this year,
after winning a staff ballot.
Editorial staff at Guardian News and Media
– which publishes the Guardian and Observer
newspapers, and theguardian.com, Guardian US
and Guardian Australia websites – were invited
to vote.
Viner received 438 votes. Emily Bell, director
of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at
Columbia University and former Guardian
and Observer editor, received 188 votes. Janine
Gibson, editor-in-chief of theguardian.com,
received 175 votes.
The final decision will be made by Guardianowner the Scott Trust, which will announce later
this month who will be added to the shortlist of
candidates to succeed Rusbridger when he steps
down later this year to become its chairman.
Though it is uncommon for newspapers to
allow staff to vote for who they work for, it isn’t
unheard of. Le Monde, a daily evening French
newspaper, announced in 2013 that staff had
voted Natalie Nougayrède to be its first female
director and editor-in-chief. Nougayrède received
80 per cent of the votes from the newspaper’s 450
journalists, only needing 60 per cent.
Viner is the current editor-in-chief of
Guardian US and deputy editor of Guardian
worldwide. She launched Guardian Australia in
2013 as its editor-in-chief.
- Stephanie Youssef
The panel also discussed the new
responsibilities attached to delivering quality
journalism, especially after the Martin Place siege.
“The new means of delivery brings on us
responsibilities we’ve never had before,” awardwinning author Madonna King said.
“It’s balancing fears. You don’t want to censor
something but you don’t want to cause someone’s
death,” she said.
While there are many dangers and ethical
dilemmas facing journalists as we head into a new
digitally-charged, intensely surveyed era, the panel
offered optimistic views.
“There is huge, huge potential,” Fernandez said.
“The more governments try to constrain the flow
of information, to massage the message that gets
out there, I think the more the opportunities for
journalism there are.”
You can hear a podcast of the discussion
at Curtin University, and our most recent
Future Friday talk with Sydney Morning Herald
innovation editor Stephen Hutcheon and
Jonathan Richards from Google Creative Lab at
Walkleys.com/podcast.
-Jacob Reid / Megan Stafford
Journalism discussions at Sydney Writers’ Festival
Leading journalists and Walkley-winners will
take the stage once again at Sydney Writers’
Festival this May. Check out one of two
Walkley Foundation panels:
When journalists become the news
(Sunday, May 24)
It’s a cliché, but true stories are often stranger
and more compelling than anything a
novelist could invent. But what happens
when you’re no longer just telling the story,
you are the story? Join leading journalists
Sarah Dingle, Peter Lloyd and Maxine
McKew as they discuss the difficult and often
emotional journey of putting themselves
under the spotlight in order to tell the other
side of the story.
Activism vs apathy: Politics, social media
and journalism (Friday, May 22)
From the Twittersphere to clicktivism and
citizen journalist bloggers – it has never been easier for citizens to be politically informed
and make their voices heard online. Around the world we’re seeing social media spark
activism, and yet in the developed world there’s a malaise of cynicism with our political
systems. How are journalists bridging the divide between social-media fuelled activism
and general disenfranchisement with politics? Join political journalists Latika Bourke,
Mark Di Stefano and Alex McKinnon in discussion with Christopher Warren
as moderator.
Both talks are free to attend; more details at swf.org.au.
Cartoon by Matt Golding
Women dominate staff ballot for
Guardian leadership
The Walkley Foundation’s new
talk series, Future Fridays,
kicked off in February at
Perth’s Curtin University, with
a stellar panel of Madonna
King, Brett McCarthy, Dr
Joseph Fernandez and Geraldine Doogue as
moderator.
Editor of The West Australian, Brett McCarthy
spoke about the newly integrated SevenWest
newsroom, and said commercial media’s revenue
model is broken. McCarthy attributed the “serious
dents” to being caught up in the race to publish a
story first.
“I think one of the big dangers that we face is
being caught up in the moment, the now, and not
giving our people time to look more broadly and
really do things in depth and do them properly,”
McCarthy said.
“We can be so wound up in the minute by
minute and trying to be the first person to publish
something on a website, or the first person to
tweet it, that it’s come down to seconds,” he said.
The panel debated the profitability of
newsrooms vying for a slice of the constant stream
of content and the importance of paying welltrained journalists.
“Good journalistic content is not cheap to
produce,” Curtin University’s Head of Journalism
Joseph Fernandez said.
“You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”
Australian portrait on top of the world
A 26-year-old Australian
woman from regional
NSW has won one of the
world’s top photography
prizes, winning the
portrait category at
the 2015 World Press
Photo awards. Now
based in Brisbane, and
a member of the Oculi
photographers collective,
Raphaela Rosella was the
only Australian finalist in
the awards.
Rosella’s winning
portrait is of Laurinda, a
young Kamilaroi girl from
Moree, New South Wales.
The photo was taken
outside her family home,
as she waited for the bus
to Sunday School.
“I have been
photographing Laurinda
and her family since she
was two,” Rosella said.
“She usually poses with
duck lips and hands on
her hips but when she
covered her face with
her dress and stood still
I knew the image was
going to be special.” See
more of Rosella’s work at
www.raphaelarosella.com
Kick-start your career with the Jacoby-Walkley Scholarship
Bright journalism students with an interest in television
reporting – don’t miss the opportunity to apply for this
year’s Jacoby-Walkley Scholarship. The scholarship includes
at eight-week placement at the Nine Network and four
weeks at the Walkley Foundation in Sydney, plus a course at
the Australian Film TV & Radio School (AFTRS).
One of the two 2014 scholarship winners, Kirrily
Schwartz, is now working at Nine.
“The Scholarship helped me kick-start my career in a way
I had only dreamed about. After my internship, I was offered
a job in the Nine newsroom. It’s a very exciting and dynamic
place to be, giving me the chance to develop my skills by
learning from some of the industry’s best.”
The Scholarship was established in 2013 with the generous
support of Anita Jacoby, who wanted to recognise the legacy
of her father Phillip Jacoby – a pioneer in the Australian
electronics and broadcast industry who sought the truth
behind every story.
Anita, who has worked as a journalist, producer and
manager for every major television network and now heads
ITV in Australia, has financed the ongoing scholarship for
students aged 26 and under.
Applications close April 28, and winners will be
announced, along with the Walkley Young Australian
Journalist of the Year Awards, in July. Applications open
now at Walkleys.com.
7
> NEWSBITES
Is the next big thing in Australian journalism in this list?
Publishing platforms, marketplaces for producers and
freelancers, and dynamic storytelling projects about
refugees are among the standout proposals for the
second year of the Walkley Grants for Innovation in
Journalism. In March we proudly announced a long
list of 20 projects, which will go on to compete for
$70,000 in seed funding for innovative media projects.
The outstanding projects were selected from
more than 100 contenders by a panel of judges from
Australia and the US, representing experience in
media, entrepreneurialism and innovation: James
Kirby, managing editor of Eureka Report; Ramin
Marzbani, leading technology, internet and financial
services analyst; Jigar Mehta, digital entrepreneur and
current head of engagement at AJ+; and Jacqui Park,
executive director of the Walkley Foundation.
All four judges agreed that the standard of
applications was incredibly high, making their decision
very difficult.
“Technological innovation in journalism continues
to shape this important landscape, and the level of
innovation for the second year in a row is on par with
the best in the world,” said judge Ramin Marzbani.
“The focused support for innovation by the Walkley
Foundation has drawn out a broad range of proposals
for innovation, too many of which are deserving of
support.”
Congratulations to the long-listed projects:
• Yaara Bou Melhem, “UrStories”: A voter-based story
initiative where the public decides which stories
they want covered and take part in the storytelling
process.
• Karina Brindley & team, “Elevate Business Leaders
Forum”: A platform for regional business leaders to
share their business journey in a digital story format.
• Giordana Caputo & Nicola Joseph, “Producers’
Marketplace”: An online marketplace for
independent content makers to showcase and
distribute their content, obtain peer and audience
reviews, and network with stations/media outlets/
community organisations and arts organisations
seeking innovative content to publish or broadcast.
• Chart Collective team, “Chart Collective”: An
online multimedia platform that plots stories of
place and environment on an interactive Australian
map, featuring content from a range of locations,
disciplines and communities.
• Jay Cooper, Nick Cooper & Veronica Ridge,
“ISSIMO.IO”: A sophisticated yet simple digital
platform that enables journalists without technical
or marketing skills to edit and publish a viable
digital publication.
• Eve Fisher, “Student News Online”: An educational,
online publishing platform for schools to create
student-run newspapers, with students learning
Walkley Grants
for Innovation in Journalism
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
the fundamentals, best practices and technological
aspects of online journalism.
Charlotte Harper, “Editia”: Editia will work with
journalists to publish expanded versions of their
in-depth feature articles as standalone publications
in ebook form or via print on demand.
Nicola Harvey & Naima Lynch, “The Foundry
Network”: A transmedia production network and
freelance marketplace aiming to leverage the power
of technology to enrich Australian journalistic visual
storytelling for media organisations.
Andrew Hunter, Hal Crawford & Dom Filipovic,
“Like-a-lytics”: A new proprietary social analytics
service for journalists across Australia and the world
showing trending news stories using data from Share
Wars’ Likeable Engine.
Kristofor Lawson, “Coporter”: A story and contact
management application that allows reporters to
keep track of their story data, notes and sources
securely in the cloud.
Que Minh Luu & Gabriel Clark, “Radio with
Pictures”: A multimedia collision of radio feature
making and comic books journalism, produced for
an online platform.
Rose Powell, “News crawler”: News crawler is a
software that crawls federal government, agency and
MP websites aiming to track FOI disclosures, report
or document uploads and any copy changes.
Courtney Sanders & Laura-Jade Harries,
“MyCatalogue”: A fashion and culture content
platform, monetised via a state-of-the-art
e-commerce affiliate program that supports local,
independent fashion designers.
Bonnie Shaw & FYA team, “Make it Mobile”: A
digital platform and weekly Multimedia Text
Messaging Service (MTMS) with all content created
by young journalists, for young people.
Smart Company team, “From Refugee to
entrepreneur”: An interactive data-driven
multimedia site telling the story of the refugees
behind Australia’s small businesses through maps,
photographs, timelines, videos and text.
2015 WALKLEY
BOOK AWARD
ENTRIES
OPEN
MAY 4
• Melissa Sweet & the Croakey team, “Croakey”:
Transforming the Croakey blog into a global
leader in innovative health journalism, improving
its capacity to provide a public service and to
contribute to informed, engaged debate and healthy
democracy.
• Sue Swinburne, Dr John Shearer & Dr Patrick
Dickinson, “Droplet”: A geo-located, innovative
story sharing app enabling users to consume as well
as “drop” their own short, engaging and provocative
audio anecdotes via their mobile phones.
• Alexandra Wake & Barbara Heggen, “Hyper Local
Cinema”: Harking back to the news reels of the past,
the team plan to create hyperlocal news stories to
show in independent cinemas, starting with a pilot
at The Sun, in Yarraville, Melbourne.
• Bev Wilkinson, Jeana Wong & Melissa Haber,
“Celebrate Living History”: An internship program
offering journalism students the opportunity to
document stories for their portfolio and develop
interviewing skills with older generations.
• Judy Wilkinson, “AustraliaMEDIAfirst.com”: A
recruitment website to link overseas companies
with Australian freelance journalists, designers and
photographers.
These 20 projects will go on to attend a development
workshop, and will compete for a pool of $70,000 in
seed funding from program partners Google Australia
and Copyright Agency Limited’s Cultural Fund. The
development program will also include support from
the Walkley Foundation’s innovation legal partners,
General Standards Startup Lawyers.
This grants program is central to the Walkleys’
mission to encourage and support innovation in the
Australian media. Executive director Jacqui Park said
the response to the grants continues to be a testament
to the talent of Australian journalists.
“It’s time we saw more journalists in the driver’s
seat of innovation in Australia, and we look forward to
helping these promising entrepreneurs connect with
a supporting community and the resources they need
to succeed.”
Illustration by
Simon Letch
Visit www.walkleys.com for further details
> OUR
MEDIA
Witnessing the unwatchable
In the new reality of terrorism and propaganda on social media, the value of journalism as a means of separating news from noise has never been
more vital, says Mark Little from news agency Storyful. Illustration by Andrew Dyson
N
o human being should have to bear witness to
the execution of another. But my colleagues
at Storyful have been living with that
obligation for years, as they process and parse
increasingly brutal imagery from across the
social web. And yet nothing prepared us for the
killing of Muath al Kasaesbeh, the Jordanian pilot
burned alive in an act of almost cinematic evil.
My colleagues Jenny Hauser and Eliza
Mackintosh have both written powerful posts about
the wider issues arising from the killing, and now
I am writing from a deeply personal perspective,
motivated by my profound impotence as a witness
and possible irrelevance as a journalist.
I’m not alone in feeling a sharp reminder
of a new reality, in which reporters have been
dislodged as the ultimate arbiters of our collective
understanding of the world. “Thanks to the
ubiquity of social media,” wrote social media
strategist Andy Carvin, “it matters less what
mainstream media chooses to do, as everyone
online now has the capacity to view footage
selectively, by their own accord.”
Clearly, that doesn’t absolve journalists, and it
certainly doesn’t make them irrelevant. We have
a critical, if poorly understood, place in the spread
of information and images on the social web. The
value of journalism, as a means of separating news
from noise, has never been more vital.
History tells us that revolutionary shifts in
communication bring upheaval. People cope with
uncertainty by turning against those who disagree.
The rise of the printing press heralded one of the
most violent and chaotic periods in human history,
as Nate Silver points out in his book The Signal
and the Noise. “We face danger,” he writes,
“whenever information growth outpaces
our understanding of how to process it.”
Today, the value of journalism is in
the management of an overabundance of
information. Reporters no longer own the story.
Their job is to help filter a flood of competing
narratives and to connect the most authentic voices
to the widest possible audience.
They must also understand the historical
significance of the rise of the eyewitness. What
we couldn’t see, we couldn’t be held responsible
for – but no more. The smartphone now
bears witness to war, genocide and systematic
oppression with unprecedented authenticity,
if not always with consistency or impact.
Journalists have an obligation to
build a historical record from an
incomprehensible amount of content.
Future generations will not forgive us
if we don’t embrace our role as the
archivists of now.
The killing of Muath al Kasaesbeh
is a case in point. A mission-driven group
of experienced journalists watched his
murder so others did not have to. In cataloguing
every detail, they played the role of digital coroner,
guaranteeing that the record of this crime will stand
the test of time and, perhaps in some future court
of justice, meet the standard of evidence.
To do justice to this task, the most barbaric video
must be preserved in some permanent form. Those
of us who have spent years curating social video
can testify to the impermanence of YouTube videos,
which can disappear for countless reasons. History
requires us to download, archive and protect.
But what about an obligation to distribute? Do
journalists have a responsibility to share what they
The killing of Muath al Kasaesbeh is a
case in point. A mission-driven group
of experienced journalists watched his
murder so others did not have to. In
cataloguing every detail, they played
the role of digital coroner.
see in real-time? I believe the answer is no.
Journalists play the role of connector, helping
the most authentic sources reach the audience
they deserve. They can also be the carrier, patient
zero for a virulent strain of hate. The one thing
they are not is the sole eyewitness to an event.
They can no longer hide their choices behind an
outdated duty to expose an unseen truth.
“Without communication,” said Marshall
McLuhan, “terrorism would not exist.”
The utility of terror is in direct relationship
to the numbers who witness it. The rapidly
evolving literature of online jihad is explicit
in its embrace of “propaganda by deed”.
In the words of one prominent jihadi, the
“keyboard equals Kalashnikov”.
Today, propaganda is packaged in self-contained
spectacles with a cinematic sensibility. The expert
edits taking us from the sombre, dignified face of
Muath al Kasaesbeh to the gasoline-soaked torch
of the executioner. The foreboding is sharpened
by a carefully calibrated pause.
The journalist who has watched, catalogued and
contextualised this savage ritual has done their
job. Any further action makes them complicit in
a unique form of social terrorism.
Some journalists feel obliged to confront their
audience with the graphic reality of terror. But
if they have reported from war zones or natural
disasters, they will know images of death are a
Schedule 1 narcotic whose impact is lessened every
time it is administered. The more we journalists
seek to shock in the service of truth, the deeper we
sink into irrelevance. The more we compete for
attention, the less chance we have of earning it.
The propaganda of the death cult is not
ours to share. But neither is it ours to ban.
We cannot choke off what Margaret Thatcher
once called the “oxygen of publicity”.
We couldn’t if we tried. The social web has
made sure of that.
Yet, while journalists no
longer have the right to tell us
what to watch, they do have
new obligations. The growth
of information has long since outstripped
our capacity to process it. If journalism
is to remain relevant, it must give its users the
ability to make choices in the face of unlimited
choice. It must help humanity – and future
generations of humanity – understand the savagery
that killed a man called Muath al Kaseasbeh. But
it must also free us of the obligation to witness his
death through the eyes of his murderers.
Mark Little is founder and director of innovation
at social news agency Storyful, which originally
published this story; @marklittlenews, Storyful.com
Andrew Dyson is a cartoonist and illustrator for
The Age
9
> OUR
MEDIA
What young women want
Jane Waterhouse is hugely optimistic about the current generation of young women and the Birdee magazine brand
I
n 2013, Birdee was born out of sheer frustration
with young women’s magazines. Call it an antimag or an antidote for a generation of young
women that are so remarkably different to their
mothers, and yet no major publisher seems to
have noticed them.
Never has there been a generation more educated,
more socially aware, more globally connected than
millennials. The gaping hole left between Dolly and
Girlfriend magazines (that talk boy bands, modelling
contests and nail polish) and Cosmo and Cleo (that
focus on grooming young women to be more
attractive and sexually available for the men in their
lives), was an opportunity for us at We Magazines.
The editorial of these magazines assumes
that a young woman’s self-esteem and security is
dependent on her success with boys, or how fashionforward she is. They have a place (although as the
latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures show,
that place is quickly being abandoned), and young
women will always be interested in sex and nail
polish, but we believed there was more to this
generation – much more.
It seemed to us that many of the magazines aimed
at young women were perpetuating the ‘girl problem’.
Looking at the generation of women we talk to at
The Hoopla (women 40+), we saw alarming statistics
around domestic violence, homelessness, the gender
pay gap, and a lack of female representation across
the board, and we often questioned whether we
were progressing at all.
Our decision to launch Birdeemag.com was
not about abandoning the Boomer generation of
The Hoopla, but about turning our focus toward
young women, where we felt real change was possible.
When I embarked on our research into this
demographic, I was personally a little cynical, and
expected to be underwhelmed by their priorities and
interests. Always one to hire people who are smarter
than me, I put my faith in our potential editor
Hayley Gleeson – a remarkable young woman who
challenged my views every day.
We held good old focus groups; we followed
girls on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram;
we followed global trends and we watched how
10 T H E W A L K L E Y M A G A Z I N E
Never has there been a generation
more educated, more socially
aware, more globally connected than
young millennials.
the success of Lena Dunham’s TV show Girls was
galvanising young women (and is diametrically
opposed to Sex and the City which defined the
generation before them).
We listened really closely, and what we heard
was a hunger for social change and gender equality
– a passion so refreshing that suddenly I realised
these girls were more motivating and intimidatingly
smart than any Australian politician currently
in the media.
Passion is one thing, but talent is another, and
these girls could write with humour, intelligence,
authenticity and unbridled freedom that left me
more hopeful for women than I had ever been.
Hillary Clinton was the one who said the business
of the 21st century is women, and Birdee was
born as a raft to carry this new breed of women
into new waters.
Our job as publishers is to keep giving them
a voice – a place where their political opinions,
expressions of feminism, sexual interests, passion for
thrifty fashion, and love of food, mental health issues
and magnificent art can be showcased and adored.
Birdeemag.com and the more recently released
Birdee Newspaper are globally unique. More than
130,000 women read the site from over 50 different
countries every month, but our greatest following
outside of Australia is in the US.
As for the business model, the newspaper has
a cover price of $4 and the website content is free.
Native, sponsorship and display advertising packages
on both mediums have attracted brands from the
following categories so far – book publishers, arts
and entertainment, giftware, health food, feminine
hygiene, online fashion, education.
The cover of a newspaper, like any magazine, has
to work hard. At Birdee, we have a very simple, antimagazine cover philosophy: beauty in a different way.
We believe that our cover star’s body and clothing
are less important than her story and her mind. We
are determined not to get caught up in cleavages,
heavy make-up and retouching, and instead feature
fascinating young women in all their rawness in the
hope that today’s young women will know that of
themselves: that they are enough.
As every cover of Birdee Newspaper reminds
readers, our publication is: “A place to be clever, to
laugh, to stand up for what you believe in, to feel
good about being yourself.”
Long may Hayley and the girls do just that.
Jane Waterhouse is CEO and publisher at
We Magazines
> OUR
MEDIA
Communities of concern create user-pays news
Dan Fletcher shows how his Beacon concept works with the crowdfunding of a reporter to cover the protests in Ferguson, Missouri
L
ast July, protests began in Ferguson, Missouri, after
a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed
black man. In time, these protests would grow into
a movement and an international story. But they
started as local unrest – which was largely ignored
by press outside of Missouri.
At Beacon, we’re not editors. We don’t assign stories.
Instead, we ask readers to support coverage they find
important. And very quickly, in the Ferguson protests’
first days, readers told us they’d pitch in for a reporter
on the ground. They had the sense, even before
the mainstream media, that something important
was happening in Ferguson. And they’d be willing
to pay to find out more.
Very quickly, we were able to put together more than
US$4000 to secure a few days of reporting from the
ground. Four reporters provided their supporters with
daily updates and photos, far before any national news
crews arrive. But when police grew more
aggressive in their use of tear gas and rubber
bullets, the attention on Ferguson grew into
a media spectacle. Now readers didn’t need
to make sure someone was in Ferguson for
the protests – rather, they wanted to ensure
someone remained behind long after the
film crews left.
So, in tandem with The Huffington Post,
we scaled up our efforts. Rather than funding
a few days of reporting, we wanted to see
if readers would fund an entire year. The
response was overwhelming. In just a few
weeks, nearly 700 readers came together
to fund a full year’s stipend, which was used to hire
journalist Mariah Stewart. Now, The Huffington Post
is the only national news organisation with a full-time
reporter on the ground in Ferguson.
For us at Beacon, this was the clearest indication yet
that we were on to something. We started Beacon in
September 2013 because we felt that so many stories
are under-served. We know reporters want to write
them. We know an audience wants to read them. What’s
missing is the resources to support their production.
This disconnect occurs because journalism is
supported by a lousy model. Advertising incentivises
content that attracts the most eyeballs. And in an online
environment with unlimited inventory, advertising rates
seldom reach above a few dollars for a thousand views.
Publishers are pitted against each other in a race to the
bottom, spending more money chasing page-views by
lowering quality and appealing to the broadest common
denominator. The winners are often those willing to
stoop the lowest.
So much gets lost in this model, and it runs contrary
to the hopes of the early internet. The web was supposed
to make it so that anyone with an idea or a story could
find their tribe. But when we’re beholden to stories
for the masses alone, those communities never get
a chance to form.
What’s great about crowdfunding is that it creates an
impetus for these communities to form. Forget likes and
retweets – there’s no greater signal of whether someone
finds something valuable than their willingness to
The notion of an editor is abstracted a bit. Rather than one
gatekeeper, crowdfunding appeals to many. Readers decide,
a dollar or two at a time, whether a story should exist.
contribute a few bucks to the cause. What once was the
solitary pursuit of a lone journalist, producing a story
for an audience that was opaque to them, becomes
something more collaborative. The journalist isn’t
producing for nameless, faceless readers or the Facebook
hive mind. They’re producing for a group of people who
are passionate enough about a topic to invest in it.
That, of course, is the utopian view of crowdfunding.
In practice, it takes a bit more work than that.
Successfully raising funding from an audience is more
involved than posting a quick pitch on Beacon and
hoping people find it. It requires carefully reasoning
through what the value of the story is to an audience.
It takes being willing to stump on your story’s behalf,
whether that’s by sharing your pitch on social media or
sending it around via email. And finally, once you receive
your funding, it requires actually delivering on your
promise and sticking to your self-set deadline.
None of this, though, is radically different than
the process journalists go through in a newsroom
every day. To get a story published in a traditional
newspaper or magazine, you still have to pitch it to
an editor and you still have to stick to your deadline.
But with crowdfunding online, the notion of an
editor is abstracted a bit. Rather than one gatekeeper,
crowdfunding appeals to many. Readers decide, a dollar
or two at a time, whether a story should exist.
When we started Beacon we imagined our site
being a home to crowdfunded stories from all over the
world. But as we grew, we learned that readers were less
concerned about Beacon being that home base. Instead,
they wanted the stories that they fund to be read as
broadly as possible. That’s why we’ve been careful to be
as writer-friendly as possible. We encourage writers to
double-dip. There’s no reason a story funded through
Beacon can’t be sold to a magazine or newspaper,
too. Backers love when that happens, because they’ve
created even more impact. And increasingly, we’re
building more partnerships with more publications to
ensure writers who get funding through Beacon can
reach an even broader crowd.
We’ve been fortunate to have more than 250 writers
and publications get funding through Beacon so far,
but there’s still much more to do. In the next year, we’ll
start experimenting with topic-based pools of funding,
so readers can contribute to areas of interest that they
feel are underrepresented. We’ll do more internationally,
including in Australia, to learn how different audiences
respond to crowdfunding around the world. And
we’ll start experimenting more with video, audio and
photography, to learn how funding and distribution can
work for different types of storytellers.
Ensuring the sustainability of important journalism
online is a big problem, and there’s no single solution.
But what the advertising model delivers us isn’t good
enough. We think crowdfunding can be a pillar of how
stories get funded and distributed in the next decade.
Dan Fletcher is a co-founder of Beacon and was
previously the managing editor of Facebook
11
> OUR
MEDIA
Watchdog or lapdog?
Paddy Manning takes stock of the state of Australian business journalism. Artwork by Peter Sheehan
A
ustralian investors lost billions in the global
financial crisis. Despite spirited debate in the
US about the role of the media in the GFC,
here it’s a different story. While there has been
justified finger-pointing at the scammers,
planners, bankers, liquidators and the corporate
regulator, there is one key player that has so far
escaped much criticism: Australia’s business press.
University of Melbourne lecturer and former
journalist Andrea Carson has studied business stories
published in Australian newspapers over the last
50 years. In her paper, published in the Australian
Journal of Political Science, she concluded: “The
scrutiny of the corporate and financial sector by
Australia’s daily broadsheets diminished and was
commensurate with newspapers’ political-economic
environment, characterised by falling revenues,
decreased print circulations and staff cutbacks.”
Veteran finance journalist Trevor Sykes, author
of Six Months of Panic: How the global financial crisis
hit Australia, defends his profession, saying that “of
all the people you could throw rocks at – the banks
who lend the money, directors who run the company,
the regulators – the business media are the only ones
who don’t have any official role whatsoever.”
At the same time, he believes Australia’s business
media was more credulous in the lead-up to the
latest financial crisis than it was ahead of the 1980s
stockmarket crash.
“In 1987 in Australia, the collapse here involved
people like Alan Bond, Christopher Skase and various
others who had been criticised in the press… there
were plenty of warning bells there. I think there
was more scepticism at that stage in the rest of the
press as well. This time around though it whacked
us on the bottom a bit. We didn’t see how far all
the counterparty risk was going to go.”
Research by Sophie Knowles, Gail Phillips and
Johan Lidberg (The framing of the Global Financial
Crisis 2005-08: a cross country comparison of the
US, UK and Australia) found a tendency here and in
England to see the financial crisis, at least initially, as
an American import. Sykes himself admits as much,
saying at first he thought the sub-prime crunch was “a
Yank problem”.
The lesson may be that Australian business
journalism is too parochial given that recent busts,
from the ’87 crash to the tech wreck to the financial
crisis, have all started overseas. “Maybe we should
spend a lot more time looking at what’s happening
globally than we do here. But the punters out there
aren’t really interested in the grand sweep – what they
want to know is how to make a quid next week.”
Adele Ferguson, who joined The Australian as
a columnist at the peak of the boom in early 2007
after more than a decade at Business Review Weekly,
and was on the front lines before and during the
crisis, is similarly reluctant to ‘fail’ Australian
business journalism:
“I know myself, writing about private equity,
there was some scepticism… [but] the critical
stuff tends to get drowned out. Just like the dotcom
boom, your perceptions change. Greenspan
talked about ‘irrational exuberance’ at the time.
Right now, how often have we read that we’ve
got a property boom and the bubble will burst?
But it’s kept going for years.”
Until the tide goes out, it can be difficult for the
journalist – no matter how skilled – to see where the
rocks are. But Fairfax Media business writer Michael
West, who wrote the Margin Call column at The
Australian from 1999 until 2007, says that’s the job.
“I wrote about the first CDOs – it was Deutsche
Bank’s NEXUS notes, I think – because I had a fund
manager ring me up and say, ‘I don’t know exactly
what it is, but this is going to be trouble, you can just
tell’. They looked like a great de-risking product, but
of course in the end they became ever more complex
and leveraged and could never be unwound. Look at
the most complex things, that’s where the rocks are.”
A common argument is that business journalists
are failing, partly because the diminishing resources of
media outlets and increasing pace and complexity of
financial markets leave them ill-equipped to scrutinise
Gideon Haigh, also a celebrated cricket writer,
is scathing about the quality of business writing,
telling Crikey that there are few memorable
wordsmiths. “I like peppery Michael West and shrewd
Adele Ferguson, but I wouldn’t go to the business
section for the promise of scintillating prose.” For
example, said Haigh, “it’s really pretty scandalous
how poor the writing is about BHP … that’s a bit of
a reflection on the quality of business journalism,
the fact that our biggest corporation tends to get
written about as though it descended from the sky
five minutes ago.” Haigh fears business reporting here
has fallen into a narrow rut, becoming “safe as milk”
and failing to do justice to stories that are every bit as
exciting as those in sport or politics or the arts.
A loss of experienced hands-on finance desks is
partly to blame for the dull copy, according to Haigh.
“When I worked at The Age one of the important
influences on my writing was the fact that the
business section had its own dedicated subs desk…
and if they had a problem with anything you wrote,
they called you over and they taxed you about
Still, none of the half-dozen top business journalists I interviewed believed
that financial qualifications or industry experience were necessary
to become an effective business journalist. Most important were the
fundamental attributes of any journalist: curiosity, fact-checking, and the
determination to keep digging to get to the bottom of a story.
companies, unlikely to detect financial irregularities and
over-reliant on experts like broking analysts. Still, none
of the half-dozen top business journalists I interviewed
believed that financial qualifications or industry
experience were necessary to become an effective
business journalist. Most important were the
fundamental attributes of any journalist: curiosity,
fact-checking, and the determination to keep digging
to get to the bottom of a story.
Also fundamentally important is experience –
especially of covering both boom and bust, which are
often the making of a business journalist. In Sykes’
case it was the Poseidon nickel boom in the ’70s,
which led to his first book, The Money Miners. For
Gideon Haigh and Ian Verrender, it was the
’80s crash. For West, it was the tech wreck.
“When I first started as a columnist at the Oz
I used to lunch every day. I had the perspective of
a market participant. I got a lot of scoops. I moved
share prices. But after the dotcom boom, I realised
I’d been manipulated, too. I became more concerned
with matters of public interest, and understood my
role was to be critical and to pursue stories in the
public interest, rather than in the interest of a few
investors who might own the stock,” he says.
But to gain such longevity, finance writers need
to specialise and this is a sticking point for some of
the journalists we interviewed, leading to capture or
(just as bad) stagnation.
it – exactly the kind of relationship that young
journalists don’t have with subs any more. Ingrained
in my memory is this lovely, fruity English sub called
Stephen Hall, looking around the business section
and saying ‘where’s Haigh, where’s Haigh?’ I think
I was looking in a drawer in one of the filing cabinets,
so he couldn’t see me. Anyway, he said as loudly as he
could to everyone on the subs desk, ‘if there’s a piece
of jargon lying around, Haigh goes to it like a fly to
shit.’ Fair dinkum, I never forgot it. From that day
forward, if I ever had an opportunity to avoid using
a piece of jargon I took it.”
The general reader has to come first again. Tell it
like it is – and context, depth, history, colour, humour
and imagination wouldn’t go astray. West says satire
can be hugely effective.
“Until a few years ago the story of mine with the
most impact was ‘Casey Williams’ … the HIH Royal
Commission was on and hearing about Ray Williams’
penchant for business travel. He was Qantas’ number
one customer, and used to book seat 1A and seat 1B
to put his briefcase on, because he didn’t want to sit
next to anybody. I’d come in after a long lunch at 5.30
with an hour and a half to file by 7. We’d been talking
about HIH at lunch and I concocted this [satirical] bit
of transcript to the royal commission, cross-examining
Williams. The whole spiel was deadpan, under whose
name did you book seat 1B? Casey Williams! The
internet had just got going. The next day I had all these
people who’d clicked on the story and sent in
messages. It was huge, [even] mentioned in the
summing up of [presiding judge] Neville Owen!
“One of the big problems is that business
journalists regard themselves as business
journalists, rather than journalists, and they hold
themselves to a lesser standard and write all these
boring business yarns for business, rather than for
the public.”
If finance reporters have to work through
a boom-bust cycle or two to learn the necessary
scepticism, then the wave of senior redundancies
from newspapers looms as a real threat to corporate
accountability, given print media dominate business
journalism. As investigative journalist Ben Hills
observes: “Unfortunately we don’t have enough
journalists with enough skills, with enough talent,
with enough motivation let alone enough time to
do their job properly … Because there are fewer
journalists, because they get less time to do their job,
the proportion of genuine news in newspapers has
just collapsed. An Australian Centre for Independent
Journalism survey [conducted jointly with Crikey in
2010] found 55 per cent of all content came directly
or indirectly from a press release. My own guess is it’s
now closer to 75 per cent.
“You just can’t do the same job in a newsroom
that’s got 150 people in it and most of those are young
kids. I mean the people who walked were the older
hands who wanted to get their $200k, $300k, $400k
superannuation, and they’ve been replaced by kids
who are wet behind the ears who, even if they were
given the time and resources, wouldn’t know where to
start on an investigative story.”
Higher turnover of increasingly junior finance
reporters is exacerbated by the constant lure of more
highly paid jobs in business, particularly the everexpanding public relations industry.
Hill thinks that like NSW government
ministers, journalists should have a three-year
cooling-off period before they can go and
work for a company they’ve been writing
about – perhaps written into the Journalist
Code of Ethics. He admits it would probably
be impossible to enforce, but it would at
least signal the profession’s disapproval and
“indicate to the wider public that this was
an unethical practice.”
Business journalism certainly throws
up unique ethical dilemmas. None of the
journalists interviewed owned shares, for
example – although some were more
open to the idea than others, as long as
it was disclosed as is clearly required
under the Code. Is that enough?
When he was at The Sydney
Morning Herald, Verrender recalled,
there was a requirement for the
editor to keep a register of any
journalists’ shareholdings.
A similar obligation exists
in the UK where the Press
Complaints Commission
has published a best
practice note on financial
journalism. Although the
Australian Press Council
has never published
specific guidance for
business journalism,
its recently
revised General
Principles include
for the first time a
separate principle
on conflicts of
interest that
goes beyond
disclosure,
requiring that
reasonable
steps be
taken to
ensure
they do not influence published content.
After five decades in the industry, Sykes says he
personally has never been offered a bribe but he
did know of isolated cases of corruption back in
the late 1960s, and a couple afterwards. Both Sykes
and Haigh recalled a quite widespread practice of
journalists receiving shares in public floats in the
1980s. At The Age, then business editor Stephen
Bartholomeusz put a stop to it, says Haigh.
It is not just the journalist whose motives can be
tainted, of course. Publishers come under commercial
pressure and newspapers are certainly more vulnerable
now they have lost the “rivers of gold” classified
advertising revenue that came with absolutely no
editorial strings attached.
When David Jones’ chief Mark McInnes was forced
to resign after admitting sexual harassment in 2010,
Verrender wrote a sensational column revealing
that the executive’s exploits were “legendary …
numerous women, none of whom are DJs employees,
have detailed similar advances to your columnist”.
What Verrender didn’t say is that when he was
business editor he had come under pressure not to
run anything damaging on such a major advertiser.
Someone higher up the chain at Fairfax admitted
that if an offending piece was run they were going to
get the “usual call” from David Jones.
In last year’s Stop the Presses: How greed, ambition
(and the internet) wrecked Fairfax, Hills wrote of the
potential compromise to the editorial integrity of
business coverage from the rise of highly profitable
“round-tables” and other promotional events cohosted by the company’s newspapers and sponsors.
These sponsors were told the Financial Review was
“unashamedly pro-business”.
Ferguson, now herself at Fairfax, says the probusiness stance has been tried – for example at her
former employer BRW, but “it actually distorts the
truth. People want to learn things, get insight. If you’re
just writing a puff piece, with no critique, no-one’s
going to think it’s real.”
Given the commercial pressures, it’s all the more
surprising that newspapers churn so much public
relations material – a horror trend, more insidious than
advertising. “We’re dying for the lack of ad revenue,”
said West, “but at the same time we’re running PR
campaigns for free. It’s absurd”.
Business reporting is especially
vulnerable to churning press releases,
as it is often held captive to the ASX
announcement cycle by major
listed companies. As Haigh
told Crikey: “Companies
13
> OUR
MEDIA
have found out just how useful disclosure can
be, because you completely inundate your audience,
create all manner of distractions for them. Continuous
disclosure was an antidote to the lack of disclosure in
the 1980s, but companies learned to make it work for
them. There’s a line of [economist] Herbert Simon
about an abundance of information creating a poverty
of attention – that certainly applies where business
journalism is concerned.
“An interesting and, I thought, pretty telling
indictment of the business press back in 2004 came
when James Hardie was spinning off its Medical
Research and Compensation Foundation. In the course
of the Jackson inquiry some emails came to light from
James Hardie flack Greg Baxter, to the effect that the
best way to handle the announcement was to make
sure that it was positioned in the business pages rather
than the news pages because the business pages would
report the Foundation simply as a business transaction
whereas if you got into the news pages it might get a
little bit unpredictable.”
The best way to get access to businesspeople, if
that’s your goal, is to be non-threatening. Accepting
redundancy in 2012 after 25 years at the Sydney
Morning Herald, faced literally and metaphorically
with clearing his desk, Verrender penned a must-read
final column entitled “A business reporter’s greatest
value lies in asking hard questions”, which touched
a nerve, describing how “when it comes to business,
the Australian media generally has opted for a soft and
fawning relationship.”
The threat of litigation is another increasingly
powerful deterrent to corporate investigation. Ferguson,
“We’re dying for the lack of ad
revenue,” said West, “but at
the same time we’re running PR
campaigns for free. It’s absurd.”
who wrote an unauthorised biography of mining
mogul Gina Rinehart, found herself facing jail for her
trouble, when she was sued to reveal her sources along
with The West Australian’s Steve Pennells. Rinehart was
still then the largest shareholder in Fairfax – to its credit
the publisher backed Ferguson to the hilt. Backed by the
Alliance’s Press Freedom campaign, Ferguson wants law
reform: “Last year (2013) I had three writs to get my
sources. It’s getting beyond a joke. They really have to
have uniform shield laws. The problem is the legal costs.
When you’ve got media empires that are stumbling,
even if you’re right and you’re going to win the case, it
can cost millions. Writs are cheap.”
Despite the pressures, some business journalists
are embracing the future and doing it all – having
more reach and impact than ever across print,
online, broadcast and social media – and there is no
better example than Ferguson herself, last year’s Gold
Walkley winner, who has taken on the world’s richest
woman and the country’s biggest bank in an awardwinning investigation between Fairfax and the
ABC’s Four Corners.
In a cracking review of Dean Starkman’s book
The Watchdog that Didn’t Bark, Haigh neatly
identified the fundamental tension in business
reporting between access journalism, which
depends on information from the powerful,
and accountability journalism, which involves
information about the powerful. “The former privileges
the ‘scoop’, the latter the long-form expose involving
heavy investigative lifting.”
Ferguson believes access and accountability
journalism need not be at odds. “It’s not one or the
other,” she says, “I will dig deeper, and always have.
Get past the spin. But I think I’ve also got access.
I do have a pretty good contact book. You can do both.
If you do a good job exposing wrongdoing, you earn the
respect of business.”
For Verrender the role of journalists holding business
to account is almost self-evident. “I don’t think you
need to formalise it or hold it in such a lofty way. You
just look at it, my job is to find out what the truth is.”
This is an edited version of a five-part Crikey series,
“Watchdog or Lapdog”, which began in January
Paddy Manning is business editor of Crikey
Peter Sheehan is an award-winning illustrator;
www.petersheehan.com
WALKLEY YOUNG
AUSTRALIAN JOURNALIST
OF THE YEAR AWARDS
2015 // CALL FOR ENTRIES
ENTRY DEADLINE:
5.00pm Tuesday
April 28, 2015
2015
Are you a journalist aged 26 years or under? Picture this…
You’re amongst busy editorial staff in a CNN
newsroom in the USA, watching as breaking news
pours in from a global team of more than 4000
media professionals.
Entry is open to employed or freelance journalists who
have self-published or whose has been published or
broadcast through Australian media outlets between
April 29, 2014 and April 28, 2015.
Then you’re bunkered down with the Washingtonbased Twitter government and politics team,
assisting the White House and news organisations
to increase public engagement and release critical
information in times of crisis.
Students aged 26 and under whose coursework has
been submitted for assessment are also eligible to enter
the student category, with eligibility for the main prize.
Enter the Walkley Young Journalist of the Year Awards
and this could be you!
Entries are now open, so it’s time to send us your best
work. Visit www.walkleys.com for more information.
> OUR
MEDIA
This old dog thrives on new tricks
Everyone’s favourite science show is turning 40, and Robyn Williams has been there every step of the way. He talks about its great past and
forecasts a brilliant future – science funding allowing. Cartoon by Matt Golding
Y
es, it will be 40 years this August since I started
The Science Show on ABC Radio, and I’m still
doing it. Is this odd behaviour? (I’m reminded
of my obsessive border collies who learned a
neat trick when young and repeated it endlessly
– am I the same?) In fact, the program very nearly
died after five months. Cuts, you see. The Science
Show has always struggled with cuts.
This one came at the end of 1975. I’d begun the
show in Vancouver, at a huge Pacific Science Congress,
replete with superstars like Thor Heyerdahl, Herman
Kahn the futurologist and Lord Ritchie Calder the
British energy expert. I had no long-term plans for
the program, beyond ticking over week by week and
maybe looking for a locum to do it when I wanted
a change. Then came the Dismissal, followed by the
election that Malcolm Fraser won resoundingly.
Around that time I had been invited, out of the blue,
to apply for a new ABC job in London: talks officer
with a free rein. Who could resist? I applied and got
it. As usual, following a federal Coalition win the first
thing they did was cut the ABC budget. My London
job was the first to go. So did hope of locums. So, on
I continued with The Science Show.
At first, the response to the show was jaundiced.
“Here comes the lead-balloon brigade,” muttered one
ABC manager, who preferred the cracked classical
records they used to play at midday on Saturdays.
Luckily, that week I’d done something on air that
excited the audience and the mail turned up in large
boxes. “Care to help me sort the fan mail?” I asked the
cynic. He looked at the pile and stuttered.
That’s been the story throughout: science and
medicine were always enormously popular with
audiences, and still are. Now we have at least six
science programs – All in the Mind, Health Report,
Body Sphere, etc. – in the top 20 podcasts of all
combined networks, not just Radio National. The last
ratings I checked for Catalyst was (for five cities)
over 725,000, which translates to well over a million
for the rest of Australia, even before you add repeats,
downloads and overseas sales.
But apart from the subject matter, there are the
production values. I was lucky to land in the part of the
ABC where standards were (and are) very high indeed.
We edit, we polish, we edit again, we tell stories. We
have an open door to all comers (unlike the Brits and
Americans) that ensures a variety of voice and style.
This density of material is clearly what the downloading
public wants. Yes, I know youth is supposed to have
It’s called rat-cunning
improvisation... always sounding
different within high levels of
reporting and production
an attention span of seven minutes and The Science
Show is an hour long, but when you look at series for
TV by HBO, popular American radio shows like This
American Life and RadioLab, they are also at least an
hour. People stay with substance; people leave chatter.
Another myth is the case of the inarticulate boffin.
Some are hopeless. But so are some catatonic lawyers,
wooden politicians and flaky film stars. But scientists?
Brian Cox, Simon Singh and my nephew Ben Goldacre
talk to crowds of 8000 plus. In Oz, Paul Davies, Brian
Schmidt and Fiona Stanley will fill large halls. And now
the younger scientists have become simply magnificent.
My evidence? We have just finished auditioning the
five under-40 candidates – young scientists who are
joining the ABC Science Unit to contribute to shows
as part of the 40-year celebrations. I have to say that
their performances were utterly brilliant. Our tough
independent judging panel could hardly believe what
they were hearing. The fact is that Three Minute Thesis
Competitions and other efforts in our universities have
trained, advised and nurtured science communication
like never before. I now put on a PhD nearly every
week, a 20-, 21- or 22-year-old who is so articulate and
passionate in their brief talk. And this not only aids
fluency, it also refines their intellectual understanding
of their science and how it relates.
No wonder our programs thrive. We can barely
keep up with the ideas and the talent.
This, just at a time when science is losing its
government support and youngsters, as well as senior
scientists, are losing jobs. It is a tragedy. Especially
when you realise how much wealth (45-60 per cent of
GDP) is created by innovation based on science and
technology R&D at our universities and CSIRO. Are
they actually thinking in Canberra?
So what about those cuts that have shaped us from
the beginning? Well, I suspect quite a few will be
astounded that The Science Show has no reporters or
researchers. David Fisher, the only other member of
the ‘team’, has his work cut out assembling websites,
transcripts, edits, pods, links – as well as the other
programs he does, such as Naked Scientist. So we
rely on the many willing freelancers, colleagues and
students who provide their assistance.
Among the heroic freelancers is Sharon Carleton,
who once used her late husband Richard’s 60 Minutes
frequent flyer points to fly to London to interview
Prince Charles for us. Then there’s Pauline Newman,
now a professor of communication at Arizona State,
who will drop everything (as she did in February in
the USA) when we need help. And there is Stephanie
Pradier, a physics student from Melbourne, whom
we dragooned into interviewing Steve Chu, President
Obama’s energy secretary and Nobel laureate.
It’s called rat-cunning-improvisation. It means we
are always sounding different but within high levels of
reporting and production. And this seems to be what
audiences around the world like.
Yes, it is a surprise to be 40, but what it really means
is that science in Australia is thriving spectacularly,
most young researchers are potential journos and,
combined with Citizen Science, we could have a
glorious brain-based revolution on our hands.
Canberra, please don’t ruin this promise.
Robyn Williams is a science journalist, broadcaster
and a National Living Treasure (1987)
Matt Golding is the Creative Director at
Nous Ideas, Visual Corporate Communication
www.nousideas.com.au and cartoonist for
The Sunday Age
SUPPORTING YOUR INDUSTRY,
BUILDING YOUR COMMUNITY.
See our full page advert
on the back page for more
information
15
> STORYOLOGY
The mapping of songlines and the telling of news
In the MEAA Centenary Lecture 2014, Malarndirri McCarthy spoke about storytelling and the effect of being a journalist on
her cultural identity as a Yanyuwa person. Illustration by Sam Wallman
As a Yanyuwa Garrawa woman from Borroloola
in the Gulf of Carpentaria, I pay my respects to
the Gadigal people, the traditional owners of this
land, where we gather this evening.
I
n Yanyuwa way, the art of storytelling is more than
just art, it is our life. It is equally important to the
three other clan groups in the Borroloola region –
the Garrawa, Mara and Kudanji peoples.
We have a word for it in Yanyuwa called
Kujika. The Kujika can be loosely translated as
‘mapping of songlines’.
The Yanyuwa would walk on country and
paddle in canoes across the seas and rivers
singing the Kujika of the country – singing the
map of country – which would describe the
terrain and the history of the area. It would
assist in knowing where to travel for food and
shelter, and where to stay away if near sacred areas.
Kujikas are intrinsic to our culture because in the
singing of the stories our culture is being passed on,
and has been for thousands of years, so the Yanyuwa
would and will not forget country and the many
stories attached to it.
My Kujika starts in Borroloola and weaves its way
to the desert country of the Aranda people in Alice
Springs. I completed my primary school education
then went to Gadigal country, where I completed my
secondary education.
In 1989 I began my journalism career with the
ABC at Gore Hill in Sydney on Cameraygal country.
I was able to learn about other stories, and more
importantly the modern methods of storytelling in
broadcast television, gaining insight into the wider
issues that impacted on all people, not just the First
Peoples of this country.
As an Aboriginal cadet news journalist with the
ABC, my world expanded greatly beyond my Yanyuwa
cultural understanding. The key, however, was not to
lose my own cultural integrity and sense of self within
this fast-paced and very competitive world.
The first real test was reporting on the Royal
Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
(RCIADIC). It is tragic to note that the numbers of
Aboriginal deaths in custody has not reduced since
RCIADIC. One cannot help but reflect and ask, “Just
how far have we really come in Australia?” Especially
when a young Indigenous person like Ms Dhu in
Western Australia can be jailed for not paying a
parking fine, and then die a painful death in custody.
Almost 50,000 people have signed a petition
demanding answers over her death. WA Premier
Colin Barnett has made a personal commitment to
do more to stop tragic deaths like Ms Dhu’s. But the
promise rings hollow and too late to the Dhu family
and other families.
The high incarceration rate and the deaths in
custody are incredibly important issues to the First
Nations peoples in this country. But I want to give you
It was important to me as a Yanyuwa
person that I did not fail the
expectations of those families who
put their trust in me to cover their
stories properly. But something else
happened that day
another perspective to consider in the lives of First
Nations’ journalists and the experiences we have in
covering these stories.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal
Deaths in Custody was established by the Hawke
government in 1987, and over the next four years the
Commission would travel the country investigating
deaths that had occurred between January 1, 1980
and May 31, 1989, and the actions taken in each case.
In all, the Commission investigated 99 deaths and
made 339 recommendations.
In 1991 I was working as a journalist in the
ABC Sydney newsroom and my assignment was
to prepare for the Commission handing down its
recommendations. I spent a few weeks preparing for
it by speaking to Indigenous families across Australia
who had gone through the painful process of giving
evidence about their loved ones. Many were very
reluctant to speak to the media, for various reasons,
including fear of being misrepresented, particularly in
a cultural context.
I had set the interviews in place around various
parts of the country and coordinated the logistics for
camera operators to meet with the families while
I would do the interviews by phone, and then have
the vision sent as soon as possible to Sydney.
This was a huge story. Both in terms of the public
and media expectations, but more importantly
to First Nations peoples who were hoping this
country would provide justice in the deaths of
their family members.
It was important to me as a Yanyuwa
person that I did not fail the expectations of
those families who put their trust in me to
cover their stories properly.
But something else happened that day.
I arrived at the newsroom keen to get started
with the Commission and interviewing the families.
A schedule of the day’s rundown and logistics were
in place. But an editorial decision had been made
to remove me from the story and put a more senior
journalist on the story, and my world as a journalist
and my cultural identity as a Yanyuwa person hit
head-on in a mighty way.
I felt totally used and betrayed by those beside
whom I worked closely.
In Yanyuwa way, such behaviour would result in an
open forum amongst the clans where the aggrieved
person could express their suffering to all present,
whilst the aggressor would be made to speak their
reasons for their actions. The very public debate
would go back and forth until the aggrieved person
felt he or she could move on and all poisonous feelings
were ejected from within.
It is important to the Yanyuwa that in order for
right spiritual growth we must not cradle such
bitterness. This teaching is integral to our need to live
harmoniously with country and with kin. Mind you, it
does take great effort and a great deal of vigilance, but
there is always a process within the kinship structure
that allows for this teaching to become a valued way
of life.
In the ABC newsroom I couldn’t do any of that – it
was not Yanyuwa country and it was not a Yanyuwa
kinship conflict. So I prayed that the spirits of the
Cameraygal people on whose country we were on
would help me find a way through this day.
They did.
I made it clear to those that needed to know that
their decision was wrong. And that this type of
injustice towards me – no matter how small in the
scheme of things – gave insight into the injustices,
the unfair practices, often gift-wrapped in excuses
that pacified those who inflicted such unfairness, on
Indigenous people. But I concluded with the view that
as devastating and humiliating as it was to have the
story taken from me in such a way, it was insignificant
in comparison to the deep hurt and suffering of
hundreds of Indigenous families across the country.
I stayed focused on their pain. It helped me to
overcome mine and get rid of the toxic feelings from
within. In Yanyuwa way, I could move on.
Yes, another journalist did the story. Yes, I made
sure I produced it and worked with the journalist
to ensure the stories of these families were told well.
Yes, editorial integrity was maintained. Yes, standing
strong for cultural integrity was a lesson learned.
And, yes, the ABC News bulletin looked really good
that night, too.
A year later in 1992 at Lake Mungo on the NSW
and Victorian border, I was assigned to the story of the
return of the oldest cremated remains in the world,
that of Mungo Lady, to the Paakantji, Mathi Mathi
and Ngiyampaa people.
Like in most cultures, in Yanyuwa culture ‘Sorry
Business’ is sacred business. To the Yanyuwa, ‘Sorry
Business’ is known as the ceremony that occurs once
a person dies.
First Nations peoples each have our own definition
of ‘Sorry Business’ and the way in which the deceased
is mourned, remembered and spoken about, then
buried. There are also different rituals in the viewing
of the dead before burial.
Covering this story of the 40,000-year-old cremated
remains of a woman meant an even deeper awareness
of the sacredness of it. I admit that as a young
Yanyuwa person and journalist, I was not sure how to
proceed in walking my Kujika here, by trying to meet
the news-integrity requirements and maintain my
own cultural integrity through it all.
In Yanyuwa way, I needed to consult my Elders, the
Jungkayi and Ngimarinngki, to give me guidance.
I rang them from Sydney prior to doing an interview
in Canberra with Professor Alan Thorne who would
show me the box in which Mungo Lady was housed in
the Australian National University.
“While women play an important role in Sorry
Business ceremonies, in Yanyuwa Law the dealing with
the bones of dead people is serious men’s business, it is
not a world for women.”
Jungkayi means ‘protector or policeman of your
mother’s country’. Ngimarinngki means traditional
owner of country. No decisions can be made about
Yanyuwa country without the two involved. In ‘Sorry
Business’ the Jungkayi takes the lead in the ceremony.
I needed the guidance of the Jungkayi in helping
me to walk this path appropriately in the sacred
ceremony of Mungo Lady, and still deliver my news
story on deadline.
But something went horribly wrong.
My mother, a Ngimarringki said, “Stay way from
looking at the deadbulla – not your country.”
In other words, I was not to go near the remains out
of respect for the Paakantji, the Mathi Mathi and the
Ngiyampaa peoples.
Her words stayed in my heart as I flew from Sydney
to Melbourne and met an ABC News crew there, then
drove to Mildura and out to Lake Mungo.
We followed Professor Thorne as he carried the
box with the remains of Mungo Lady to the Elders
sitting and waiting on the sands of Lake Mungo. It
was a deeply moving occasion as the Elders wept at
her return.
With the ceremony over, I began to relax and
moved around to talk to people as they ate lunch.
During this time I looked over across the sand dunes
to where Professor Thorne was standing and saw my
news crew filming as he opened the box.
Suddenly I felt the sand sting me as the wind blew
up and my spirit felt kurdardi yamalu – ‘no good’.
They’d had no intention of opening the box but
obviously had changed their mind and I had not
instructed the camera crew not to film inside it.
We then had to leave Lake Mungo and drive to
Mildura to get to the feedpoint to send our story back
to Melbourne for the 7pm ABC News bulletin that
night.
But we never made the deadline.
Along the dusty dirt road to Mildura, as I sat
in the back of the car with the camera on my lap,
headphones on listening to the interviews and writing
my story, the cameraman lost control of the car.
I remember looking up to see the car sliding off the
corrugated road. We rolled and rolled and all the while
I held the camera tight, fearing it would be a loose
missile in the vehicle. After the second roll, the car
came upright and kept driving towards a tree, then the
branch of the tree snapped onto the car, damaging the
roof above the driver’s head.
The car was still running and I thought it was going
to explode. One crew member in the front jumped out
through the passenger window. I couldn’t open my
door, so I jumped across to the other back passenger
The Yanyuwa Elders said I had
“left people behind”, and that’s
perhaps why we had the accident
door to get out. Then I tried to help the driver, who
was bleeding from the head. We both got to safety
under a tree with the third crew member.
We sat there, watching the car and waiting. The
engine died and then there was only silence.
Once back in Melbourne, I completed the story on
Mungo Lady’s return to her people and it aired that
same weekend. The editorial integrity was maintained.
The Paakantji, the Mathi Mathi and the Ngiyampaa
were pleased with the story, too.
The ABC News crew were recovering well, although
badly shaken with minor injuries. But there was a
lesson of cultural significance for me. The Yanyuwa
Elders said I had “left people behind”, and that’s
perhaps why we had the accident. The Jungkayi and
Ngimarrinkgi said I should have explained to my
News team about the sacredness of ‘Sorry Business’ on
this journey. Inexperience as a journalist, and fear of
being ridiculed and Yanyuwa ways disrespected, were
the reasons for my inability to do so.
It was through the coverage of Mungo Lady that
I learned as a journalist that the cultural integrity
of First Nations people could not be disregarded
in newsgathering if black and white Australians
were going to better understand one another in
this country.
In late 2012 I joined NITV NEWS as a senior
journalist and in 2013 I returned to Lake Mungo to
meet with the Paakantji, the Mathi Mathi and the
Ngiyampaa people to follow up on the return of
Mungo Man, whose remains still sit in a vault in the
Australian National University.
His story and that of Mungo Lady hold deep
significance to my Kujika and the Kujika of NITV –
Australia’s National Indigenous Television Service.
NITV NEWS is part of WITBN – the World
Indigenous Television Broadcasting Network.
I am very proud of our small but very dedicated
NITV NEWS team of 15 people who produce a
nightly bulletin at 5.30pm each weeknight, which is
repeated at 7pm and 11pm. We regularly take NITV
NEWS-on-the-Road with TVU Backpacks and
present the entire bulletin out on the road.
Presenter Nat Ahmat, chief producer Chris Roe
and chief-of-staff Michael Carey join me in leading
this incredible team to remote regions across
Australia, as well as just across the Sydney Harbour
for special ceremonies or events.
Gomeroi man Danny TJ travels the length and
breadth of NSW, Wiradjuri woman Tara Callinan
is a tireless young VJ, and Kris Flanders is our super
sports reporter, all supported by the talents of
Gomeroi cameramen and editors Shayne Johnson
and Steve Ellis.
We have Craig Quartermaine in WA, David Liddle
in Queensland and Myles Morgan in Parliament
House in Canberra. Michelle Lovegrove is a senior
journalist with NITV News, on secondment from
her role as the executive producer of Living Black on
SBS Radio.
Our technical capability and youthful exuberance
in challenging everything and anything about TV
broadcasting from where First Nations people are
makes it an incredibly dynamic newsgathering
process. Now with News online the future looks even
more exciting.
We are based at the SBS Headquarters in Artarmon
and work with the SBS Editorial team. Given the
tight fiscal times, as executive producer I have also
implemented a process where we work on a daily
basis with the other taxpayer-funded broadcaster, the
ABC. NITV NEWS also interacts regularly with our
colleagues in the Indigenous Media news services.
The NITV NEWS team maintains its own cultural
integrity in the newsgathering process. Each NITV
News journalist carries their own Kujika, their own
cultural story and background. Together we strive
to air the voices, the issues, the highs, the lows, the
impact of Government decisions, the good news, the
contradictions, but most importantly the incredible
resilience and endurance of First Nations peoples in
Australia. And, believe me, the First Nations peoples of
Australia also test and challenge the cultural integrity
and editorial integrity of our NITV NEWS team.
But the task of media in a democratic society
is to keep asking questions – especially of those
in decision-making positions. Indigenous media
in this country – be it NITV, National Indigenous
Radio, or CAAMA, NIT, Koori Mail & First Nations
Telegraph and other media organisations, along with
the numerous First Nations journalists such as New
Matilda’s Amy McQuire, ABC ‘Awaye’ host Lorena
Allam, and ABC AM Reporter Lindy Kerin, ‘Living
Black’ host Karla Grant, Dan Bourchier at Sky News,
and NITV Awaken host Stan Grant – will all continue
to ensure the voices of Australia’s First peoples are
never silenced.
Malarndirri McCarthy is executive producer of NITV
NEWS. This lecture was amended for print purposes
17
> STORYOLOGY
Everything we learned at Storyology
Andy Huang and Hattie O’Donnell wrote up their best lessons from Storyology for Junkee.com, and share
the love with us. Cartoon by Sam Wallman
to have a ‘h8rs gonna h8’ attitude, violent and
criminal threats are nothing to be blasé about.
Online harassment is not okay. Not for women,
not for men, not for anyone. As Caro said, “We’re
living in a culture of intimidation”.
Trolls are lurking for engagement, and for a
reaction. If someone is giving you serious beef,
block them. There’s a time and place for intelligent
debate, and Twitter has a reputation for often
descending into a chaotic match of mud-slinging,
so it’s important to know your boundaries and step
away when you need to.
Find your niche
It’s never been a more thrilling (and perhaps
troubling) time for freelancers, creatives and
entrepreneurs: there are more opportunities than
ever to experiment, and more platforms to get
your stuff out there and reach a wider, global
audience. The projects that do take off are created
by people who can see what’s missing in the
market, and fill that gap. Broadsheet, an online
start-up that publishes local city guides, seems to
be killing it right now. It began with founder and
publisher Nick Shelton abroad in his twenties,
searching near-constantly for local watering holes,
and a lack of timely, detailed, and youth-oriented
content in print or online. Enter Broadsheet,
which in five years has gone from the passion
project of one guy with a laptop, to a growing
operation with offices in Sydney and Melbourne
that attracts over 600,000 eyeballs per month.
LESSON: The key here is specialisation. Find
something you’re good at that no-one’s doing,
and do it well. Become an expert; be the thing
people go to for information. Find a gap, figure
out how you can fill it, be flexible, and do your
research. Understand your target market, have
a clear (and achievable) vision, and learn from
others’ mistakes.
Rethink. Redesign. Repackage.
Social media has had by far the biggest influence
on how content is consumed and produced today.
And the greatest competition isn’t between print or
digital. It’s not between different media outlets and
publishers either. It’s competition for people’s time.
“We’re an attention economy,” said Neal Mann
from Wall Street Journal, in his keynote address on
media innovation. “A journalist’s problem is their
own thinking.” Or, as Aron Pilhofer from Guardian
Digital said, “Part of the problem is us.”
The problem is newspapers still making
newspaper-shaped things for the digital space;
the problem is stuff made for TV being
distributed the same way online, which just
doesn’t work. The point here is to adapt the way
your product is delivered, in a way that best suits
what you’ve made.
LESSON: Those catching on are moving
towards a mobile-first approach. How do you
make content more engaging for audiences
on their phones? Look outside the industry.
Look to Tinder. (Yes. Tinder.) In the same way
that Tinder does dating for your phone, how
about journalism that’s designed specifically for
mobile? AJ+ and Circa (its motto: Save time.
Stay informed.) are breaking down information
into smaller, more digestible bites – and so far, it
seems to be working for them.
Data is your friend
Changing cultures, changing perspectives
SBS and NITV’s series First Contact brought to
the fore much discussion about the representation
and treatment of Indigenous Australians. What
roles and responsibilities do we have in telling
Indigenous stories?
While First Contact meant well, it nonetheless
continued what Wesley Enoch from Queensland
Theatre Company describes as the “crisis” narrative,
which focuses on “what’s wrong” with Indigenous
culture – when there’s a whole set of positive
narratives that continue to be sidelined by the
mainstream media.
LESSON: Don’t buy into the mainstream; look
for the alternative. Instead of focusing on the
‘problems’, shift the narrative to what we can learn
from Indigenous culture: their knowledge of the
land and how they approach the environment to
deal with climate change; their recognition of the
significance of art, and its contribution to society
and culture. Also, when it comes to representing
Indigenous perspectives and really changing the
narrative, make sure to constantly consult.
Women had a particularly strong presence at
Storyology this year, including amazing babes
Malarndirri McCarthy (NITV), Sarah Ferguson
(ABC), and Maria Ressa (Rappler). There was
a particularly great panel on the treatment and
participation of women online with Tara Moss,
Madhu Trehan and Jane Caro. The liberating
feeling of speaking openly to a global audience
comes with serious risks – and though it’s easy
Find stats confusing and/or traumatising? Chances
are there’s a whole lot of people out there who are
confuddled too. That’s why learning how to read
patterns and understand trends is super useful.
Great journalism and storytelling can be about
finding the meaning behind facts and numbers
and other mind boggling data, and organising
and presenting it in a way that makes sense. Data
mapping can be a fantastic way to harness your
potential in the current media landscape, as Maria
Ressa from Rappler has shown with Project AGOS:
a crowd-sourced weather alert system that has
saved lives:
Another “scrappy” start-up that’s making some
major waves over in the States is the Texas Tribune,
a non-partisan, non-profit media organisation.
Launched in 2009, their focus is on traditional beat
reporting but as a digital outlet, their game – and
edge – comes from data-driven journalism. For the
Trib, data is journalism.
LESSON: Be creative and think about how you
can break a topic down into something useful.
For example, instead of a wordy explainer article
about health insurance, how about a choose-yourown-adventure-type game? Or instead of a lengthy
summary about the impact of fracking, what about
an interactive map?
TL;DR: Find your niche. Work out the best form
for your package. Times they are a’changin’. Data
is cool. Understand what native advertising is, and
judge it accordingly. Learn the things, use your
head, conquer the world.
Andy Huang is a past intern at Junkee, who studies
Communication at UTS and makes radio at 2SER
Hattie O’Donnell is a past editor of Vertigo. She was
an intern at Junkee and Hachette Australia, and also
makes radio at 2SER. Tweets @hattieod
Sam Wallman is a political cartoonist and comics
journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. He
attended the Walkey Foundation’s Storyology
conference in 2014 on a scholarship thanks to
Copyright Agency. He works part-time as an
organiser for a trade union
Writing from the inside out
Penny Chapman, producer of some of Australia’s best loved stories,
shared her advice for storytellers of all stripes at Storyology.
Illustration by Sam Wallman
A
n accomplished scriptwriter friend, on
leaving school, decided to do a university
course in journalism. When he won an
award for a story, most of which he had
made up, he decided it was time to switch to
writing fiction.
My daughter also started out studying
journalism. At the end of her first year, she also
switched to a filmmaking course, declaring, “I’d
much rather be making it up.”
There is a necessary ethical delineation between
journalism and fictional drama. At some point,
though, the delineation wears out. In several
decades of making both fictional and documentary
programs, I have learned that when the two share
ground, they bring much mutual benefit.
There is an essential ingredient in documentary
and reportage that is a gift from the art of fiction,
and there is a precious quality of much great drama
that takes its lead from the disciplines of reportage.
The first gift, which fiction gives documentary,
is the act of narrative. The “and then and then and
then” quality of a story. As humans we are hotwired to share narrative. All great documentarians
and journalists ask you to invest in a proposition
that they then craft as a narrative that hooks you
into both the proposition and its protagonist. The
idea is only any good if the story works.
The other gift, which reportage and documentary
give to fiction, has a big influence on the way I
shape my television dramas. It is the knowledge, the
map, of how the facts shape up, what the landscape
might be like, where the layers of emotional truth
might lie, what experiences out there might shape
the terrain of the story, things that happened – or
might have – to people who lived. It is research of
the known that can make the fictional feel worth it.
I am not saying this is the only requisite of good
drama. Science fiction and horror have their place.
But I am a dramatist who has most often been
drawn to the stories that arise from real experiences.
The television dramas that I have most enjoyed
making are ones like these:
• Brides of Christ, based on my experience at a
Catholic boarding school and the changes in the
lives of women and the Catholic Church in the
1960s, and my urge to explore the dialectic of
women and authority
• The Leaving of Liverpool, based on the lives of the
so-called orphan children packed off to Australia
from Britain in the mid-20th century
• Phoenix, inspired by the Russell Street car
bombing of 1986
• Blue Murder, the story of the relationship between
corrupt detective Roger Rogerson and the
criminal Neddie Smith
• RAN Remote Area Nurse, inspired by my sister’s
work as a nurse in the Torres Strait in the 1990s
• The Straits, inspired by a man who worked for a
These programs have been entirely fictional. But in creating their worlds,
we must first plunder the real and know it as intimately as we can.
family of smugglers in Far North Queensland
• My Place, the children’s series based on the Nadia
Wheatley book. This drama was based on the
imagined, but meticulously researched, lives of
children who lived in one spot in South Sydney
from before Europeans arrived to 2008
• Devil’s Playground, informed by the revelations
of endemic sexual abuse of children inside the
Catholic Church
• Deadline Gallipoli, the story of the journalists who
went to Gallipoli and how they coped with the
often conflicting realities of truth and war.
With the exception of Blue Murder and Deadline
Gallipoli, all these programs have been entirely
fictional. But in creating their worlds, we must first
plunder the real and know it as intimately as we can.
When my colleagues and I start a project, we
first assemble as much research about the subject
as we can. Then we bring together a writer’s room
to brainstorm what we call “the bible”, which
will set out the story and the characters. We
spend many days in the writer’s room talking to
people with the knowledge – journalists, novelists
whose work we are adapting, people who have
experienced the story we want to tell.
In the past few years, David Marr, Stephen
Crittenden, Paul Collins and Suzanne Smith
been an excellent resource as we developed
Devil’s Playground. John Van Tiggelen was a very
good resource when we were developing The
Straits. Christos Tsiolkos has been exceptionally
generous as my colleague Tony Ayres and his
team developed adaptations of his novel The
Slap and now Barracuda. We are now developing
a political thriller based on the books The
Marmalade Files and The Mandarin Code by
Steve Lewis and Chris Uhlman.
The liberating thing about Christos, Chris and
Steve as novelists is that they’re in no way precious
about their original work. They also bring ideas
about the real world that spark fresh dramatic
perspectives on the fictional world we are creating:
David Marr on the complex, self-serving deals that
are sometimes done between church and state; Paul
Collins on how he sees religion as poetry; Chris
Uhlman and Steve Lewis on the culture of the
“rough men” who guard our national security.
That great television series The Wire was
developed by David Simon with the help of a
room of journalists who knew Baltimore and
the underclass. If you scratch any of the great US
television shows since the resurgence of TV drama,
you’ll find a great respect for the knowledge that
can come from rigorous research. But what then?
Without that dark artist, the screenwriter, no
amount of research will yield much of value.
19
> STORYOLOGY
I once worked with the great scriptwriter
Jimmy McGovern, who met one of my friends
who was a psychologist. “I’ve never met a bloody
psychologist before,” he said. “What did you
base Cracker on?” I asked. “Out of my head,” he
said. Cracker, created by Jimmy, ran from 1993
to 1995, starring Robbie Coltrane as a troubled
criminal psychologist brought in to help the
Manchester Police Force profile killers. It was a
phenomenal success.
Then I got a glimpse of how Jimmy makes things
up. We were developing a First Fleet story and
Jimmy holed up with another writer for a month
in a house in Coogee. I plied him with the best
writing I could find on the early colony – original
texts like Watkin Tench and histories including Inge
Clendinnen’s forensic Dancing with Strangers.
One morning, Jimmy said, “I’ve got it – I’ve got
my character and my story!” He had read about
a young convict caught stealing food (a hanging
offence) who traded his life for the job no-one
wanted – that of the hangman. That’s all that was
known about the young man, and Jimmy thought
it marvellous. Now he could make the story of that
young convict his own and let rip, but the writings
he had been inhaling had informed the territory on
which he would build this character’s story.
McGovern is one of those people David Malouf
writes about in an essay where he asks how
Will Shakespeare – a very common person, the
son of a small time official in a country town, a
glovemaker and sometimes a legal speculator in
wool – could acquire the experience of the court
and its matters, the law, foreign places, the life
of a soldier in the field, that would allow him to
produce such a body of work.
Malouf points us to Henry James, who asserted
that a writer should write out of his experience.
But what kind of experience? James tells of an
English novelist, a woman of genius, who had
been lauded for the way she portrayed the French
protestant youth. Actually, James tells us, her
experience consisted of having once, in Paris, as she
ascended a staircase, passed an open door where
in the household of a pastor some of the young
protestants had just finished a meal. The glimpse
lasted only a moment, but it formed a picture. The
novelist knew that when given an inch you take a
mile – and she had the capacity to take that mile.
Malouf says the writer should be one on whom
“The poets… are the ones who lead us
back into the mystery of things.”
nothing is lost – an observer, a listener, a scavenger,
a close attender to the world’s smallest affairs.
Everything he sees or hears or overhears should
be laid down in his memory, taken into the spider
web of the unconscious and kept there until
the moment when it will be transformed by the
imagination and find its use.
Australian essayist and journalist Robin
Davidson once wrote that it is “the poets (for which
I read the writers) who are the ones who lead us
back into the mystery of things”. It is writers like
Helen Garner who have the capacity to take us into
the electrifying, palpable essence of a moment. In
This House of Grief, her account of the trial of a
man who drowned his sons in a dam, she describes
how three of the jurors had started to nod off, their
heads tilted at one angle like “tulips dying in a vase”.
It left me gobsmacked.
When you’re creating a drama about real people,
you can’t, like Jimmy McGovern, gleefully make
it up. Blue Murder and Deadline Gallipoli were
based on real people. We got ourselves into a bit of
dead water at one stage in the writing of Deadline
Gallipoli, which was based on the journalists
Charles Bean, Allis Ashmead Bartlett, Phillip
Schuler and Keith Murdoch. Our characters were
feeling a bit dull; the writers were feeling the
pressure of history as the centenary of Gallipoli
bore down on us.
One morning, one of the writers, Stuart Beattie,
bailed up head writer Jacquelin Perske and me at
breakfast and said, “Guys, now is the time to put
the history aside and start writing from the inside
out, not the outside in.” It was liberating. We found
a way to imagine these four men as dramatic
characters and the upshot is that, if such truth
exists, we have been incredibly true to them.
Writing from the inside out has become the new
black for me. As the real world becomes weirder
and weirder, it may be a good place to be.
Penny Chapman is founding partner of Matchbox
Pictures. This is an edited excerpt from her keynote
address at Storyology in Sydney in December 2014
If a pIcture Is worth a
thousand words, It’s
worth sharIng wIth epson.
Proudly supporting the Walkley Awards
For Excellence In Journalism since 2005
© Jason Pang
www.epson.com.au
> OUR
MEDIA
Creating a ‘town square’ for workers online
Working Life brings the concept of the labour press into the 21st century, says Mark Phillips. Cartoon by Andrew Weldon
T
here was a time when papers with names like
The Worker, Labour Herald and Common
Cause proudly sat on news stands alongside
The Sydney Morning Herald, The Argus
or The Courier-Mail.
Fuelled by a mistrust of the “capitalist press” and
a desire to give voice to their achievements and
aspirations, unions have been publishers as long
as they have existed. In his Labor in Print (1975),
HJ Gibbney listed 488 newspapers published by
the labour movement in Australia between 1850
and 1939. But as the 20th century progressed, the
labour press slowly declined and most of the great
names of the past disappeared. Some – like the
AWU’s The Australian Worker and the CFMEU’s
Common Cause – continue as glossy union
journals, but their audience is mostly limited to
members of their own union.
For a long time, there has been no strong and
single voice for the union movement. And it is
this tradition of the labour press that Working
Life (www.workinglife.org.au) is seeking to revive.
Our website is now almost two years old, and has
published hundreds of stories from throughout the
labour movement.
Established and supported by the ACTU,
Working Life is an editorially driven website that,
apart from continuing a labour press tradition,
is also a case study for the possibilities of owned
media in the fragmented online marketplace that
has created potentially fatal disruption for legacy
media organisations.
We launched in April 2013 with the ambition
to be a virtual town square in which the union
movement could meet and exchange ideas and
stories. Our mission is simple: to provide news,
opinion and features to an audience that does not
see their values and beliefs, nor the reality of their
lives, reflected in the mainstream media.
We seek to inform, entertain, provoke and
inspire through stories that also build the sense
of a movement that has contributed greatly to the
development of modern Australia.
Working Life was partly born out of frustration
at the over-arching negativity towards unionism
in the mainstream press, the decline of serious
industrial reporting due to the shrinking numbers
of journalists, and the difficulty unions face
in communicating with the public through
mainstream media.
All serious media organisations devote pages
of copy or many hours of airtime to coverage
of business and finance, and the views of
businesspeople are taken as gospel. But the other
side of the equation – the voices of workers – are
not given anything like parity.
Even an organisation as institutionally important
and credible in Australia as the ACTU struggles
to get its views across in the media, and when it
does so it’s drowned out by counter views from
the business community.
A key part of establishing Working Life was a
We seek to inform, entertain, provoke
and inspire through stories that
also build the sense of a movement
that has contributed greatly to the
development of modern Australia
recognition that this institutional bias was not
going to change. It was no longer acceptable to
get a five-second grab or a two-sentence quote in
a story, and a story on the left-hand page of a smallcirculation national or financial daily wasn’t really
cutting it. The solution was to put more resources
into creating our own content and distributing it
through our own media.
Having covered industrial relations for the
Herald Sun in the early 2000s, I knew the union
movement had many more interesting stories than
the mainstream media ever published. It was a
constant source of frustration that any “good news”
stories – stories that positively portrayed unions
or their causes – that I’d pitch to the news desk
would be rejected because they didn’t fit the paper’s
editorial stance.
Moving to work at the ACTU as its media officer
in 2008, I could see from the inside just how many
stories were never amplified beyond a union’s own
membership, or were so deliberately distorted or
unintentionally misreported by the media that
they might as well have not been covered at all.
More than once, I mused that if only the union
movement could publish itself…
The greatest breakthrough from the internet has
been the boom of diversity in the media, as the old
gatekeepers have watched their influence diminish
and a new tide of small, innovative start-ups have
been able to provide audiences with alternatives
and encourage a true two-way conversation.
The opportunities are enormous for small media
operators when today’s consumers of news can pick
and choose content from a smorgasbord of sources,
rather than a handful of monolithic sources.
In a way, the genesis of Working Life happened
well over a decade ago when, in 1999, the weekly
Workers Online – irreverent, informative, intelligent
and frequently controversial – was published.
Edited by Peter Lewis, then the media officer at
the NSW Labor Council, and backed by the Labor
Council’s then secretary, Michael Costa, it brought
a fresh tabloid sensibility to the coverage of union
and industrial affairs, mixing short news stories
with longer features, set piece interviews, book
reviews, sport and the much-loved “Piers Watch”
and “Tool of the Week”.
Workers Online lasted seven years and published
356 editions before Lewis folded it at the end of
2006, ironically less than a year before one of the
union movement’s greatest triumphs – the Your
Rights at Work campaign that defeated John
Howard’s WorkChoices laws.
“Workers Online came about, like most good
things, from a discussion in a pub in late 1998,”
says Lewis. “Noel Hester, who was at the time
working with Social Change Online, had noticed
that the new media officer at the Labor Council
– me – had been putting up lots of media releases
on the institutional website: ‘Surely we could do
something more with them’.
“It was a good question – we had a lot of issues –
but the idea of pitching them all to the media was
becoming harder as the industrial rounds, which in
their heyday had a fraternity of more than a dozen
reporters, had begun to fall away.
“As a former reporter on the Tele, I knew the
stories were there and there were great little gems
each week at the weekly Labor Council meeting
– but without journos, they were disappearing
into the ether.”
The idea of a workers’ newspaper germinated.
But would it be possible online?
A successful pitch was made to Michael Costa
for an online workers publication in the tradition
of the old union newspapers – “tabloid and inyour-face”.
But by 2006, Lewis believed the original need
for a union publication had been made redundant
by the revival of tabloid and TV media interest
in the movement as a result of the Your Rights at
Work campaign, which his company, EMC, was
21
> OUR
MEDIA
heavily involved in.
“The niche we set out to occupy has been backfilled,” he wrote in his final editorial in 2006.
But he spoke too soon. And today, we are back in
the same position that led to the establishment of
Workers Online 15 years ago.
Working Life differs from Workers Online in
that we aren’t a once-a-week publication. In the
intervening decade and a half, the internet has
been transformed by social media, blogs, the
emergence of sites like BuzzFeed and the ubiquity of
smartphones that mean we are never truly offline.
We publish every day, beginning with our
summary of what’s making news, “Clocking On”,
at 8am. We aim to publish at least three major
features a week, augmented by other stories each
day.
While we like to break news and will jump
onto a big story if it has merit, we do not aim to
be some kind of union wire service, regurgitating
media releases and hastily rewriting stories that
have appeared elsewhere. We have no interest in
participating in the churnalism of the 24-hour
news cycle or competing with generalist legacy
media. Instead we seek to provide depth, context
and analysis – which are rarely afforded to
worker organisations by mainstream media
who are all too obsessed with being first to a story
in the 24-hour cycle.
We are not greatly interested in internal union
dynamics, and we are not a wonky IR publication
that covers every decision in the commission and
every dispute. There are already capable, subscriberonly newsletters – Workplace Express and Workforce,
to name two – that do that for a readership made
up of IR practitioners, union officials, HR managers
and lawyers. But those stories don’t interest our
perceived audience.
We enjoy parody, satire and the offbeat. One of
our most popular columns is the “Hall of Shame”,
where we mercilessly satirise a “class enemy” such
as Gina Rinehart, Maurice Newman or Andrew
Forrest. When there is a breaking news story – such
as the minimum wage decision or the death of
Gough Whitlam – we will cover it with a live blog.
We also publish lots of opinion – not just from
union leaders but from other “progressives” such
as John Falzon, Cassandra Goldie, Mark Zirnsak,
Wayne Swan and Andrew Leigh.
Through links with Equal Times, a similar
publication from the International Trade Union
Confederation, and the LabourStart news
organisation – whose Asia-Pacific editor Andrew
Casey is an old newspaper and union hack – we also
bring an international perspective to the site with
union-related stories from other parts of the world.
At Working Life, we also focus on storytelling
because our stories are one of the strongest assets
the union movement has. “My Working Life” allows
workers to tell their stories – what they do, why
they like their job, why they are in the union and
what are their main issues at work – in their own
words. Through “My Working Life”, readers have
learnt about Frank the firefighter, Penny the social
worker, Chris the milk factory worker and Paul
the steelworker. Each has their own struggles and
triumphs, but what brings them together is they are
all members of a movement of almost 2 million.
We have no interest in participating
in the churnalism of the 24-hour
news cycle or competing with
generalist legacy media
Probably my two favourite stories in the last
12 months have been Sam Wallman’s comic strip
about the story of the minimum wage, and our
two-part series – totalling about 4000 words – going
behind the scenes of Australia’s most controversial
union, the CFMEU, to examine the role they play
on building sites every day.
The Wallman comic strip, made up of 34 frames,
was a huge hit and our readers loved it when we
profiled Sam and revealed that his day job was
working as an organiser for the National Union
of Workers.
The CFMEU story was important because while
the union may generate negative headlines and
vitriol, it plays a crucial and under-recognised role
in making sure construction sites are safe, that
workers are paid properly, and in training and
educating generations of construction workers.
Another two-part series, based on a long
interview with Greg Combet, was also popular,
while we scooped all other media organisations
who covered the National Commission of Audit in
May with our angle about the recommendation to
abolish the minimum wage.
We knew we were having an impact when we were
attacked by Andrew Bolt in one of his Herald Sun
columns last year.
Working Life has a fraction of the resources of
other media organisations – our one full-time staffer
is me. But we are fortunate that we can draw on the
newsrooms of union media and communications
staff around Australia, some of whom – like Ian
Munro at United Voice, Julian Lee at the CPSU and
Neil Wilson at the AMWU – have had distinguished
journalism careers with mainstream organisations
before coming to work for unions.
Working Life strives to be a voice for a movement,
but not for an institution. The ACTU remains our
financial backer, but we are not a mouthpiece for
the ACTU – it has its own website for that purpose.
Indeed, if Working Life was no more than a Pravda
for the ACTU, it would be fatal to our credibility as a
publication.
So what is the future for Working Life? Currently
the site exists through the support of Dave Oliver and
the ACTU, but like all media outlets, the challenge
is to become financially self-sustainable and to
monetise what we do by drawing in more advertising.
We have proved the model works and that labourowned media can find a niche in the online world.
But the really exciting potential for Working Life
in years to come will be to collaborate and build
relationships with a wide range of progressive
organisations and think tanks, to provide a powerful
platform for them to communicate their views and
ideas as they face the same issues with mainstream
media as unions do.
Under this model, our site could grow into a Down
Under equivalent of the highly successful Think
Progress website in the United States, a left-leaning
news and opinion publication that grew out of a blog
published by the Centre for American Progress, and
now has 1.4 million likes on Facebook and 350,000
followers on Twitter.
In the meantime, we’re happy to continue
delivering quality news and opinion to an audience
that is sick of being told what to think by corporate
media from the big end of town.
Mark Phillips is editor of Working Life, and a former
industrial reporter for the Herald Sun
Andrew Weldon is a Melbourne-based freelance
cartoonist. His work appears regularly in The
Age, The Sunday Age and The Big Issue Australia;
andrewweldon.com
CommsDirect
SAVE THE DATE:
Thursday June 11, 2015
Melbourne
www.walkleys.com/commdirect
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All of a twitter!
Walkley Foundation Young Australian Journalist of the Year Award winner Ella Rubeli shares the highlights of her eye-opening prize.
S
tanding in the bustling interior hall of the
CNN Centre, with newsrooms and giant
flashing television screens towering above,
one cannot help but feel giddy. This is
enhanced by the fact that the building retains
several structural traits of its first life as an indoor
amusement park, which has more in common
with the quick-thrills approach of contemporary
news journalism than I dare to dwell upon.
CNN headquarters in Atlanta was the first
stop on my trip sponsored by Twitter and
CNN International for winning the Walkley
Foundation’s Young Australian Journalist of the
Year Award in 2014.
The tour took me on a journey into mazes of
pulsing newsrooms, TV studios and production
rooms, where for two days I had rapid-fire
conversation sessions with a line-up of news
executives, editors and producers.
The institution was thrumming with the whirrs
and clicks of ongoing reinvention. Old CNN radio
studio signs hung in a room populated by flatscreens and digital video producers. Under one
roof work thousands of people, a whole spectrum
of journalists, from BuzzFeed-style video curators
to television presenters to documentary producers
and web coders.
However, peek into the window of a TV studio
and it is just about empty of humans, occupied
only by the presenter being recorded. As a producer
explained to me, now everything is controlled
externally. The video cameras are robotic.
The digital newsrooms were crowded with
reporters voraciously flicking through emails and
CNNwire, the interior news distribution system.
Correspondents aside, the romantic ideal of
newsgathering, like going out into the fields with a
wicker basket in search of mushrooms, is well dead.
But much of the rigour of reporting is stronger
than ever. In my first few conversations, I heard
mutterings of this thing called “The Row”. Was
it a place? A machine? And then I met Ram
Ramgopal, executive producer of The Row, the
team who wield the CNN fine-toothed comb.
The quality controllers have the job of reading
However, peek into the window
of a TV studio and it is just about
empty of humans, occupied only by
the presenter being recorded. As
a producer explained to me, now
everything is controlled externally.
The video cameras are robotic.
stories and scripts and checking for clarity,
storytelling, balance, CNN style compliance
and any legal requirements.
My second pit stop was to Twitter in
Washington, DC. Equipped with colourful
bird-themed meeting rooms, “thinking pods”
and enthusiastic young people wearing Twitter
T-shirts, the Twitter offices fulfilled the tech
stereotype. I was hosted by the Twitter @gov
team who are a dedicated group of consultants
WALKLEY AWARD FOR
BEST FREELANCE JOURNALIST
OF THE YEAR 2015
who flitter around the Capitol teaching people
of Congress to use Twitter as a campaigning tool.
They also work with journalists, assisting us to use
Twitter more effectively as a reporting tool.
Twitter had me staying in possibly the nicest
hotel in town and the gregarious team took
me out to lunch and on a tour to see the White
House – where we saw an impressive eight-car
motorcade, which was the First Lady’s escort to
the gym – and then to the Capitol. As we walked
through the halls of America’s political history,
the team of Congress enthusiasts bickered over
historical micro-details (was Abe Lincoln’s desk
in this corner, or that corner?). I was particularly
enthralled by the bloodstains on the staircase in
the East Wing, where in 1890 the representative of
Kentucky was shot – by a journalist, of course.
And I cannot go past a mention of the aptly
named “Newseum”. On the famous Pennsylvania
Avenue, most familiar as the place where
crowds fill during presidential inaugurations,
the Newseum is a journalism history museum
that houses outstanding examples of American
journalism. I spent hours watching archival
footage of the biggest stories of America’s modern
history. What affected me most while there was a
particular exhibit in the 9/11 memorial museum
– the final photographs and the charred remains
of the camera of New York photojournalist
William Biggart, the only journalist who died
covering the 9/11 attacks.
America has always been an enigma to me.
But after spending a little time in two big
powerhouses of the country – CNN headquarters
and the Capitol – the splendid mirage became
slightly more lucid. I left feeling in awe of the
adaptability of contemporary media houses,
as well as humbled by the legacy that we are all
attempting to maintain.
Thank you to the Walkley Foundation for
making it possible.
Ella Rubeli is a photojournalist. She was the
winner of the 2014 Walkley Young Journalist of
the Year Award
PRESENTED BY
ENTRIES CLOSE APRIL 28 at 5pm
www.walkleys.com
23
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Free speech — a fun but dangerous business
Ward O’Neill juxtaposes a happy gathering of cartoonists in a French village, a light-hearted film about their ilk and
the tragic events of the Charlie Hebdo attack
The cover of Cabu’s Can We Still Laugh at All?
Mark Knight, Herald Sun
T
he 33rd Salon International de la Caricature
du Dessin de Presse et d’Humour was held in
September and October of 2014. Visiting the
small French village of Saint-Just-le-Martel,
home of the Salon, were 185 cartoonists from
all parts of the world. This is an extremely popular
event in the Limousin region, and over eight days
thousands of visitors crowded the exhibition hall
to see the large display of cartoons and, if they
were lucky, to have their caricatures drawn by the
visiting cartoonists.
It was an extraordinary festival, memorable for the
generosity of the villagers, the degree of organisation,
the range of events and the many new friends made
in the international world of cartooning. At the
reception desk there was a makeshift bookshop where
you could buy copies of collections of cartoons by
Cabu (Jean Cabut) and Georges Wolinski – both
famous contributors to Charlie Hebdo. For many,
these books are now poignant souvenirs of a visit to
Saint-Just-le-Martel.
The title of one of Cabu’s books, translated from
the French, is Can We Still Laugh at All? The cover
shows a gaggle of people – priests, rabbis, mullahs,
police, army veterans and even a chef – all declining to
be the subject of laughter or irreverence. The cartoons
themselves are disrespectful, crude, vivid and funny,
and sometimes not. To be the butt of a cartoon such
as these would, in all probability, be quite painful.
The French themselves love these cartoons – mostly.
Even President François Hollande (or Flamby, as he
is called, after a commercial crème caramel product)
concedes the popularity of his tormentors.
Tragically, Cabu and his Charlie Hebdo colleague
Georges Wolinski, a guest of the Salon, are now dead –
murdered in the Paris office of their newspaper along
with eight other colleagues and two police officers.
Many others were critically wounded. Another visitor
But being sacked, harassed, ostracised, fined or jailed is nothing compared
to a bloody and purposeful assassination carried out by extremists.
Suddenly, and dramatically, the stakes have been raised
and cartoonist at the Salon, Corinne Rey – or Coco as
she is known to her readers – was forced at gunpoint
to open the office door by the gunmen.
Like many terrorist attacks, it is not only a heartless
crime against people but also a calculated blow
against free speech. Whatever anyone says, these
events have and will intimidate people anywhere who
are publishing challenging, perverse and sometimes
offensive ideas. Undeniably, Charlie Hebdo is an
unconventional and, as they themselves say, an
irresponsible newspaper.
One event during the Salon with direct relevance
to the Charlie Hebdo shootings was the screening of
the film Caricaturistes – Fantassins de la Démocratie
in the lovely medieval village of Saint-Léonardde-Noblat, some 12 kilometres from Saint-Just-leMartel. The title translates as “Cartoonists – Foot
Soldiers of Democracy” and the film, directed by
Stéphanie Valloatto with Le Monde cartoonist Plantu
(Jean Plantureux), centres on the challenges faced by
12 cartoonists working in different circumstances,
with differing degrees of difficulty, around the
world. Plantu visited his subjects in their home
environments.
What seems at times, even to its practitioners,
as a light-hearted and less than substantial filmic
contribution to the world of letters and ideas changes
when we consider the lengths that some will go to in
stopping the cartoons and their messages getting out.
The film takes us from Tunisia to China, Israel, the
United States, Venezuela and several other countries.
Cartoonist Rayma Suprani, winner of the main prize
at the Salon and a visitor to Saint-Just-le-Martel,
suffered the indignity of being sacked in absentia from
her newspaper in Caracas after it was taken over by the
Venezuelan government.
But being sacked, harassed, ostracised, fined
or jailed is nothing compared to a bloody and
purposeful assassination carried out by extremists.
Suddenly, and dramatically, the stakes have been
raised. These shootings are a tragic postscript to an
interesting film, a sad reminder that free speech for
some is a deadly business.
Both Cabu and Wolinski challenged powerful and
entrenched ideas. Their cartoons were undoubtedly
offensive to the Catholic church, to Islamists, to
Israel, to women and many others. A nasty idea
has taken foothold, that the staff of Charlie Hebdo
were somehow the agents of their own demise. That
has already happened in the United States, among
sections of the churches, extremist Islamic groups
and on the far right.
The intimidating methods of terrorism – pour
encourager les autres as the French say – can only be
countered by an overwhelming demonstration of
revulsion at these awful crimes by the people of France
and everywhere else. This has happened in France and
across the world. Hundreds of thousands of people
Cathy Wilcox, Fairfax Media
Jason Chatfield, jasonchatfield.com
Peter Broelman, Illawarra Mercury
Glen Le Lievre, Sun Herald
Neil Matterson, The Sunday Mail
have demonstrated their support for the victims at the
Charlie Hebdo office.
In contrast to these terrible events, at the SaintJust-le-Martel Salon, 400km south of Paris, we had
enjoyed the spirited hospitality of the villagers and
our generous hosts. Each day we sat down together at
lunch and dinner in a large tent, eating meals prepared
and served by young and enthusiastic volunteers. We
were entertained by choirs and cabaret performances.
We witnessed Justine – a Limousin cow – being led
into the exhibition hall to officially open the 2014
proceedings. Justine, something of an old trouper, has
been up the Eiffel Tower and travelled on a TGV train.
What sangfroid. Some poor sheep were harmlessly
spray-painted with cartoon figures.
The Australian contribution to the Salon – the work
of 45 cartoonists – was represented by Eric Lobbecke,
Peter Sheehan, Judy Horacek, Christophe Granet and
me. We were awarded the International Press Prize
for our collective efforts. Eric and Christophe – both
with French backgrounds – were able to communicate
more effectively and graciously with the French
audience than their largely monolingual colleagues.
We did do our best however, and became quite adept
at ordering aperitifs.
The cartoonists owe their hosts, volunteers and
organisers a debt of gratitude. The director, Gerard
Vandenbroecke, deputy director Guy Hennequin,
Corinne Forrestier and many others deserving of
recognition – especially the chef – will be back in
September with another Salon.
Sadly, some well-remembered faces will not
be there.
Ward O’Neill is an Australian illustrator, caricaturist
and cartoonist
25
Photo: Nick Moir/Oculi
HELPING JOURNALISTS IN NEED
The NSW Journalists’ Benevolent Fund has been helping
colleagues since the 1920s.
To find out more or to apply online visit
nswjbf.org
Established with a bequest from the founding editor
of The Bulletin, Jules Archibald, the fund today assists
journalists and their dependents during times of financial
stress such as:
Email [email protected]
or call 1300 65 65 13 (toll free)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Job loss and redundancy
Short-term financial crisis
Serious illness and medical treatment
Funeral benefit for members and former members
Other major life crisis
Education assistance
Problems with addiction
Possible assistance with legal fees
You can help the fund by giving a donation online – or
you can ask for help yourself.
Trustees:
Catriona Wilson
Alan Kennedy
Richard Glover
Lindsay Foyle
The NSW Journalists’ Benevolent Fund considers
applications from current or former NSW journalists
and their families as well as journalists in exile looking to
relocate to NSW.
All requests for assistance are kept in the strictest
confidence.
nswjbf.org
PRESS FREEDOM
Security tips the scales against liberty
Now more than ever we must stand up for press freedom, writes Christopher Warren. Cartoon by Glen Le Lievre
W
hen Prime Minister Tony
Abbott said in September
last year, “Regrettably, for
some time to come, the
delicate balance between
freedom and security may have to
shift,” it’s unlikely anyone envisaged
the shift would result in the greatest
assault on press freedom in Australia
in peacetime.
The rollout of three tranches
of national security laws has
placed journalists at risk for
simply doing their jobs. Our
computers and communications
are under surveillance, our work
is compromised and our confidential
sources face exposure. The media
organisations we work for can
have their computer networks
copied, tampered with, altered
or even deleted.
Under new ASIO powers, reporting
news and information in the public interest will be
tested by the Commonwealth Director of Public
Prosecutions, and if the journalist and media
organisation have reported “recklessly” they face
stiff jail terms (regardless of what the AttorneyGeneral may say). Most recently, the parliament’s
Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has
confirmed that the metadata retention bill will be
used to identify journalists’ sources.
We now also know that when journalists write
about asylum-seeker issues, they can be referred to
the Australian Federal Police, who will investigate
alleged “unauthorised” disclosures of information
by the journalists’ sources. And, of course, the longer
that asylum-seeker stories remain hidden behind
government denials of access to information about
what is going on in our name, the more journalists
will have to rely on whistleblowers.
Just four years ago, politicians were embracing
the concept of shield laws to protect journalist
privilege. It was recognition of the journalists’
ethical obligation to never reveal the identity of
confidential sources. That attitude, despite the
statements supporting press freedom in the face
of terror attacks, seems to have been forgotten
in the rush to shift the delicate balance the prime
minister was talking about. Even as recently as
January, in response to the Charlie Hebdo attack,
he said: “Freedom of expression is the cornerstone
of a free society.”
MEAA has consistently opposed the assaults
on press freedom contained in the three tranches
of national security laws. We have sought a media
exemption so that journalists can be allowed to do
their jobs without fear of harassment, intimidation
or having the integrity of their relationships with
sources compromised.
But it is clear that in this chillier environment
for journalism, we must take steps to protect
We must educate ourselves on
the laws that seek to impede and
undermine our work. We must
campaign for press freedom
ourselves, our news stories and our sources. We must
educate ourselves on the laws that seek to impede
and undermine our work. We must campaign for
press freedom. We must encourage our employers
to implement changes in the way we work and
communicate to ensure our sources and stories are
secured – and if need be, implement the tools of
counter-intelligence including anonymisation and
encryption for our data.
Journalists need to be more aware of the scope
of the shield laws, which jurisdictions they operate
in and what they cover. Journalists need to be aware
that jurisdiction-shopping could expose them to
subpoenas demanding they reveal the identity of a
source only to discover that the state the subpoena
originated in refuses to implement a shield.
Defamation law, despite the implementation
of a national regime, also threatens our work.
Litigation is increasingly expensive and damages
are now being sought in astronomical sums
that threaten to severely cripple cost-conscious
media organisations. Earlier this year, Tasmania
even attempted to break away from the uniform
national defamation scheme by reinstituting the
ability of corporations to sue. MEAA and many
other organisations helped encourage the state
government to back down on the plan.
Threats to press freedom can take many guises
but they all share a common theme – a threat to the
ability of the media to tell important news stories in
the public interest. Any loss of jobs in our industry
hampers that ability. Over the past three years we
have seen up to 2500 jobs lost – for the most part in
commercial media operations struggling to chase
fragmented revenue and provide a service on a
multitude of platforms. But the cuts to our public
broadcasters announced last year were political
decisions, broken election promises that slashed
vital resources and skilled expertise from two great
Australian institutions. Hundreds of jobs have been
lost and we are all the poorer for it.
These assaults on press freedom in Australia are
serious and unprecedented. But they are nothing
compared to the dangers faced by our colleagues
in the Asia-Pacific – the most deadly region for our
profession – where 39 journalists and media workers
were killed in 2014.
Five years after the death of 58 people including
32 journalists in the Philippines’ Ampatuan
Massacre, impunity continues to reign across
the country. President Aquino, who took office
seven months after the massacre, has already seen
35 journalists killed during his administration.
And meanwhile the massacre trial continues to
drag on, with justice continuing to be denied to the
families of the slain journalists.
Attacks on press freedom start with a delicate
shift. Then, increasingly, journalists are targeted in
efforts to control information. As we saw from
the arrest and jailing of our colleague Peter Greste,
simply doing your job can send you to jail.
If no-one stands up for press freedom, it can
also have you killed.
Christopher Warren is federal secretary of MEAA
Glen Le Lievre contributes to The Sydney Morning
Herald, The Sun-Herald and The Age
27
PRESS FREEDOM
Fishing for metadata
aims to net sources
“We’re from the government and we’re not here to help you,”
seems to be the underlying message of the data retention
bill, writes Mike Dobbie. Cartoon by Lindsay Foyle
I
n 2012-13, Australians’ metadata was being
disclosed to law enforcement agencies,
including police forces and anticorruption star chambers, at a rate of
more than 26,000 “authorisations”
a month, according to the annual report
of the federal Attorney-General’s
Department. That doesn’t include
disclosures provided to the Australian
Security Intelligence Organisation
(ASIO), whose access requests are kept
secret. Nor does it include disclosures
made on behalf of city councils,
societies for the prevention of cruelty
to animals, and other government
departments and statutory authorities.
But it does mean you don’t have to
come under the gaze of Australia’s spy
agency to have your metadata trawled
through by government.
Politicians will tell you they can’t
understand what all the fuss is about. Accessing
metadata has been going on for years and all
they are seeking to do with the data retention
bill is introduce amendments to the 1979
Telecommunications (Interception and Access)
Act. However 36 years ago, journalists and their
confidential sources didn’t use smartphones,
email and laptops.
The third tranche of the Abbott government’s
national security laws focusing on data retention
clearly aims to bring the old 1979 law up to speed
and ensure carriers retain several years’ worth of
data so government agencies can go time travelling
into the details of Australians’ use of the latest
digital technology.
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance
(MEAA), like many media organisations, told
the parliamentary committee inquiring into the
proposed amendments that entrenching and
extending the reach of metadata disclosures is an
attack on journalists’ ethical obligations to never
reveal a confidential source. Clause 3 of MEAA’s
Journalist Code of Ethics states that obligation
clearly: “Where confidences are accepted, respect
them in all circumstances.”
The ability of law enforcement and surveillance
agencies to access journalists’ metadata means
that journalists are powerless to protect any
communication, whether a call or an email, with
a confidential source. The net result is a chilling
effect on important journalism, because if a
whistleblower cannot trust the journalist to protect
their identity, important revelations of wrongdoing,
safety breaches, dishonesty, corruption and illegal
activity may never come to light.
We know that in at least eight cases in 2014
journalists from the Guardian Australia and
news.com.au websites, and the West Australian
newspaper, were referred to the Australian Federal
In short, every journalist is on notice
that the government will use the bill
to trawl through your metadata in
order to hunt down your sources.
Police for investigation into their sources for news
stories about the government’s asylum-seeker
policies. Those stories were written as a result of
the lack of information available after the Abbott
government militarised customs and immigration
through Operation Sovereign Borders.
We also know that in the Allan Kessing case
in 2005 and also the 2007 case involving the
Herald Sun journalists Michael Harvey and Gerard
McManus, who refused to identify a source and
were subsequently convicted of contempt of
court, it is possible that journalists’ phone records
were scrutinised.
Three months after the data retention bill was
tabled, the parliamentary committee issued its
report. Despite receiving 204 submissions, including
from MEAA and many other media organisations,
it still had not made up its mind about the press
freedom implications of the amendment bill. It
suggested holding a second inquiry. But in the
meantime, the committee determined that the
bill should be passed by the federal parliament – a
puzzling move as it aims to enact flawed legislation
in advance of fixing the flaws.
There was an added surprise in the committee’s
recommendations. Just to ensure there were no
misunderstandings, the committee spelt out
that the bill would indeed be used to authorise
“disclosure of information or documents… for
the purpose of determining the identity of a
journalist’s sources”. For the first time, journalists
are being told they and their sources will be
deliberately targeted by the Commonwealth.
In short, every journalist is on notice that the
government will use the bill to trawl through
your metadata in order to hunt
down your sources. It
seems the championing
of press freedom in the
aftermath of the January
attack on the offices of
Charlie Hebdo has been
quickly forgotten.
These assaults on press
freedom aren’t confined to
Australia. In Britain, three
weeks before the committee
released its recommendations,
the UK’s culture secretary was
insisting on amendments to that
country’s Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act (RIPA) after it was
discovered that over three years, more than half of
Britain’s police forces had made 608 applications
to trawl through journalists’ metadata with the aim
of finding their contacts and their sources.
MEAA consistently called for a media exemption
to be applied to all three tranches of national
security laws because each has serious press
freedom implications. The laws challenge the
ethical obligations of journalists to never reveal a
confidential source – a principle acknowledged and
protected by the Commonwealth when it introduced
shield laws to protect journalist privilege in 2011.
Breaching these laws could carry jail terms of up to
10 years for both journalists and their sources.
Now the Data Retention Bill has seen the
introduction of journalist information warrants
and a public interest advocate. Regardless, our
sources are still vulnerable and journalists must
take steps to protect themselves and their sources.
The tools of counter-surveillance may now become
part of the regular working kit for most of us; tools
that include anonymisation and encryption of your
communications and computers so that you, your
sources and your stories can be protected, so that
you can continue to do your job.
In the battle to ensure news and information
in the public interest can still be published and
broadcast, courageous whistleblowers will seek
out journalists to get the story told. But that won’t
happen if journalists and their employers have
their ability to operate compromised by agencies
of government.
Mike Dobbie is the communications manager for
the MEAA Media section
Lindsay Foyle is a past president of the Australian
Cartoonists’ Association
PRESS FREEDOM
Gloves on in fight to hide digital fingerprints
There is no way to secure the absolute protection of a source in the digital world, but Josh Taylor has a few suggestions on what you can try.
Cartoon by David Pope
A
re journalists just collateral damage in the
ramp-up of the surveillance state, both in
Australia and the rest of the world, or are they
carefully considered targets?
The mandatory data retention legislation
introduced by the Australian government late last
year has, rightly, been identified as a major threat to
the ability for journalists to go about our job. The
legislation requires telecommunications companies
to keep logs of the phone calls made, the assigned IP
addresses, the mobile device location, email addresses
and other identifying data for at least two years.
Law enforcement agencies can then access this data
without getting a warrant first. All that is required is
an approved officer to sign off on it, and the telco will
then hand over all the data they want.
For the average citizen, this is a breach of their
privacy; for a journalist it is a massive compromise
on our ability to just do our jobs. Consider wanting
to arrange a meeting with a contact. You can’t call
them on your phone, you can’t SMS them, you can’t
use your work email address, you can’t take your
phone to the meeting.
This data is already available today, and has
been used to track down the sources of journalists
including Laurie Oakes and Nick McKenzie. But
the new legislation locks in a guarantee that when
the agencies go knocking on doors for that data, the
telco will have it.
What can journalists do about it?
There is, unfortunately, no way to secure the
absolute protection of a source in the digital
world. There are, however, steps you can take to
minimise the risk that whistleblowers take in leaking
information to a journalist.
data retention but could potentially be captured
through other surveillance methods deployed either
in Australia or through the US.
In the US, many people use ‘burner’ phones
they can use once or twice and then get rid of.
This is slightly more difficult in Australia because
the government requires registration of SIM cards
using ID before the service can be activated. This
change was also made due to ‘national security
concerns’ in 1997.
Call a source if you have to, but try not to do it
from anything with an account linked to your name.
Messaging
SMS isn’t safe. The rise of device-side encryption
in iMessage is an improvement, and means Apple
shouldn’t be able to see your messages, but if anyone
breaks into your phone, they could.
Disposable email addresses are also a way to
ensure a greater level of anonymity for one-off
communications. You can use these one-off emails
if sources need to send you a file. But the source
should also be sure to use encryption.
Every journalist should also use the PGP –
Pretty Good Privacy – email encryption program.
This is an encryption method that is a little more
complicated to set up, and a little more timeconsuming, but offers a higher level of encryption
for those longer communications with sources.
Journalists can even link to their public key in
their emails or in their social media profiles so that
sources know exactly how to get in contact with
that journalist securely.
To use a cliché, there is no silver bullet, and no
way to guarantee that sources will be safe. As well,
it relies on your sources knowing how to use the
Car parks
and plain
envelopes
offer
much more
protection
than Gmail
and phone
calls.
Internet browsing
There are a couple of ways to mask how you browse
the internet. The simple way is by using a virtual
private network (VPN) service. It’s not just for
watching Netflix anymore! It is a good way to make
your IP address appear to be somewhere else, and
avoid logging under mandatory data retention.
Using the Tor Browser goes one step further,
allowing you to access ‘dark web’ or ‘deep web’ sites
that you can’t access through a normal web browser.
Law enforcement has managed to crack down
on some of the less legal sites, such as the online
marketplace Silk Road, but it is more secure than
your run-of-the-mill web browser.
Calls
Unfortunately, mandatory data retention means
that for journalists, any mobile or fixed line account
linked to their name is now compromised. Any source
that calls you on a phone linked to your name will
have their number made available to Australian law
enforcement if officers ask for it.
Over-the-top voice messaging services such as
Skype or WhatsApp are excluded from mandatory
For short messages, you can always find apps that
use Off-the-Record encryption, such as ChatSecure for
iOS and Android. Or alternatively, you could follow
in the footsteps of our very own communications
minister Malcolm Turnbull and use an app like Wickr
that destroys messages after a set amount of time.
Email
One of the more absurd aspects of the mandatory
data retention legislation is that the government
wants ISPs to hold records of emails sent by their
users, but ISPs only have the ability to record emails
sent by their own services. So [email protected]
emails will be captured but, by their own admission,
[email protected] won’t be caught by the scheme.
So using international email services will be outside
the scope of data retention. However, the Edward
Snowden leaks have shown that security agencies can
get access to emails held by US companies.
same encryption methods as you, and that will
ultimately present the biggest hurdle.
Despite token gestures by the parliament to
attempt to protect journalists and their sources, there
are still enough gaps and loopholes in the legislation
to ring alarm bells over the potential for sources to be
compromised by government agencies accessing the
data of journalists. The Australian Federal Police has
also confirmed it has received 13 referrals to trace the
source of leaked Commonwealth information in just
the last 18 months.
Sadly, the best way to protect your source online
is to take all communications with them offline.
Car parks and plain envelopes offer much more
protection than Gmail and phone calls.
Josh Taylor is the Sydney-based senior journalist for
technology news website ZDNet
David Pope is a cartoonist for The Canberra Times
29
PRESS FREEDOM
Inquiry puts spotlight on official information delays
A review of government agencies’ response to New Zealand’s Official Information Act has Brent Edwards and other journalists hoping for a
clearer path to timely newsgathering. Cartoon by Rod Emmerson
N
ew Zealand journalists are hoping a longawaited review of the Official Information Act
will lead to more government transparency and
end a culture of delay and obstruction evident
in many government agencies.
Twelve central government agencies will be formally
reviewed by the Ombudsman’s Office, while another
63 agencies and all 27 ministers’ offices have been
asked to complete a detailed two-part survey covering
all aspects of the way they deal with requests under
the Official Information Act (OIA).
But the review, which was announced at the end of
last year, has been a long time coming.
It was first signalled in December 2012 by
Ombudsman David McGee – who has subsequently
retired – after he investigated the Ministry of
Education’s response to a request for information
about proposed school closures in Canterbury in the
wake of the province’s devastating earthquakes.
That report found that the ministry had tried
to remove requests from the OIA process and there
was a suggestion that other departments were doing
the same thing.
As well, the office had received anecdotal reports
that journalists and others had encountered what
it called “a variety of approaches” to OIA requests
during the previous year. It said it had culminated
during and since the 2011 election campaign in
the OIA process being circumvented.
New Zealand’s Chief Ombudsman, Beverley Wakem,
says this has the potential to erode public confidence
in the OIA throughout the core public sector.
“The public needs the assurance that both the
letter and the spirit of the law are being observed
by the custodians of public information,” she
says. “Our independent review of agencies’ OIA
practice combined with greater transparency of
OIA processes should help renew the foundation
for that assurance.”
While she uses diplomatic language to describe the
problem, most journalists are more blunt about what
is happening: many would argue that not only is the
spirit of the law being ignored, but so too is the letter.
Here is a not untypical response to a request,
particularly one made to a minister’s office. First, just
ignore the request. The onus is then on the journalist
to follow up and demand a response. Often, busy
journalists might let it slip before they they follow
up their initial request. Several weeks can pass by.
Once an office is reminded of the request, it will
often plead ignorance and then start the process from
the time it gets the second approach. That means
considering it over the next 20 working days, as
required by the Official Information Act.
More often than not, at the end of 20 days the
office will reply saying it needs more time to respond
to the request. Then, if you are lucky, you get some
information. But generally it is received so late that
it is less newsworthy than if the minister’s office
had responded on time. The same approach is often
At the moment, the government and its agencies know they can get
away with abusing the law because the Ombudsman’s Office has neither
the power nor the resources to enforce it.
adopted by government agencies, as they almost
inevitably alert their minister to information
requests they receive.
This has been the approach taken under the
government’s ‘no surprises’ policy, which was first
put into effect by the previous Labour government.
While it no doubt helps the government’s political
management of issues, it works against the purpose
of the OIA to foster open government.
What will come of the Ombudsman’s Office’s
investigation is unclear. What the legislation needs
is more power so that government ministers and
agencies that flout the law actually face a penalty for
doing so. And the Ombudsman’s Office needs more
resources so it can properly investigate complaints
about OIA requests that have been delayed or
rejected.
At the moment, the government and its
agencies know they can get away with abusing
the law because the office has neither the power
nor the resources to enforce it. An appeal to the
Ombudsman’s Office can take months, even years,
to be settled. At that point the minister’s office or
agency will grudgingly release the information. But
by a deliberate strategy of delay, they ensure the
public effect of its release is much less than had it
been released properly under the time frame of the
Official Information Act.
There is, however, some hope that the inquiry
by the Ombudsman’s Office will have some
effect. It is, at least, putting the spotlight on the
government’s current handling of the process. And
the office says that as evidence emerges of problems,
a determination will be made on each specific
case as to whether it can be addressed properly
by the inquiry or whether it requires a separate
stand-alone investigation. It also says any problems
that can be resolved during the inquiry will be
rectified immediately.
Journalists have long been frustrated by the
stonewalling when it comes to Official Information
Act requests that seek information an agency or its
minister would prefer to remain secret. At the very
least, the Ombudsman’s Office’s inquiry should lead
to a renewed commitment to releasing information
in the public interest rather than withholding it
for political interests.
Brent Edwards is the political editor at
Radio New Zealand
Rod Emmerson is the editorial cartoonist for
The New Zealand Herald
PRESS FREEDOM
Secret journos’ business
Joseph Fernandez analyses a survey of Australian journalists on their use of confidential sources — with some curious and some
concerning results. Cartoon by Greg Smith
D
o journalists work with “sources”? No,
according to one respondent in a recent
nationwide survey of journalists. The
42-question survey drew 154 illuminating
– some curious – responses. In response
to a question on what influences the making of
a confidentiality promise, one answered: “I don’t
work with sources.” And, to a question that reads
“Are you aware of the penalties for withholding
information from the police, other investigating
authorities and the courts?” the responses included
“Pretty much tell them to stuff off ” and “But I don’t
care, sources are protected”. As for being aware of
the penalties, 25 per cent (of 146 respondents) said
they were not aware in relation to the police and
other investigating authorities, and 19 per cent were
unaware in relation to the courts.
The author conducted the survey between
August and October 2014, and the responses
included partial completions, with 30 follow-up
interviews with respondents and senior journalists,
including editors. The Media, Entertainment and
Arts Alliance Media Section was the main survey
distributor, while a selection of large media outlets,
including the ABC, The Australian, The Sydney
Morning Herald, The Age and The West Australian
also helped with distribution. The survey’s broad
themes covered participants’ general profile;
familiarity with shield laws; when, on what terms
and to whom confidentiality was promised;
the processes governing such undertakings;
perceptions of shield laws’ effectiveness; concerns
about official surveillance; and perceptions of
outcomes from confidentiality promises. Here are
some of the key findings.
Shield law familiarity
The general lack of understanding of shield laws
among journalists stood out. A whopping 75 per cent
(of 154) were “uncertain” if they were covered by
shield laws, 29 per cent had “no understanding”
and 62 per cent had “some understanding”.
Only 10 per cent had a “good” or “excellent”
understanding.
MEAA’s media section communications
manager Mike Dobbie said: “There doesn’t seem
to be a very good understanding of what shield
laws are, how they work, how they apply, and who
they apply to.”
Former ABC Media Watch presenter and
now columnist with The Age Jonathan Holmes
said: “It is rather shocking that there is such
widespread ignorance as to whether a shield law
exists, let alone knowing how it works, which
itself is pretty complicated.”
The Age editor-in-chief Andrew Holden said:
“For most journalists, certainly those in larger
organisations, there is probably a reliance on legal
advisers, and journalists ask themselves ‘Do I have
to know the ins and outs of my local shield law
when I have lawyers who will step in?’”
“Shield laws are a useful part of the media’s legal armoury but, as their
application remains largely untested in the courts, it’s still unclear how
much protection they would offer”
When and on what terms are promises made?
Respondents’ answers were puzzling, with 19 per
cent (of 108) saying the terms were “not clearly
defined but implied from the circumstances”, or
that the terms were “clearly defined but done orally”
(61 per cent). Only 12 per cent said the terms are
“clearly defined and captured on the record”. A
staggering 42 per cent (of 104) said it was not always
relevant whether the information obtained through
a confidentiality promise was available from an
alternative attributable source, while 18 per cent (of
147) said they had “no understanding” or only “some
understanding” of the terms on the record, off the
record and background information.
Dobbie said: “From MEAA’s perspective, that is
probably a bit disconcerting… If journalists can’t
answer that question, and it seems that a lot of
respondents couldn’t, how then does that translate
to your understanding of confidentiality and the
obligation concerned?’”
ABC head of editorial policy, Alan Sunderland, said
while some journalists assume they have a good sense
of what dealing with sources entails, “when it comes
to the controls, risks or limitations they face they
generally have only the vaguest of understanding.
That was the biggest feature of the findings.”
Editor of The Australian, Clive Mathieson, said:
“The best practice for journalists remains to get
sources on the record wherever possible and, where
that is impossible or ill-advised, be sure you are doing
the right thing, that your story is in the public interest
and your source worthy of protection. Until proven
otherwise, you can’t rely on the courts or the code of
ethics to protect your sources.”
A sizeable 73 per cent (of 108) said sources
claimed they would face adverse consequences if
the confidentiality was breached, and 72 per cent
said the source made a confidentiality promise a
condition for releasing information, while 69 per cent
said the magnitude of a story from a public concern
perspective was a factor in considering a promise. The
vast majority (85 per cent of 74) said they followed
the MEAA code – even those employed by media
organisations. Other codes cited were the ABC,
Fairfax, News Corp, Age and IFJ codes. Surprisingly,
given that major media organisations were covered in
the survey, 57 per cent (of 134) said their organisation
had no rules “specifically” for confidential sources.
Follow-up interviews showed that some journalists
were unaware of their employer’s rules. Sunderland
said: “There are some big messages out of this… the
more you can overtly confront and examine these
issues in the workplace the better.”
Processes governing promises
While 22 per cent (of 134) said they alone made
the decision whether to honour the confidentiality
undertaking and publish without identifying the
source, triple that number said they alone were
“best placed” to decide whether a source should be
protected. Only 15 per cent said the line manager or
supervisor was best placed to decide. Asked who
31
PRESS FREEDOM
else in the organisation had the right to know the
confidential source’s identity, 32 per cent said “noone else”; while the others who figured prominently
as having the right to know were a subeditor, editor,
managing editor and legal adviser. Notably, 11 per
cent said they “often” or “always” felt unable to comply
with the requirement to reveal the source identity to
another person in the organisation. The remaining
69 per cent said they “never” or only “sometimes” felt
unable to do so, while 20 per cent were neutral.
Dobbie said: “Does the source know that all these
people are going to be told?”
Perceptions on shield law effectiveness
Unremarkably, 96 per cent (of 95) said it was “extremely
important” to be able to provide strong protection
for confidential sources. As to how such protection
should be provided, 77 per cent said “through a
professional code of ethics that you can show binds
you”, while 40 per cent said protection should be
provided through the employer’s rules, 72 per cent
through law made by parliament, and 51 per cent
through court decisions. Only 34 per cent found the
present state of shield law “totally inadequate”, while
65 per cent said it was “somewhat adequate”.
The long answers accompanying this question
indicated that some respondents did not understand
shield laws (“to be honest, I don’t know what they
are”; “not qualified to answer”, “not sure”, “I don’t
know anything about existing laws, didn’t even think
we had any”); or unrealistically favoured absolute
protection (“total protection required”, “absolute
protection should be guaranteed”, “police should
under no circumstances be able to raid media offices,
nor courts demand any information”); or justifiably
wanted the rules to be “uniform, more clearly
defined”, and “national”. Asked what you would do
if it were entirely up to you to introduce shield laws,
59 per cent advocated “absolute protection”, while
35 per cent would retain the qualified protection
with a presumption against disclosure. Answering
a related question, 41 per cent (of 93) said shield law
should “protect confidential sources only when the
confidentiality is justified”.
The Age, whose award-winning reporters
Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker faced a pursuit
of their confidential sources, was able to block it
by relying on shield laws. Editor-in-chief Holden
said: “Shield law helps but it is not the solution to
all our problems because, quite frankly, the law
of defamation is a more real and daily threat to
journalism.”
A deep divide emerged on the question Who
should shield law cover? Participants were asked
to choose from a list: all journalists, in any
circumstance, regardless of whether they can show
that they are bound by a recognised code of practice
(24 per cent of 93); all journalists including citizen
journalists, bloggers and others who produce
journalistic content (18 per cent); all journalists as
long as the content met a journalistic code even if
it did not bind them (32 per cent); only those who
practice journalism for a living (18 per cent); and
only able to show they are bound by a recognised
journalistic code (39 per cent).
How a “journalist” should be defined drew
a similarly varied response: 45 per cent (of 93)
would limit “journalist” to a person who works in
intelligence law, data retention law – it’s constantly
upping the ante on journalists.”
Perceptions on outcomes
“There are some big messages out
of this… the more you can overtly
confront and examine these issues
in the workplace the better”
an organisation with a news and current affairs
function; the person is not strictly a journalist but
the work concerned is “journalistic output” (38
per cent); and the person belongs to a professional
journalism body with a professional practice code
(48 per cent). Dobbie said: “Let’s stop trying to label
the individual and try to label the subject matter at
hand, the journalism.”
Concerns about official surveillance
In response to questions on arguably the most
serious contemporary challenge to journalistic
sources – official surveillance – respondents provided
a mix of answers, some of them curious. Many (41
per cent of 95) were “not concerned” or “a little
concerned” or “neutral” about official surveillance
of their communications. Less than one third (31
per cent) were “very concerned” while 27 per cent
were “generally concerned”. As to concern about the
prospect of an official raid at home or work that
would identify the source, only 14 per cent (of 108)
said “often concerned” or “always concerned”. The
rest were “not concerned” (46 per cent), “sometimes
concerned” (22 per cent) or “neutral” (18 per cent).
These responses supported feedback elsewhere
in the survey and through interviews that some
journalists did not consider their work controversial,
altogether avoided confidential sources, or simply
underestimated source disclosure threats.
As to what actions journalists took to safeguard
their sources and materials, 6 per cent (of 108) said
they took “none”, while others said “do not record
identifying information” (36 per cent), “keep the
materials at my workstation” (15 per cent), “keep
the materials at home” (26 per cent), “avoid using
the telephone to communicate with the confidential
source” (31 per cent), “avoid using email” (62 per
cent), and “avoid using any form of traceable record
of communication with the source” (38 per cent).
Dobbie said: “Since the survey we now have a
whole new regime of national security laws which
are imposing to a far greater extent, or threatening,
that beyond the journalist’s best wishes, that
information can be discovered.”
Sunderland said: “New laws are coming in all
the time, for example, the foreign fighters law,
Interesting, although not surprising, were the
responses to the question asking respondents to
rate themselves and other journalists on the overuse of confidential sources. Respondents rated
themselves more favourably on whether they ‘overused’ confidential sources – 57 per cent (of 94) said
they “never over-used” confidential sources but said
only 16 per cent of other journalists did not. When
rating themselves 12 per cent said they “sometimes
over-used” confidential sources but that 50 per
cent of other journalists did. Similarly, when rating
themselves only 1 per cent said they “often over-used”
confidential sources but that 12 per cent of other
journalists did.
Conclusion
The “tell them to stuff off ” comment mentioned
earlier may be less about foolhardiness and more
about a journalist’s quintessential resoluteness to
protect a source regardless of the consequences
to themselves. As Holmes observed: “That’s what
MEAA tells you to do, although not in such crude
terms. But that there could be consequences is
something you would think every journalist would
be aware of. But not all are.”
Brisbane Times editor-in-chief Simon Holt said
many journalists don’t have the same urgency
about shield laws as others. “It doesn’t surprise
me at all because there are so few journalists
doing good investigative work, that there will
be a lot of journalists who are not interested in
shield law,” he observed.
Mathieson said: “Shield laws are a useful part of
the media’s legal armoury but, as their application
remains largely untested in the courts, it’s still
unclear how much protection they would offer…
the differing qualifications, definitions of journalists,
informants and the discretion given to the judiciary
under the various state and federal laws make it hard
to assess at this time their impact on free speech.”
This study clearly highlights the importance of
education in this area.
Dobbie added: “The main point about what
the survey has raised is that there can be areas
of improvement in terms of the education of
journalists… The survey has been great in getting
respondents to talk about shield laws and to explain
their understanding of them.”
Many questions remain, of course, on the lessons
to draw from this survey, but the present groundwork
provides ample grist for identifying future education,
law reform and professional practice directions.
Associate Professor Joseph Fernandez is the head
of the journalism department at Curtin University
and is the author of Media Law in Australia –
Principles, Pitfalls and Potentials (2014)
Greg Smith is a cartoonist for The Sunday Times,
Perthnow and Perth’s Community Newspaper Group
For a convenient summary of the nation’s shield law position see
Joseph M Fernandez, ‘Chaos reigns as shield fail’ in MEAA’s 2014
Press Freedom Report, Secrecy and Surveillance: The Report into the
State of Press Freedom in Australia in 2014, 24–25; and ‘Overview of
journalists’ shield laws in Australia’, 26–29.
PRESS FREEDOM
Australian broadcasting sounds the retreat as Canberra’s cuts bite deep
Quentin Dempster outlines the fallout from the cuts to the ABC, and what it means for Australia’s presence in the world.
Cartoon by Lindsay Foyle
W
e need a debate about the role and
sustainable future of the taxpayer-funded
public broadcasting system in Australia,
particularly as the digital revolution is
enabling aggressive global players to have
smart-TV access potentially and eventually to every
Australian household through Wi-Fi video streaming.
The federal government’s “efficiency dividend” –
in reality a budget cut – will have a massive impact
on the ABC’s international reach, and on the stories
it can tell its audiences.
Australia Plus TV was launched immediately
on the closure of the Australia Network on
September 29, 2014. This network continues to reach
audiences across India, Asia and the Pacific through
its established arrangements with rebroadcasters.
While the number of rebroadcasters has dropped
significantly, the remaining partnerships contain all
the region’s largest subscription television operators
in all the key Asia-Pacific territories.
The actual potential reach (which is assessed
through the quantum of individual rebroadcaster
subscriber numbers) seems to have slightly increased
due to a small number of new rebroadcasters coming
on board late last year. Our potential reach is now
more than 170 million people in the region.
We have retransmission agreements with
subscription-TV companies in India, Thailand,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines,
Japan, South Korea, Papua New Guinea and many
of the Pacific Island nations.
The main change to distribution from the
previous Australia Network is that Australia Plus TV
services are no longer available unencrypted in Asia,
which means we have lost untold direct-to-home
viewers who had their own satellite dishes and an
unknown number of hotels similarly equipped.
The new schedule is based on a repeating sixhour block of mixed genre programming and is
heavy on rebroadcasts of ABC News 24 domestic
programs (Breakfast and Mornings). There is
just one 30-minute international news program,
presented by Bev O’Connor, broadcast each evening
on both Australia Plus and News 24.
What we have lost most is the range of lifestyle,
educational and news programs produced
specifically for the region and, in many cases, in
the languages of the regions.
The Australia Plus brand has had a longer life
on digital platforms, having launched at the end
of 2013. We syndicate news content to more than
30 third-party sites in Indonesia and China.
Radio Australia has been decimated. Shortwave
into Asia has stopped completely. It now produces
a two-hour morning program that goes live into the
Pacific weekdays (Pacific Beat) and some short news
updates throughout the day. The rest of the network
streams NewsRadio, LocalRadio, some tripleJ and
some Radio National content. RA is still rebroadcast
on a network of FM transmitters in Myanmar.
Following are the changes in more detail:
What has just happened to our international broadcasting effort is a tragedy.
Radio Australia
The service has been hit hard, with the loss of:
• Phil Kafcaloudes and Mornings (two hours of live
programming to the Pacific, weekdays)
• Asia Pacific weekdays
• Asia Review weekends
• Reduced daily news bulletins
• Loss of network entirely in western Pacific island
nations including the Marshall Islands, Nauru,
Marianas, Kiribati and the Cook Islands
• RA shortwave service to Myanmar (via Singapore)
shut down at the end of December
• Language services cut to one person per service,
resulting in no continuous multilingual news
service
• Loss of dedicated language programs to
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam
and Papua New Guinea.
Australia Network/Australia Plus
This is no longer a 24-hour channel. Instead it’s built
around a six-hour block of programming repeated
across the day. Further cuts include:
• One-hour nightly new program The World reduced
to 30 minutes
• Business Today weekdays with Whitney
Fitzsimmons
• Pacific Sports 360 – dedicated sports review
program for the Pacific
• Fashion Asia
• Around 650 rebroadcasters for the Australia
Network service reduced to about 50 rebroadcasters
in India, Asia and the Pacific, mostly delivered
through a limited and encrypted satellite service
• Loss of untold direct-to-home viewers across Asia,
particularly in Thailand, who can no longer access
our signal straight off the satellite due to encryption.
Asia Pacific News Centre (APNC)
With the loss of APNC correspondents in Delhi,
Jakarta, Beijing, the Pacific and Parliament House,
Canberra, the total count of journalists and
production staff made redundant as a direct result of
the termination of the ABC/DFAT contract is 73.
Foreign Correspondent
Reduced to 22 x 30-minute episodes starting in midApril, resulting in destroyed production momentum
and audience confusion.
Catalyst
The ABC’s television science show will be severely cut.
Catalyst will fill the 8pm Tuesday slot for 10 weeks
from February, March and early April, and then, with
Foreign Correspondent, finishes its run. Catalyst will
come back for 11 more shows, resulting in destroyed
production momentum and audience confusion.
Lateline
This program, with its analysis and investigative
capacity and live studio/satellite interviews with
international geopolitical and economic experts, has
been gutted. Its field reporting capacity has been
stripped out. While we are expecting it to return
33
PRESS FREEDOM
in 2015, it will run initially on News 24. In its
25-year history, Lateline has been instrumental in
holding executive government to account, and its
investigative journalists have delivered impactful
exposure of immigration blunders, and indigenous
and institutional child sexual abuse.
ABC’s International Bureaux
London – A rare bright spot. The third reporter
there (currently on local hire) will be upgraded to
a full A-based position. And there should be more
camera capacity. Currently the long-time editor
there also shoots PTCs [pieces to camera] and
overlay. But management wants to transform that
into a full camera/editor position. That may mean
the current editor will be terminated and a new
locally hired person brought in.
Moscow – The bureau officially closed more than
a year ago. A long-time fixer/translator should have
been kept on. Awaiting confirmation of this.
Middle East – ABC has realised belatedly that
having all reporting resources in Jerusalem is not
wise. A new Arab world office will be established
in Beirut with a reporter, camera and locally
hired fixer/Arabic translator. The second Middle
East reporter will stay in Jerusalem and become a
VJ (video journalist) with one local producer to
help. Expecting office administrator and driver to
be sacked.
Nairobi – Has been covered by a VJ correspondent
and will remain so. Hopefully the reporter has an
office, a fixer and some administrative support.
New Delhi – To become a home-based VJ with local
fixer/translator. The ABC has had a functioning
office in Delhi for decades but now apparently the
lucky correspondent is expected to cover the entirety
of South Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal
(that’s 2.63 billion people) – from a back bedroom.
Bangkok – Similar to Delhi, a good functioning
office will be scrapped. Home-based VJ plus local.
Excellent cameraman will be offered fewer days
per year.
Jakarta – Meant to be a bigger ‘hub’ with a second
correspondent and second camera but with a
regional ‘fire reporter’ (immediate despatch to
breaking stories thought by staff to be better
coordinated from Bangkok than Jakarta).
Beijing – Also slated as a bigger ‘hub’ with two
correspondents and two cameras but to cover Japan,
Korea and the region as required. This isn’t really
an enhancement but a replacement of the resources
that existed when Australia Network was operating.
Tokyo – A big loser. Closing down the office in the
main government broadcaster NHK, where the ABC
currently gets access to news bulletins and feeds,
although rent is ‘cheap’. The BBC apparently has
spent 15 years trying to get back into the building.
New arrangements: home-based VJ plus local
fixer/translator. Under Japanese law it will be very
expensive to have locals, including an excellent local
hire camera operator, made redundant. The process
of closing down is expected to take most of 2015.
The Tokyo decision is viewed by ABC staff and
international correspondents as short-sighted.
Port Moresby – Already VJ cover. Has a separate
office from home in one compound, plus local fixer.
Correspondent often has to do admin several days
a week because ABC News will not hire help.
Auckland – Closed, and with it a lot of good South
Pacific coverage as well as NZ material. ABC has
had a visible TVNZ office for many years, of great
value to Australia’s engagement with the Kiwis – a
single correspondent with VJ capacity but access to
professional TVNZ crews. It was highly productive
and comparatively inexpensive.
Washington, DC – Staff do not believe the claim
by news managers that they are creating ‘major
multi-platform hubs’ in London and Washington
by July 2015. The truth is the Washington, DC
bureau is being downsized with one fewer reporter
and it is likely to lose its long-time editor (who
occasionally shoots footage and interviews). One of
two camera operators (an Australian on local hire
conditions) has reportedly been told that his current
contract is too generous and to stay he will have to
take a pay cut.
This is an edited excerpt from Quentin Dempster’s
address to the Australian Institute of International
Affairs on February 3, 2015
Quentin Dempster is a public broadcasting
advocate and journalist based in Sydney
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PHONE (02) 8256 2222 or VISIT www.annesummers.com.au
The evening promises to
be heartfelt, informative
and inspirational.
Don’t miss it.
WITH THANKS TO OUR MAJOR SPONSORS
> FOREIGN
CORRESPONDENCE
Facing the danger
Five years after the deaths of 32 journalists in the Philippines, Philippa McDonald looks at the state of media safety in that country
Photo: Jane Worthington
F
Geraldine Martinez holds up photos of her husband,
broadcaster Alberto Martinez, who was shot in 2005.
Geraldine raised their children alone as Martinez, halfparalysed, lived in and out of hospital under witness
protection until his death this January. He is pictured in
hospital with his son, below.
“The mindset of people changed
when the Maguindanao massacre
happened,” said Abbey Lorenzo.
“People said to me, why would you
want to be a media practitioner?
You will be killed.”
Photo: Philippa McDonald
ive years ago, 32 journalists were among
58 people shot dead and buried in mass graves
in southern Mindanao – the second largest
island in the Philippines – as they covered
a local candidate filing election papers. This
event on November 23, 2009, which is also known
as the Maguindanao or Ampatuan massacre after
the province and clan involved, involves one of the
largest-ever killings of journalists and makes the
Philippines one of the most dangerous places in the
world to work as one.
As far as an investigation goes, police, soldiers
and members of the powerful local clan are alleged to
have participated in the killings. So far, 108 people have
been charged but many are still ‘wanted’ and there
are, in all, 197 suspects. A trial that started in 2010
has been mired in delays and accusations of bribes.
Despite the promises that those responsible
will be brought to justice, even Philippines Justice
Secretary Leila de Lima admits, “I am not going
to deny there’s no longer a culture of impunity in
our country.”
According to the International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ), five years on the Philippines
government has failed to create a secure
environment for journalists, and there have been
more journalists killed in the years since the
massacre than died on that single day.
Each year, on the anniversary of the massacre,
hundreds of journalists and human rights activists
stop to remember, and the news media return to the
place where a convoy of primarily local journalists
were taken 2 kilometres off the highway by gunmen,
shot multiple times and ploughed into mass graves
by a backhoe already at the site. Several were shot in
the back as they tried to run away, and the bodies of
news crews who refused to get out of their vans were
found shot and crushed in their vehicles.
Veteran Philippines journalist and photographer
Nonoy Espina was the first journalist to arrive to
cover the massacre.
“All indications are they were executed in groups,”
he says. “It was pretty cold-blooded murder. At least
two of the victims contacted their families as they
were waiting to be killed.”
He and other journalists were confronted by three
large pits filled with bodies and cars. “It was like a
birthday cake of death,” he says, “vehicles, bodies,
just like a layered cake.
“By the end of the day,” he continues, “I thought,
‘When is this going to stop?’”
One young woman journalist who didn’t want
to be named said it was her first big story. “The
authorities were starting to excavate them from the
ground, from where we are here,” she explains, “Our
colleagues, it was heartbreaking … it was my first
time to see a massacre like that.
“You had to set aside your emotions and feelings,
and all around the families were crying and falling
to the ground.
“The challenges of not letting emotions get in the
way of impartiality were enormous. The only thing
that should be done by journalists here, aside from
standing up for what they believe, is to always
present a story in balanced way, getting both sides
of the story and truthfulness of course.”
But the massacre has left an indelible mark
and she still covers the same area where, on that
day, almost half of the region’s journalists were
killed: “Every time I go out in the field, I coordinate
with both sides of politics, the authorities and
people I know on the ground,” she explains.
“I do fear when I’m covering critical situations, but
there’s always coordination. I’m not armed – I wish
I was, but I’m not.”
At the IFJ’s request, an armed escort was promised
to accompany a convoy of journalists and families
of the murdered journalists to the massacre site
on the fifth anniversary of the killing. There were
delays and the much-anticipated escort joined
the convoy of white mini vans 2 kilometres short
of our destination.
The chief of police for the Ampatuan region,
Senior Inspector Roland De Leon, told the IFJ
delegation that a lot has changed since the massacre:
“This area is safe. People here are peace-loving
citizens. In general here it is peaceful, that is why we
escorted you without guns.”
35
CORRESPONDENCE
A memorial at the massacre site
While the Maguindanao massacre
was the largest mass killing
of journalists in the world, the
Philippines has been a dangerous
place for media workers for decades
Living with the fear
F
ive years on, it still haunts me – the banality
of the evil that happened on November 23,
2009. It was cruel, yes, but it was also so…
matter of course.
By all indications, those who ordered the
bloodbath had no reason to be angry with the
victims, except perhaps the kin and supporters of
the man who dared challenge the Ampatuan clan.
In fact, six of the dead weren’t even supposed to be
there. They were hapless souls who just wandered
into the wrong place at the wrong time.
And many of the 32 media workers who died
were well known – and a few were even considered
“friends” – to the Ampatuan family.
There could have been more journalists killed
had it not been for what now feels like a random
roll of the dice.
Myself and a photojournalist friend, for
example, were not with the ill-fated convoy on
November 23, 2009. Just as we heard word that
the Ampatuans would make mincemeat of this
brash Mangudadatu who wanted to wrest away
their hold on Maguindanao province, we were
both coming down with the flu. We decided to
rest up for a while and come back to cover what
we thought would be another shooting war
between two politicians’ private armies. (The
Ampatuans’ private militia was larger and better
armed than the regular army.)
“But there’s a big gun there…” I politely
said, to which the chief of police responded, “It is
part of our uniform as police – it is an M16, it is
a standard weapon.”
General Santos, where journalist Rose Sioco
is a police reporter, is the nearest big city. She
covers crime for local radio on a motorbike.
“I was assigned to the Coroner’s court where they
brought the bodies,” she says. “I had some friends
there – Morales and Montano…” She cries.
“It’s very sad for me, but I never said to myself
I will stop this job, because this is my profession.
“I think this is a big challenge for me to keep
doing my job, to tell the people that we will never
stop being journalists. I have challenged myself to
keep going and remember them.”
Abbey Lorenzo was 17 when news broke of the
massacre. “The mindset of people changed when
the Maguindanao massacre happened,” she says.
“People said to me, why would you want to be a
media practitioner? You will be killed.
“It made me more determined to be a reporter –
you are supposed to deliver the news, not be afraid.”
Threats, though, are a part of a journalist’s
working life in the Philippines.
Roland Ortillano is a stringer for a local TV
station. “I got a threat from the family of someone
in jail,” he remembers. “They threatened me, not
by texting, but by actually tapping me on the
shoulder and saying, ‘You’re too young’.”
While the Maguindanao massacre was the
largest mass killing of journalists in the world,
Nonoy Espina
Photo: Jane Worthington
Photo: Philippa McDonald
> FOREIGN
This thought would badger me for months after
the carnage, a perverted survivor’s guilt, popping in at
the most unexpected times – “I SHOULD (not could)
have been there…”
During a recent dialogue with colleagues from the
region around General Santos City, which lost half
its media population to the massacre, they confirmed
they are still gripped with fear.
“The mindset of people changed with the
massacre,” said one journalist. “People say, ‘Why would
you keep working, you will be killed’.
“You are not supposed to be afraid to deliver facts
and you should not be covering up stories that might
affect lives.”
Another said: “I’m worried about what will happen
to the next generation. I hope our cause will not
be stopped by the killing of media. We have that
the Philippines has been a dangerous place for
media workers for decades. Broadcaster Alberto
Martinez was shot in the back on April 10,
2005 after he was ambushed by two men on
motorcycles after his radio show. Half paralysed
and in and out of hospital, Martinez survived
for another nine and a half years, living under
witness protection and constantly on the move
to various ‘safe’ houses.
His 41-year-old wife, Geraldine Martinez, was
left to bring up her son and daughter alone, and to
travel long distances for occasional visits.
Two men, including a still-serving soldier, were
charged with his attempted murder but have been
on bail for the past nine years. But for Alberto
Martinez, the wait for justice proved too long – he
died on January 17 this year, just a week and a half
before he was to give evidence in the trial of the
men who allegedly shot him.
Less than a month later on February 14,
another broadcaster, Maurito Lim, was shot dead.
The 71-year-old was renowned for speaking
out against the illegal drug trade. And his
murder brings the death toll of journalists in
the Philippines to 172 since 1986.
Philippa McDonald travelled to the Philippines
as part of an IFJ delegation to mark the fifth
anniversary of the massacre of 32 journalists
at Maguindanao. The mission’s full report can
be found http://issuu.com/ifjasiapacific/docs/
ampatuan_massacre_five_years_on
obligation; we have the responsibility to tell the
truth. We have to do that.”
It is a fear that continues to cloak much of the
truth, not only from the people of the region but of
the country as well. This fear limits what stories the
storytellers are willing to tell and how they tell them.
That they continue to strive to tell their stories as
fully as they can, despite the perils they face, is a
testament to their bravery.
But it would be a mistake to write off Ampatuan
as an aberration. It was extreme in its magnitude
and savagery, of course, but it was simply the worst
example of the reality in so many regions of the
Philippines. In these areas you cross the current
tin-pot despot at your own peril because political
expediency dictates the central government will
turn a blind eye, lest it fall out of grace with its allies.
And so it went, and so it goes…
What’s needed is an end to this curse, to this system
of governance that breeds so much corruption and so
much death. Five years after the massacre, the really
scary thing is that another Ampatuan is almost
a certainty. It is only a matter of who and when.
This is an extract from the IFJ Asia Pacific report
Ampatuan Massacre Five Years On, available online
Nonoy Espina is the director of the National Union
of Journalists of the Philippines
> REVIEWS
© 2014 Praxis Films
Whistle while you work
Now an Oscar winner for best documentary, Laura Poitras’ Citizenfour is an extraordinary
insight into Edward Snowden and his NSA revelations. Paul Byrnes reviews the film.
C
“
itizenfour” was the pseudonym Edward
Snowden used when he contacted Laura
Poitras in January 2013 to say he had secret
documents exposing abuses of power by the
US National Security Agency (NSA). She had
no idea of his identity – only that he was paranoid
about security.
Poitras, an award-winning filmmaker, was paranoid
too. She already had a “public key”, which you need
for PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption of data,
and had made two films since the September 11
attacks that attracted the attention of US security
agencies. The first, My Country, My Country (2006),
documented life for Iraqis during the US occupation.
The second, The Oath (2010), was about two Yemeni
men who had worked for Osama bin Laden.
Both films won major awards, but the United States
government put Poitras on their security watchlist.
She says she was picked up for questioning at the
US border about 40 times between 2006 and 2012.
Her laptop and camera were confiscated, and she was
threatened with arrest when she started to take notes.
The border searches stopped only after she contacted
Glenn Greenwald, a blogger for salon.com and later
The Guardian, who is also a former litigator with
a strong interest in privacy and human rights issues.
In fact, Snowden contacted Greenwald before
Poitras, but Greenwald became annoyed with all
the security measures demanded by the anonymous
source. Poitras was already making a film about
surveillance and privacy and had just moved to
Berlin to try to keep her footage secure from the
US government.
All of this is a way of introducing a simply
extraordinary film by Poitras, documenting the
process by which Edward Snowden became, in the
middle of 2013, one of the greatest whistleblowers
in American history. Citizenfour is not just about
Snowden’s main disclosure, that the NSA began spying
on its own citizens in the week after September 11,
despite repeated official denials. It is also about the
process by which Snowden’s story was constructed
and released by Greenwald and other reporters.
She shows us the extraordinary secrecy around the
process of interviewing Snowden. In doing so, she
dramatises the crisis in politics and media concerning
privacy. That is one of the film’s major achievements:
it is an eloquent defence of why privacy matters at
a time when surveillance capability has never been
greater, nor more unchecked.
Greenwald, Poitras and Ewen MacAskill, the defence
and intelligence correspondent for The Guardian,
finally meet “Citizenfour” in a hotel room in Hong
Kong in June 2013, after elaborate security measures.
At that stage, MacAskill does not know even his name.
Over the next week or so, Snowden takes the reporters
through the documents, explaining his motives and
what the documents revealed.
Poitras contributes narration in the film but we
never see her. Snowden, looking increasingly haggard,
is beyond careful. He unplugs the hotel phone while
they’re talking and puts a cloth over his head and
hands when logging on, in case someone else is secretly
filming them.
The reporters know that he plans to out himself
when their stories start running in The Guardian and
The Washington Post. No-one in his family – not even
his partner Lindsay Mills, at home in Hawaii – knows
where he is or what he’s doing. Poitras films a meeting
between Snowden and two human rights lawyers, who
will organise his escape from the hotel a few days later.
There’s footage from within the Ecuadorian embassy
in London as Julian Assange helps with the flight that
takes Snowden to Moscow, where he claims asylum.
These scenes give the film an unprecedented
level of immediacy and dramatic tension. It is the
modern equivalent of being in the newsroom with
Woodward and Bernstein at the Washington Post
during Watergate. But Poitras also paints a bigger
picture with the stories of supporting characters
such as William Binney, a crypto-mathematician
who worked for the NSA for 32 years. He designed
much of the infrastructure the NSA then turned
on its own citizens, and the rest of the world, after
September 11. He resigned that year in disgust.
Citizenfour, like My Country, My Country, is
nominated for an Oscar for best documentary. Poitras
contributed to the reporting that resulted in The
Guardian and The Washington Post being awarded the
Pulitzer Prize last year for public service, after their
NSA disclosures. Making this film took enormous
courage. I watched with feelings of outrage and dread,
but also admiration.
Poitras has made a new kind of film – a documentary
that reveals its own process, as it explores its difficult
subject. In a sense, Poitras and Greenwald are doing
what the NSA does, gathering secret information. The
difference is they make what they find public.
Paul Byrnes is a Fairfax Media film critic and weekly
columnist in The Sunday Age and The Sun-Herald. This
review was originally published in The Sydney Morning
Herald and The Age
Citizenfour won best documentary at the Academy
Awards in February. Accepting the Oscar with Glenn
Greenwald by her side, Poitras thanked Snowden for
his courage and paid tribute to all whistleblowers.
“The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals
don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our
democracy itself,” Poitras said. “When the most
important decisions being made affecting all of us are
made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers
that control.”
THE BEST WRITING. THE BEST READING.
The whole story.
WWW.THESATURDAYPAPER.COM.AU
W W W.T H E M O N T H LY. C O M . A U
37
> TECHNOLOGY
Ebola news app creates information lifeline
BBC World Service apps editor Trushar Barot explains how the BBC embraced WhatsApp to help battle the Ebola virus
and found great stories along the way
W
ith the Ebola crisis growing quickly,
how could the BBC distribute public
health information to people in West
Africa so they could receive it directly
on their mobile phones? That was the
challenge set last October by the then director of
the BBC World Service, Peter Horrocks.
At the time the BBC had already started
special public health programming on Ebola for
its World Service radio and global TV audiences.
This not only gave up-to-date information on
the spread of the virus, it also provided valuable
and potentially life-saving information for
those in the region on how to reduce the risk
of catching the disease, understand the symptoms
and get help.
We wanted to do more though. We knew there
was a significant opportunity to reach people
on their mobile phones, if we could figure out
a way to do it quickly. There was no point in
trying to develop an app, with the development
time and expense that would incur, let alone the
time it would take to promote it and get people
to download it. We needed to distribute content
inside an app that already existed and was already
being used widely by people in the region.
This is where the idea of using WhatsApp
emerged. We had already successfully experimented
with it during the Indian elections in 2014 and
gained some very useful insights.
Although it had its challenges, we reached
thousands of Indians directly on their mobiles and
feedback clearly showed we engaged with them
in a very effective way. From our Indian elections
experience we knew that the work required would
be a full-time job and not something that could
just be an add-on for an existing team.
We managed to free up a dedicated producer
– initially Andree Massiah, and currently Carinya
Sharples – as well as get some additional cover to
help with data entry, such as saving contacts and
managing the broadcast lists.
In mid-September, just a couple of weeks
after we originally had the idea, the BBC’s Ebola
WhatsApp information service was born – the
first ‘lifeline’ humanitarian service to be launched
inside the app. It was as a dual-language offering,
in English and French, so we could maximise the
potential audience that could benefit.
So how has the project gone? We’d initially
anticipated running the account for about six
weeks and reviewing the situation just before
Christmas. When it came to it, the case to continue
was still strong – particularly with the Christmas
and New Year holiday period meaning many more
people would be travelling in the region.
At the time of writing the service is still running
and we are nearing 21,000 subscribers. Most of
these (probably 80-90%) are from West Africa,
which we can tell from the mobile phone numbers.
What do you miss about life before Ebola?
The BBC’s Ebola WhatsApp service has brought to light many poignant and heartbreaking
stories behind the epidemic. More stories are collected at medium.com/@bbcebola
I miss work…
“I was self-employed as an electrical contractor in Freetown but since this outbreak started
I have being jobless without no contract. The worst part of it on 2 November one of my
family members got infected with the virus so we were in quarantine for 21 days. I thank God
we made it.” – SAIO KAMARA
BBC’s Ebola WhatsApp information service was born — the first ‘lifeline’
humanitarian service to be launched inside the app.
The biggest subscriber group is in Sierra Leone,
followed by Nigeria and Ghana. We also have
a number of subscribers in Liberia, Guinea,
Mali, and further across Africa in Tanzania,
Kenya and Uganda.
In terms of content, we’ve focused on three
types: text messages, pictures/visuals and short
audio clips, so we could cover the different
preferences users may have for understanding the
information. We decided not to use video clips as
we knew that such files could be too big for many
subscribers’ data limits. And we didn’t want to
spam our users, so we made sure we only posted
a maximum of three items a day.
Editorially, we established quite narrow
parameters: the content had to be public service
information or significant news developments that
directly affected people in the region. It had to be
short and to the point and be conveyed in simple and
easy-to-understand terms. We didn’t post any links
back to our website – the point was to get the content
that people needed delivered straight to them.
WhatsApp is primarily an interactive
platform, so we were very aware that we had
to carefully monitor the messages we got back
from subscribers and follow up with them where
needed. We quickly realised that a lot of the
questions users were sending in were practical
concerns that we hadn’t really understood in our
broader coverage of the story.
One user asked: “Is it safe to use a public
swimming pool?” We’d never thought of that and
We’d initially anticipated running the account for about six weeks and
reviewing the situation just before Christmas. When it came to it, the
case to continue was still strong. At the time of writing the service is still
running and we are nearing 21,000 subscribers.
I miss school…
“Before Ebola at this hour of the day,
I and my fellow teachers should be at our
evening lessons but now look what we are
doing…”
I miss planning for the future…
“This is me and my daughter, Adama
Ramadan Wormandia. My wife won DV
[admittance onto the Diversity Visa
program] and we went for the interview
at the American Embassy in June. They
called us in October to say that they will
not give us the visa. At that time all the
entire world would not accept people
from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
For now we are so sad of that.”
weren’t sure of the answer. So we got our global
health correspondent, Smitha Mundasad, to do
some research and then record a short audio clip
explaining the situation. We then pushed that
back out to all our subscribers.
In the following weeks we received many
messages that gave us real insights into what
it was like living in the region and the difficulties
and challenges that people faced. We got tip-offs
on stories that we later covered on our main
outlets. We found compelling personal stories
that we used to enhance our coverage across
television, radio and online. Our WhatsApp
producer put together a compelling post on
Medium (medium.com) to illustrate some of
these stories.
The project also quickly became a collaboration
within the BBC and beyond. We got huge
assistance from our African language services,
particularly BBC Afrique which helped with
translation and French content. The BBC’s
international development charity, Media Action,
I miss normal life…
“Ebola has affected my life tremendously
even though not directly, the psychological
impact of seeing people abandoning
corpses on the street, seeing houses
empty as a result of Ebola, also knowing
that if you get sick you cannot have proper
(or in some instances no) medical attention
is overwhelming. This is our reality as
every day passes.”
helped with its expertise in the situation on
the ground, and it was later able to start its
own WhatsApp service in Liberian English,
complementing its existing community radio
projects in the country.
We also worked closely with aid agencies
including UNICEF and the World Health
Organization, which were a great additional
source of content such as visuals that conveyed
public health messages – and our collaboration
extended to tech companies, too.
In addition to the valuable support from
WhatsApp itself, the popular South African chat
app Mxit – which we’d worked with during the
South African elections last summer – created
a space within the app to host the audio we
were creating for our WhatsApp service. This
helped provide factual and relevant information
about the disease to the many users of the Mxit
app in the country.
Our business development team in Africa
were keen to make it easy for us to share our
I miss my family…
“This is my sister, who died yesterday,
I really miss her so much. All of my family
has died from Ebola – it’s only me that
remains out of six.”
WhatsApp audio with FM and telecom partners
on the continent. SoundCloud stepped in to
help us quickly set up two accounts to host
the audio in English and French. We were then
able to provide RSS feeds of those accounts
for our partners to easily pull in the audio
content they wanted and broadcast or push
that out to their audiences.
Feedback from our subscribers has been
overwhelmingly positive and appreciative, and
that’s been greatly encouraging. I think the
collaborative model that has emerged around
this project will provide a valuable template for
the BBC in covering and contributing towards
humanitarian crises in the future.
This article was first published on the BBC’s
College of Journalism blog: bbc.co.uk/blogs/
collegeofjournalism
Trushar Barot is BBC World Service apps editor.
He tweets as @Trushar
39
> TECHNOLOGY
Tools and toys help you find your inner mojo
Mobile journalism is go! From smartphones to smart apps, Ivo Burum gives his tips for a mojo tool kit that means business.
I
n the decade since internet evangelist Howard
Rheingold wrote Smart Mobs: The next social
revolution (2002), his techno determinist view,
which suggested that it was enough to be
connected, shifted to a more realistic approach:
“…how can we use digital media so that they make
us empowered participants rather than passive
receivers, grounded, well-rounded people rather than
multitasking basket cases?”
With more than 7 billion mobiles and almost
3 billion smartphones in use, the planet is potentially
full of multitasking online churnaholics, delivering
what Charles Feldman calls an “information tsunami”.
Once thought to be the bridge in a home-work-play
continuum, mobile devices are now our preferred
mode of connectivity. Today 84 per cent of Facebook’s
daily visitors log on via mobile. In Japan, 100 per
cent of people who own a smartphone research their
next purchase using their device. And every journalist
I train to mojo already uses a smartphone to record
and file story elements.
Understanding digital literacies and how to use
mobiles more effectively is fundamental to being able to
capitalise on the flow of online information. Knowing
about the technology – what’s out there and its use
value – is also crucial. The following list of must-have
tools will help the budding citizen or professional
journalist to mojo from almost anywhere on the planet.
Camera hardware
At the heart of the basic mojo kit is a smart device.
Generally mojos use smartphones, which have an
extended list of accessories and better cameras.
Smartphone cameras are electronic and have no
movable shutters. The camera’s power comes from
an app’s ability to harness and manipulate the
smartphone’s electronics. Deciding whether your smart
device will do the job, or whether you need to use a
hybrid system – digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) or
video – is an important consideration. If you want to
shoot on a smartphone and edit on a computer, use the
phone with the best camera. In this case possibly the
Samsung G5, which has a 16-megapixel camera (higher
Basic mojo kit. © Ivo Burum
GH4 because it shoots video at up to 200Mbps, has
a flip-out screen and plugs for an external microphone
and headset. At just under $1700 plus lens, it’s an
affordable alternative to more expensive systems. Also
check out the full-frame Sony a7S. However, be careful
to drill through the DSLR video drool. A DSLR’s
shallow depth of field is brilliant for losing backgrounds
in sit-down interviews, or on drama. For the same
reason, they are more difficult to use than a video
camera when covering unfolding actuality. For example,
at the scene of an accident you need deep focus and
a zoom rocker to alter focal length quickly. When I need
VJ features I use the Sony PXW-X70 video camera. It
has a 1-inch chip sensor so is low-light friendly and
4K-ready. What does your job require?
Camera and audio apps
Ivo Burum recording a PTC (piece to camera) using
a Manfrotto Pixi tripod and an mCamLite cradle. © Ivo Burum
Understanding digital literacies
and how to use mobiles more
effectively is fundamental to being
able to capitalise on the flow of
online information.
on the new G6). If you want to shoot and edit on
a smart device, you will probably go iOS because you
can buy editing apps that support two-track video
editing. Here are some essential features to look for in
your smart device:
• Cellular and WiFi connectivity
• A high resolution 8 megapixel or better camera
• A fast processor for editing, processing images and
remote location uploads
• A relatively small device so that you can eyeball your
subject when filming
• Access to advanced camera, audio, editing, postproduction and transfer apps
• Accessories such as cradles, lights and microphones.
Mojo work is generally fast and handheld, so buy
a cradle like the mCamLite (around $180), Phocus
(around $110) or Shoulderpod (around $35). Cradles
have fixing points for tripods, lights and microphones,
and can add stability when panning and tilting. They
also have wider or longer lens options. A light tripod
like the Manfrotto MKC3-H01 (around $100) is useful
for interviews. A mini tripod like a Manfrotto Pixi
(around $35) or the Rode Tripod Mini (around $40) is
useful for selfies and stabilising handheld shots. If you
need a crane consider the Australian-made Boombandit
(around $195).
If the job requires varied lenses and a hybrid DSLR
solution, there are a couple of options. I use a Lumix
The app industry began with the launch of the first
iPhone in 2007. Today there are more than 1.4 million
apps on the Android and Apple [iOS] platforms.
Revenue from apps is predicted to exceed US$77 billion
annually by 2017. Hard to conceive given that almost
90 per cent of apps are currently free.
Camera apps come in four categories: stills, video,
live and proprietary (apps linked to platforms such as
Instagram). I mainly use the native Camera app that
ships with the iPhone. For specialised work, depending
on the level of control required, I use the following:
• Camera+ ($3.79) – arguably the best stills camera
app on the market – features high-level image
control before and after exposure, zoom, stabiliser,
separate exposure and focus settings, white balance
and control over brightness, colour, sharpening
and much more.
• Filmic Pro ($9.99) is the most-used video app among
people shooting serious video. It enables separate
white balancing, light metering and focus points.
It has the closest thing to a non-destructive zoom on
a mobile phone that I’ve seen. It allows in-camera
choices to shoot in slow or fast motion, has variable
frame rates and monitors audio in real time. There
are many more features you’ll explore when you
use the app.
A number of smartphone cradles. © Ivo Burum
Audio apps ship with smartphones and dozens
are available on the Android and iOS app stores.
Unless I require special bit rates, I record my narration
using the inbuilt camera app. I detach the audio from
the video electronically before inserting it on the edit
app’s timeline. If you need a specialist audio app,
consider the following:
• Voice Memos ships with iOS and includes an edit
feature to shorten tracks before uploading; but there
are no controls over audio quality.
• RØDE Rec is easy to use and has equalisation (EQ)
and enhancement features that include compression
and expansion; gain; hi and low pass filters; and
various send features.
• MultiTrack DAW ($12.99) is an advanced multitrack recording and audio edit app. It has a range of
input and export options and records files in mp3,
wav, aac, m4a, aif and m4a.
Multi-track audio apps record on more than one
track on the app. But unless you have a mixer (Roland
Duo-Capture EX) or an audio splitter (RØDE SC6),
you’ll need to record one track at a time. Output
from multi-track apps is still one mixed file at a time.
In video work it’s important to load separate audio
tracks into the edit app. To record separate audio
sources attach a microphone and a Zoom H5 (records
four tracks), or the H6 (records six tracks), to your
smartphone and cradle. One of the features you should
look for in an audio app is in-built target destinations,
such as Camera Roll and YouTube.
Journalism student Ryan Hyde using a Mojo kit. © Ivo Burum
KineMaster advises it’s about to launch its updated
multi-track video edit Pro app for Android phones.
Post-production tools
Rode Video Mic Pro. © Rode
The best tip I ever got for recording clean audio was
get in close to the sound source. Access is everything.
Having said this, using the right microphone
will help mojo stories look and sound 200 per cent
better, be more usable and hence more effective.
Every kit should include a lapel microphone like
a RØDE smartLav+ (around $60) and a shotgun
microphone like a RØDE VideoMic Pro (around
$215). Go to http://bit.ly/smart-mojo-microphones
for an overview of nine microphone options. A Zoom
digital recorder can act as a second audio recorder
that can be placed close to the source to enable the
camera to rove.
Microphones
Edit apps
Walter Murch, the famous Hollywood sound editor
and mixer, reminds us that “90 per cent of film is
sound”. But audio is often left until last when we
prep for filming. Unlike feature films and some long
documentaries, which use post-synced sound and
dialogue, a mojo needs to know how to record clean
audio in noisy field locations. People often ask: which
microphone is best? Well, that depends on the job, your
budget and whether you are working alone.
As I wrote previously in this magazine, professional
editing requires two tracks of video. One for the
story cut and one for a B roll. This way the story can
be cut quickly, before adding narration and the B roll
to cover, compress or expand story points. Therefore
I use the iOS platform because it offers smartphone
apps – iMovie 2.0 ($6.49) and Voddio ($12.99) – with
two-track video. VideoPad, which has two video
tracks, is available for Android and iOS tablets, and
As mentioned before, the quick and effective way
to post-produce audio is to do it in the video editor
while tracks are still separate. VideoGrade ($7.49) is
my choice for a smartphone video grading app and
Snapseed (free) is a very powerful yet easy-to-use tool
for grading stills. Mojos will do most of their postproduction on their smart device in the field, so look
for an edit app that has mixing and ducking functions
and a name supers and subtitles facility. If you need to
move media across devices or platforms, try AirStash
(around $66), or the SanDisk Connect Media (around
$130) or Flash (around $75) wireless transfer drives.
These create a local WiFi network and can stream to
multiple devices simultaneously.
Publishing from the field
You will need access to 4G or WiFi. One option is to
send stories to a YouTube channel. Many news agencies
will have their own FTP or proprietary sites. Check out
Dejero, LiveU or Bambuser for live streaming.
Power to the people!
Mobile journalism sounds very technical and having
the right tools is important. But mojo is more about
empowering individuals with the skills to create their
own voice, and linking community with a global
communications sphere. Hence, real mojo requires
a journalistic and multimedia skill set to enable the
true potential of your new technology. Go mojo!
Dr Ivo Burum is an award-winning television writer,
director, executive producer and journalist. He is
currently delivering his innovative mobile journalism
(mojo) workshops across Australia and internationally
41
> TECHNOLOGY
Small screen, big picture
Cartoon by Andrew Weldon
We sound out device editors from a range of newsrooms to find out how journalists are telling stories for mobile and tablet screens
Jon Burton, news.com.au
A typical workday
A typical day is a mix of planning and production,
with some user insights and analytics mixed in.
The Herald Sun tablet app is positioned as a digital
version of the newspaper, so we spend a lot of time
making sure this edition reflects our paper’s news
values in each story.
What’s important when it comes to telling stories
on mobile devices?
I’ve worked on several tablet products and their
central strengths are that they’re personal and tactile.
By personal, I mean our readers aren’t engaging with
the app sitting at a cubicle, watching for a boss at
their shoulder. They engage with it when they have
time, and session times indicate they’re using the app
to immerse themselves in rich content.
Likewise, touch screens have also given our
audience an expectation of being able to tap and slide
the news, so we look at ways of creating interactive
graphics that enhance their experiences, as well as
adding plenty of video, images and other elements to
enhance the story. The other thing that really works,
surprisingly, is being able to treat digital news in a
print-like way. In many ways we can think of a tablet
screen like a print page and design it accordingly.
And thankfully, we have no need to write insufferably
boring SEO headlines – we can bring that particular
newspaper art to a digital product.
What are the challenges?
We have the same basic challenge as every other
form of journalism: how do you best tell a story with
the time and resources you have? Along with more
technical considerations such as app weight and
clarity of navigation.
What have you learned from your reader stats?
We have access to a lot of stats. They tell us that
tablets are leisure devices and our readers access the
app primarily in leisure times, so there’s not a lot of
surprises in user behaviour. The surprising successes
are more around content – either winning awards
for our headlines or getting great positive feedback
when we’ve published one-off games, puzzles or
special sections within the app.
What’s important when it comes to telling stories
on mobile devices?
At its base, the story must be worth telling, but from
there I focus on building a “rich text” environment
with links out to relevant sources, with video, data
graphics, interactives and photo galleries. Tablet
offers tremendous opportunities to present stories as
more than text and that’s the key to making the most
of this app-based platform.
What role does social media play in your work?
The current version of the Herald Sun app uses
social media largely as a marketing tool. Social is
a difficult area for apps, particularly when you’re
creating a bespoke experience that can’t easily be
replicated in other media.
Analytics give me an immediate snapshot of what
my readers are looking at. After I publish I can
watch in real time as the readers make their choices.
Placement of stories on the front page or in the
editor’s choice section immediately promotes them
to the reader, but readers pursue their interests
and will find the stories they are interested in, deep
in the edition.
The desire for the explanation, beyond the
actual news event, is a very strong thread. Our
readers want to understand the context around
what is happening.
Connie Levett, tablet editor, Fairfax
A typical workday
We produce a morning edition and an evening
update. I start around midday and work through to
mid-evening. Through the afternoon I am preparing
our 6pm update edition which updates the best of
the latest local, international, world and sports news.
After I see off the 6pm edition I prepare the front
page and draw up a running sheet for the prominent
stories that will appear in the AM edition. This
edition publishes between 1am-2am and refreshes
at 6am with any breaking overnight international
and national news.
On big news days I have the flexibility to publish as
often as required. For example, on Tuesday, March 4,
I published a lunchtime front-page update on the
transfer of Chan and Sukumaran to the execution
island. Push notifications are sent with each update
to alert readers to the new material.
We have a dedicated Sydney Morning Herald social
media team promoting our best work, making
choices for the different social media platforms
at article level rather than promoting any one
platform. Within the tablet platform readers can
share articles on Facebook, Twitter or by email.
The big challenge
The challenge for me on tablet is to maintain the
high production values, rich text content and
contextual curation of the story mix while increasing
the speed of delivery. Readers increasingly want
news as it happens.
Brian Brownstein, mobile editor, Fairfax
end having had quite a pleasant sensual experience
but not having really taken much in. We have had
to become good at making arresting presentations,
putting ourselves in the users’ position. That and
making sure form doesn’t flatter content. Looking
good isn’t nearly good enough.
A typical workday
I’m in the office at 5am. I commission stories and
update the msite for our morning peak (7.00 –
8.30am). The main news section of our msite is
manually curated and doesn’t scrape the desktop site.
It’s a mobile news section for a mobile audience. Later
in the day, I focus more on mobile strategy and longerterm product initiatives, while also thinking ahead to
our evening traffic peak, which is 8.30pm – 10pm.
What’s important when it comes to telling
stories on mobile devices?
As on any platform, a “traditional” story must be well
written. We don’t just tell stories through the written
word, though. Be it a video story, charts/graphs,
interactives, or a yarn based on pictures, they must be
engaging, informative and useful, and render properly
across a variety of devices and operating systems.
All of these elements work well in their own way.
I think the common misconception is that only short
stories work on mobile. Be it 200 words or 1000 words,
a 15-second video or a five-minute video, length
doesn’t matter. As long as the words and/or footage are
compelling, readers will read and watch to the end.
A lot can affect a user’s experience. To name but a
few: screen size, rotation, operating system, processing
power. These are all things that complicate how we
present our work and the viewers’ enjoyment of it.
Our stories are produced in one content
management system (CMS) for all platforms so it’s
important that something that looks good on desktop,
tablet and social also looks good on mobile. If a
story loads quickly and looks good for you on your
iPhone 6 Plus on WiFi, what kind of experience is
someone having on an iPhone 4 on 3G? This kind of
thing is at the forefront of my mind.
We’re very aware that interactives must be “finger
friendly”. If you want your readers to engage with it,
make it simple for them to use and the data easy to
digest. The beauty of mobiles is what they can do.
Sharing, networking, playing, buying, publishing –
people do all of this, and more, on their phones. And
mobiles are only going to improve.
Intuition and a deep understanding of what our
readers want is key to our success, yet we still rely on
stats to interpret our traffic. I use real time data, plus
various systems where I can dig down to reveal trends.
There was an initial thought people might read
different content at different times of day and that we
might need to give readers the “right content at the
right time”. But we quickly realised that wasn’t so.
People want breaking news and want to know what
is setting the agenda no matter what time of day. The
response to our coverage of the Martin Place siege was
overwhelming. It was obviously a huge international
story and this was reflected in the number of new
readers who came to us for up-to-date news of what
was going on.
The pace of growth has been incredible, particularly
in the last six months. The msite is dominating at
weekends in particular.
Major. Mobile is the platform most closely aligned to
social. I closely follow what’s happening on social to
see what is trending, what people are talking about
and what they are sharing. We post our content on
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, YouTube and
Vine, which readers can share. Viewers can also share
stories at article level, while there are share buttons on
our multimedia stories. We write “shareable” stories
and produce, among other things, videos, interactives
and quizzes that target a social media audience, the
majority of whom access their feeds via a mobile.
Matt Buchanan, ABC’s The Brief app
Tell me about your job — what does a typical day
look like?
Every day is busy, feeding the beast of production
while keeping an eye on the news and maintaining
our content “feed lines” with key ABC departments
including news, 7.30, Australian Story, Four Corners
and the archives. We also run a landing page with
videos from the ABC archives, and must stay across the
technological side, such as updating operating systems
and providing feedback for readers on the app stores.
The Brief produces eight stories of the week
from the ABC, typically two or three news features
(domestic and international), a profile, a film review,
and broader articles on health, social issues or culture.
Eight stories a week means we must average two a
day. Each piece is storyboarded – usually sketched
on paper – before going to the designer. There is
much scrambling for assets, chasing producers and
reporters to make sure we have our eight stories ready
by Thursday late afternoon. We leave the news features
till last, and on Friday we proof, test functionality,
secure rights approvals, and create renders for
Android (The Brief is published in iOS, Android and
Windows), and then we publish at 5pm.
What’s important when it comes to telling
stories on mobile devices?
This might sound silly but the key is to remember to
actually tell the story and not overdo the dazzle and
tricks of interactivity. Interactive multimedia elements
must be used in the service of stories.
Great design is essential. We’re lucky we have a lot
of talent in the room, and the journalistic capital at the
ABC is very strong. That said, I sometimes think that
the near-frictionless ease one can experience swiping
through a tablet magazine means one can get to the
How does this affect the journalism that’s done
for devices — what elements really work?
The horizontal orientation demands an emphasis on
visual storytelling, in contrast to the more text-heavy
designs that come with portrait orientation and
vertical scrolling, like The New Yorker and its 500010,000 word articles.
When you’re not relying solely on words to tell
your story, other elements come into play, and the
words themselves need not always run on in a block
or column. Non-textual storytelling elements that
work include gyroscope, panoramas (whereby the
user might rotate the tablet to experience a 270-degree
view, or virtual view), touch-and-drag timelines and
adaptable maps, as well as more playful morphing
elements such as our Archibald Prize interactive
whereby the user drags their finger across the screen
to morph successive portraits into each other and
back again to contrast the different subjects over the
competition’s 90-year history.
Or we might just tell a story graphically: our Budget
analysis, for example, re-cast a 2500-word piece into
the key numbers over eight or nine screens, which you
can see in part below (the actual piece had moving
parts of course).
The usual things that bedevil all journalists: time
pressure, fact-checking, reacting creatively to changing
stories, being ready to kill a story that looks good but
isn’t saying anything. Also staying across software
updates on different platforms.
The engagement time has been really impressive.
We average about 14 minutes per user. The industry
average is nine minutes.
Social media provides a great forum for people to
discuss what we’re doing right, and also what they
would prefer to see us doing, too. The app store
comments have been quite overwhelming in their
thoughtful feedback. The landing page www.abc.net.
au/thebrief is also a good hub: we have over 250,000
visitors there.
43
> OUR
MEDIA
How Crikey made it to 15 years
As the scrappy online news start-up celebrates a big birthday, Crikey founder Stephen Mayne
recalls how the site was born, cut its teeth on scandal, and grew
I
n terms of web-only publications in Australia,
there are very few that have made it through to their
15th birthday, a milestone Crikey.com recently
celebrated.
Fifteen years is an eternity in internet years and
it won’t be long before young journalists will emerge
who were born after the launch of Crikey at the peak
of the dotcom boom.
So how and why did this whole venture come about?
Ultimately, it was a blurring of the lines between
journalism, whistleblowing and political activism.
As a former spin doctor in the office of Victoria’s
then premier, Jeff Kennett, who had returned to the
Herald Sun as business editor, I formed the view that
the crusading Liberal’s time had come.
I’d tried whistleblowing through both Today
Tonight and Four Corners and eventually felt that the
only option left to get “the full story” out going into
the 1999 state election was to run against Kennett
in his seat of Burwood and publish a tell-all website
called www.jeffed.com.
With a rush of blood, the $105,000-a-year job
editing The Australian Financial Review’s “Rear
Window” gossip column was ditched and, in
effect, Crikey’s predecessor website was born.
It was almost stillborn after I was ruled ineligible to
contest the election but, on being unable to get my job
back, I decided to plough on with jeffed.com.
About 30,000 words were published on the site in
the final two weeks of the campaign and it attracted
115,000 page views, proving more popular than the
opposition ALP’s website.
When the Kennett government was surprisingly
swept from office, it provided a marketing launch
pad for jeffed.com to be rebranded into something
broader. Hence the launch of www.crikey.com.au at a
$5000 function held at the Imperial Hotel opposite the
Victorian state parliament on Valentine’s Day in 2000.
It wouldn’t have happened without the three other
original shareholders, who were former journalistturned-entrepreneur Andrew Inwood, advertising
expert David Terrazus – who designed the site
including the 7-foot Crikey foam suit in the shape
of a screaming exclamation mark – and my school
colleague Con Christov, who was the IT brains
behind the operation.
Inwood came up with the name, which was one of
our best decisions. “Crikey” is memorable, easy to spell,
great for headline writers and reflected everything we
wanted the content to be: aggressive, out there and
bravely independent.
The original model was a free website updated with
six to 10 new stories each Sunday. Subscribers would
pay just $30 and get a Crikey T-shirt, access to the
archive, plus very occasional emails alerting them to
new stories on the site or any “sealed section” material
that was too hot to publish on an open website.
After the shareholders spent about $100,000
getting the site off and running, the first of three early
defamation writs landed five months later when my
fiancée and I were in Amsterdam on an indulgent twomonth round-the-world pre-wedding honeymoon.
On returning to Australia, we enjoyed the Sydney
Olympics, got married and then attempted to
get Crikey back into the news by careering down the
shareholder activism path, with nine board tilts in
two months, something which had never been tried
before in Australia.
In November 2000 we had our first $1000 week,
but before Christmas we discovered Paula was
pregnant – there goes the barrister’s income – and
copped a second Supreme Court defamation writ,
this time from shock jock Steve Price.
The first birthday party turned into a Steve Price
legal fundraiser and we spent 2001 in a blur of nappies,
court documents and a greater focus on daily email
editions, the main distribution model, which Crikey
retains to this day.
Like any start-up venture, Crikey needed a circuitbreaker to secure its future. It came thanks to a
succession of big events in 2002, which tripled monthly
revenues to about $30,000, where they stayed for the
following three years.
The first was losing the original Crikey bunker
– an apartment in Melbourne’s old Jolimont rail
Stephen Mayne in one of the early Crikey bunkers with
Kate Jackson and Ben Shearman, the first Crikey interns.
Photo courtesy Stephen Mayne.
Charles Richardson and I worked together in
the Kennett government and he has contributed
continuously for the full 15 years, while Glenn Dyer
came on board from Channel Nine in 2003 and singlehandedly changed the depth and breadth of television
industry reporting.
As the Crikey personality continues to evolve, the
two most important additions to the team of writers
since the 2005 sale to Eric Beecher have been Bernard
Keane and Guy Rundle.
In the end, it was absolutely the right move
to sell to the professionals from Private Media
The name was one of our best decisions. “Crikey” is memorable, easy to
spell, great for headline writers and reflected everything we wanted the
content to be: aggressive, out there and bravely independent
yards – and settling with Price for $50,000. The
sympathy subscriptions and donations this generated
was huge, and Pricey was appointed “honorary
marketing director”.
We then got into much more appropriate rented
digs in Park Street, South Melbourne, where it was
possible to accommodate two RMIT journalism
graduates, Kate Jackson and Ben Shearman, as the
first Crikey interns.
The four other transformational stories of 2002
were the Cheryl Kernot-Gareth Evans affair, Christian
Kerr’s amazing job destroying the Democrats, the huge
Victorian ALP factional fight, and then Garry Linnell’s
hatchet job on the cover of Good Weekend.
All this publicity and notoriety just generated more
contributors, more tips and more subscribers. And
Australia’s best email list also grew like topsy when the
concept of squatters was introduced in 2002.
From this point on, managing Crikey was more
about harvesting a deluge of emails and an everstrengthening black book of contributors.
Liberal moderate and long-time Christopher Pyne
buddy Christian Kerr, aka Hillary Bray, was the key
contributor in the early years and drove Crikey’s attacks
on John Howard, particularly as Howard lurched
to the right in 2001.
Partners. Crikey to this day stays true to its basic
mantra from those early Kennett battles: fearlessly
publishing uncomfortable news and commentary
about powerful people and institutions.
The early over-blown slogan – “bringing down
governments since September 1999” – has been
superseded by “that thing on the internet”, but it is
worth revisiting the original philosophy:
“Crikey will point out theft, corruption, deception
and collusion whenever and where it can. It is our selfappointed task to take a long thin spike to the bloated
egos of political, media and corporate Australia and to
take clear black-and-white snapshots of the men and
women who have their fingers in the till or who simply
get paid too much for doing shoddy work. We will at all
times try to have fun, respect the laws of our country
in as far as they make sense, and to fill the gaps the
Australian media seem unable or unwilling to fulfil.”
Fifteen years on, a small website started in the spare
bedroom of a Melbourne apartment has morphed into
a serious, credible and established fixture on the everchanging Australian media landscape.
Stephen Mayne is the founder of Crikey. See crikey.
com.au/crikey15/ for more celebratory content around
the site’s anniversary
> PAYING
TRIBUTE
A loss to the living as Harry’s voice falls silent
At a lunch at the MCG where colleagues and friends toasted the life of veteran journalist, Olympic historian, editor and sportswriter
Harry Gordon, fellow journalist and writer Les Carlyon shared his thoughts on the man. This is an edited transcript of his words
Harry Gordon
November 9, 1925 – January 21, 2015
I shouldn’t say this… but I can’t help thinking that
Harry would see today as a missed opportunity.
Harry loved a lunch, as many of us here today know.
And at this time – around two o’clock – he’d be
calling for a third bottle of wine. And he’d be telling
people – usually John Fitzgerald – not to interrupt him
while he told a short anecdote that would only take
another 20 or 30 minutes.
And, if it happened to be a large gathering – and
Harry’s lunches usually were – he’d eventually make
a formal speech and go around the room, singling out
people for praise and reminding them of something
they wrote in 1953. You tried to avoid eye contact,
hoping Harry wouldn’t see you – but he always did.
And Harry not only loved a lunch. He loved this
place – this stadium that once had a red-brick cinder
track. So what an opportunity missed today.
The MCG: he could have picked out someone he
knew in the Ponsford Stand and called him “old bloke”.
What an opportunity missed.
All these people, all of us, his friends and more
than that, his admirers … people who owe him simply
because of what he was and what he taught us by
example.
I’m so old I first met Harry 54 years ago. He was
assistant editor of the Sun News-Pictorial and I was a
first-year cadet, wide-eyed and clueless. But I felt I had
known him long before then. As a kid growing up in
the bush I used to read his stuff in the Sun.
This was the era of Dave Sands and Vic Patrick
in the boxing rings, and of Betty Cuthbert, John
Landy and Dawn Fraser at the Melbourne Olympics.
And even as a teenager I sensed there was something
special about Harry’s work. I couldn’t identify what
it was then. It was just a voice inside me saying: “This
bloke’s different.”
His storytelling just flowed, clear and purling like
a mountain creek.
Here was someone who seemed to live in a
different place to most other journalists. There
was a relaxed quality to his prose – no clichés,
no showing off, no agenda. He led you along by
the hand. He was the master of the anecdote that
widened out into the bigger story.
Here was someone who obviously crafted every
word, every sentence. Someone who lived in this exotic
halfway house between journalism and literature.
And you also felt that here was a generous spirit.
Harry could scold in print without being mean.
When I eventually met Harry in the flesh at the Sun,
he was exactly the way he seemed in his copy – friendly,
with a radiant smile that came from somewhere deep
inside, a great finisher of other people’s copy and an
island of civility in the alcoholic haze that hung over
the subs’ room in those days.
That was my first view of Harry, and he never
changed. In his late eighties he was still boyish, still
curious, still enthusiastic, still generous.
His storytelling just flowed, clear
and purling like a mountain creek
He’d send you an email about a new book he’d
just read. “This bloke can really write,” he’d say
with all the excitement of an explorer who’s just
discovered a new continent. He was 89 going on 17.
Harry became editor of the Sun at the same time
as Graham Perkin was editor of The Age.
On the night of the Faraday kidnappings, the
Sun was hours – many hours – ahead of us at the
Age. The Sun had photos of the kidnapped school
children in its first edition and we didn’t.
Graham rang Harry around midnight –
I overheard the conversation – and suggested Harry
should give us the photos. “In the public interest”
was the quaint way Graham put it. Harry, always
the gentleman, said, yes, of course, he’d help – he’d
never do anything against the public interest.
He put the phone down and after a very long delay
– some say hours – he handed the photos to a copyboy and told him to walk very slowly to the Age.
Harry, the former middleweight champ of
Melbourne High, might have had gentle ways, but
he was always the fiercest of competitors. If he had
to knock you out, he always sent flowers to the
hospital afterwards.
Harry held lots of other high editorial positions
after he moved on from the Sun. But I’d suggest
these were the lesser things. Harry’s legacy is
Harry Gordon, former editor of The Sun, who was
the last person to spend time in the Parliament jail
cell in 1969. THE AGE. Picture by Pat Scala
the stuff he wrote in newspapers and books
– his words. His was always a human voice.
I can’t recall him ever writing anything about
infrastructure reform.
It was a voice so natural that it almost seemed
that Harry wasn’t trying – which of course he
was. But the effect was to give the reader the
impression that the whole thing was just a happy
accident – it just wrote itself. And so often it gave
us, the readers, words and images that still run
around in our heads.
We’re here to mourn Harry. But I remind you
of something the great American sportswriter Red
Smith wrote long ago, after the death of a colleague
he admired: “Don’t mourn for the dead,” Smith
wrote, and went on to say, “This is a loss to the
living, to everyone with a feeling for written English
handled with respect and taste and grace.”
So while we mourn for Harry today, we also need
to mourn for us, the living. Because Harry elevated
us all, and made journalism look better than it
really is, simply by his presence in the world.
Les Carlyon is a writer and journalist. He has
been editor of The Age and editor-in-chief of the
Herald and Weekly Times, and wrote the acclaimed
Gallipoli as well as The Great War
45
> PHOTOJOURNALISM
Black-and-white
scenes, for a life
rich with colour
Dignity suffuses Eddie Jim’s
photographic essay on disabled man
Hayden McLean. Here, Eddie tells
the story of how he met Hayden and
came to tell his story.
I
n February 2014, a regular Wednesday at work,
I was given four assignments. One of them was
meant to be a quick portrait of a guy and his mum,
for a story to be published in The Sunday Age.
When I saw Hayden for the first time, his parents
and carers gave me some initial context, and I was
immediately drawn to the potential of a photo essay.
On that first day, I was introduced to Hayden
through one of his carers. Also there were Hayden’s
parents, two of his carers, and the reporter John
Elder. I soon noticed that Hayden was sensitive to
his surroundings and didn’t like too many people
around, or too much noise. With the number of
people present, I knew that staying quiet and being
observant was key.
I watched and waited, and took some initial shots
of Hayden and his parents, mostly in the bedroom.
Time went by and I still had another assignment to
get to, but I didn’t feel I had captured the essence of
Hayden’s story. So I left for the day’s last assignment,
then returned for more observation.
Upon my return, Hayden was bound with a
balloon, in a pair of incontinence pants, soaking in the
bathtub. Hayden seemed very relaxed in my presence,
but I didn’t take any pictures – Hayden’s parents
had yet to agree to me taking images in this context.
I later learned that Hayden would use the balloon
and incontinence pants, binding tightly to his body
with sticky tape, to provide a sense of security.
What did I take in from day one? Hayden spent a lot
of time in his bed, eating lollies, and doing drawings
– often of his grandparents or elderly characters. He
liked colouring, and mixing watercolours; he knew
what colours he was looking for and knew exactly
which colours to mix in order to get the result.
Hayden is a softly spoken individual, who enjoys
a slow steady pace in his activities. He has an affinity
towards the elderly because, I suspect, he enjoys their
softer tones and slower pace.
Since this was going to be a story in The Sunday
Age, my deadline wasn’t until late Saturday
afternoon. My photo editor granted permission
for a few more days to work on the piece. I’m so
thankful for their trust in me to pursue a creative
outcome which was still gaining clarity at the time.
I knew my approach had to be quiet, calm and
slow-moving, with much waiting and observing.
Unlike other assignments, where I might be more
direct in setting up the shots, it was obvious that it
wasn’t going to work in this context.
There was very little verbal communication or
eye contact between Hayden and I. What Hayden
is very clear and articulate about is when he would
like people to leave his space. “Shut the door,
please,” he would say gently. On day two, Thursday,
I was encouraged by the carer to offer my thumb
as a greeting to Hayden. He grabbed it, which
I thought was a positive sign – and to my delight,
he remembered my name.
This wasn’t just another assignment
in a day’s work. It was a privilege
to get a glimpse of life, guided by
Hayden McLean.
On Thursday and Friday, we pretty much stayed
indoors. I was waiting with patience and anticipation
that Hayden would venture outside.
By the end of Friday, the photo essay was quite
complete, but I still wanted to witness Hayden’s
interactions outside his home. I understood
that going out is a highlight of his activities, and
something that Hayden really enjoys.
I had put in a request to my photo editor to publish
all the photos in black and white, representing the
story with purity and simplicity. Even though Hayden
clearly likes colour and enjoys mixing watercolours
for his drawings, I felt that black and white would
provide a sense of focus, uncluttered by multicolour
visuals, which could be overstimulating. I also felt that
black and white would depict a level of detachment
between Hayden’s realm and the world outside it. To
be safe, I prepared two versions of the photo essay, in
black and white and colour.
I returned to Hayden’s on Saturday. Around
lunchtime, I received a text message from the office
that the story would run, with one picture, in colour,
on the front page. I still sent in the black and white
version, too.
Around four in the afternoon, my patience paid
off. Hayden was in his shorts, shirtless, and with no
warning he was off for a walk! He asked me to “Shut
the door, please” when I began to follow. Hayden
hopped over the fence and I kept following cautiously
on foot, but not too closely to make Hayden uneasy.
As I passed the neighbours’ house, a couple gardening
in their front yard said gently, “Please look after him.”
To me, Hayden is like a “living Melway”. He enjoys
shopping, he loves to buy and eat lollies, and he has
little sense of money – but he knows all the roads
to take him where he wants to go, especially for
shopping. If he is uncomfortable with anyone being
too close, he knows many alternative pathways to
ditch someone quickly and still get to his destination.
I kept pace with Hayden for an hour on that fine
Saturday. One of the lasting images, for me, was of
Hayden skipping with joy, and playing on a swing in
a playground. I saw a sense of freedom and a sense of
purpose in Hayden. He was on a mission to get more
lollies, with happiness all over his face.
By late afternoon, I received another text
message from the office. It was going to be the last
broadsheet edition of The Age, when the weekday
editions were already in compact format, Hayden
was going to be the cover story, and the front-page
image would be in black and white.
For 17 years that I’ve been with The Age, there
have always been some assignments worth dedicating
my heart and patience to. This wasn’t just another
assignment in a day’s work. It was a privilege to get
a glimpse of life guided by Hayden McLean. And
for that, I thank Hayden and his parents, Dariane and
Malcolm, for giving me their permission and trust
to witness Hayden.
This is an adaptation of a speech Eddie Jim gave at the
State Library of Victoria
Eddie Jim is a photographer for The Age and his series
of images of Hayden won the 2014 Nikon-Walkley
Award for Feature/Photographic Essay
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