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Graham, Chris --- "Media, Politics and Australian Society: A Punter's Guide to Confronting the Media Cycle" [2005] IndigLawB 19; (2005) 6(10) Indigenous Law Bulletin 12


Media, Politics and Australian Society: A Punter’s Guide to Confronting the Media Cycle

by Chris Graham

I’m going to let you in on a little secret, but if anyone asks I’ll deny I told you. The mainstream media lives to serve you. (How do I know this to be true? Because I am a journalist and we are never wrong.) To believe anything else is to believe that the mainstream media’s inaccurate, inadequate reporting of Aboriginal affairs happens despite an overwhelming desire of white Australia to be properly informed on all things black. That notion, sad to say, is ridiculous.

White Australia no more wants to know about its treatment of Aboriginal people than it wants to hear about how well democracy is going in Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? We invaded it a few years ago. Anyone have any idea how life for the average Afghani is today? I don’t, because I haven’t been there and I sure as hell don’t get to read about it anymore. But I can tell you a bit about how Aboriginal people in Australia live – proudly, but poorly. It’s not that we, as a nation, want to do over Aboriginal people, it’s just that we’ve got other things to worry about. Interest rates, for one. Then there’s real estate prices, and former Tasmanian real estate agents who marry princes. Nikki Webster’s shock exit from ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Did I mention Princess Mary? Occasionally, of course, the media does report with enthusiasm on Aboriginal affairs but, as you’ll soon discover, it’s not because journalists want to see black Australia progress.

When National Indigenous Times (‘NIT’) broke a story in February 2004 about the NSW Government suppressing a senior minister’s report which revealed past governments had lost or stolen around $70 million of Aboriginal wages and savings, the story got a good run in the mainstream media. Albeit not entirely for the reasons you might think.

Rather than ‘break’ the story exclusively, NIT agreed to give it to mainstream media so they could report it on the same day we did. If we hadn’t, the story would not have received the widespread media coverage it subsequently did. The reason is because, in most cases, the media won’t follow an Aboriginal affairs story unless it gets an ‘exclusive’. Either that or the story has to titillate. The best way to achieve that is to portray an Aboriginal person or organisation the way Australia likes it – as corrupt, violent or stupid. All three is called a ‘trifecta’.

A case in point: The day the process began to abolish the nation’s most important Indigenous body – ATSIC – in Federal Parliament, the media was working itself into a lather over an AFL jumper. Former ATSIC chairman Geoff Clark had, we learned, ‘stolen’ the famous jumper that Nicky Winmar had worn in 1993, when he lifted it up and pointed to his black skin. The story was, of course, rubbish. The jumper that Clark had removed from the wall of his office – rightly or wrongly – was in fact a jumper from 1998, not the famous 1993 jumper. But that didn’t stop the media reporting it as the real deal. Nor, when the true story emerged, did it prompt the media to properly correct its earlier stories. But does anyone want to hazard a guess as to how many mainstream media organisations ran a story on the ATSIC ‘kill bill’ before parliament on that day? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is none. Not even the ABC.

There are daily examples of gross media negligence, and NIT happens to have played a role in the biggest one in the past few years. In November last year, some pretty juicy documents fell off the back of a truck that just happened to be driving past the humble offices of the National Indigenous Times. The documents – which consisted of Federal Cabinet briefing papers and letters from Philip Ruddock to the Prime Minister, and from Cabinet Secretary Peter Shergold to the Prime Minister – revealed a number of extraordinary facts:

All federal government ministers were asked by the Prime Minister in December 2000 to undertake major reviews into every single government program to establish whether or not there might be better ways to deliver those programs to Aboriginal people. Almost four years later, some of the reviews hadn’t been completed. Of those that were, most were of a ‘generally poor quality’ and in any case had taken so long to deliver they were no longer useful.
The government was planning a major shake-up of welfare delivery, with an emphasis on a ‘carrot and sticks’ approach (Shared Responsibility Agreements (‘SRAs’)). One example quoted in the briefing was that if an Aboriginal person didn’t send their kids to school, they might miss out on a scheduled house renovation. So an Aboriginal kid who isn’t going to school also gets to live in a hovel.

The documents also revealed that Prime Minister John Howard was warned against pulling apart ATSIC because it might be illegal; the Federal Government was simply paying lip service when it came to aiding Aboriginal people; and that the Australian people had been lied to about the real reasons why ATSIC was to be abolished.

NIT theorised that, given the success of the stolen wages coverage, we should continue to ‘share the media love’ and offer the story around to mainstream media. (A note to readers: NIT has never asked for any money for these stories. We offer them free and only seek a commitment that the media organisation will give the story the space it deserves. We also ask they credit NIT, although on that front we miss out more often than not. But we acknowledge that getting an issue up in the mainstream is more important than getting a free plug, so we give away the stories regardless.)

Three major mainstream news organisations – including Fairfax and News Limited – promised to follow up the leaked cabinet documents. None did. In frustration, NIT went to the Australian Financial Review (‘AFR’), a newspaper not ordinarily associated with Aboriginal affairs. The AFR duly reported the ‘sensational’ details and suddenly, the mainstream media got interested. So did the Federal Government, which had thus far refused to comment to NIT. The morning after NIT published its second feature on the documents – and two days after AFR first reported the issue – five agents from the Australian Federal Police arrived on NIT’s doorstep with a search warrant. But the horse had already bolted – the mainstream media was now reporting the issue widely, and the issue of SRAs still dominates Aboriginal affairs debate today.

NIT’s strategy on the stolen wages story, and the leaked cabinet documents, is not a new one. Since we began in 2002, our editorial focus has been to get the stories we break picked up by mainstream media. There’s a simple reason for that. Indigenous media can bang away all year about the horrible statistics besetting Aboriginal Australia, about government dishonesty and social injustice, but we’re already preaching to the converted. Readers of NIT, and consumers of other Indigenous media, already take an active interest in Aboriginal affairs.

When NIT broke the stolen wages story, for example, it wasn’t really ‘news’ to most of our readers. While no-one knew the horrifying specifics of government theft, there isn’t an Aboriginal person in NSW – or around the country for that matter – who wasn’t already aware the government had been ripping them off. So the real game – at least the game where change can best be leveraged – is in the mainstream, and the only way that will occur is if ordinary people get to read quality articles about Aboriginal affairs. Aboriginal people make up two per cent of this nation’s population – in most cases, they can’t even realistically expect to vote out a single government member, let alone change a government.

The key to the future of Aboriginal progression lies, ironically enough, mostly with white Australia. Aboriginal Australia needs allies – it needs ordinary people to take an interest and to demand from governments a better deal. The challenge, of course, is to get the media to get off their butts and do their homework.

So here’s what we’re facing. Prime Minister John Howard recently visited the Aboriginal community of Wadeye, in the north west of the Northern Territory. He was followed, as always, by a legion of reporters. In the week prior to his visit, news broke of a landmark report written by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (‘CAEPR’). The paper, dubbed the Taylor Report after one of its authors (John Taylor), revealed that both the Federal and Northern Territory Governments had been under-spending in the community for years. For every dollar spent on the education of a Northern Territory child, as little as 26 cents was being spent on a child in Wadeye, the report found.

Key areas such as health, education and job creation were under-funded, while areas such as policing and community corrections were over-funded. If you want to condemn an Aboriginal community to poverty, then the two governments’ treatment of Wadeye provides the perfect blueprint.

The PM’s visit had not been timed to coincide with the Taylor Report but, having committed to go, he could hardly change his plans. Fortunately for Howard and Chief Minister Clare Martin, a majority of media never reported the details of the Taylor Report. Most simply reported – enthusiastically to boot – the Prime Minister’s third visit to an Aboriginal community. That’s right, his third visit in almost a decade.

The media will always take the path of least resistance. Ask yourself which is hardest:

  • Staking out some shonky real estate agent and then confronting him in a car park when he least expects it?
  • Researching and producing a feature piece on Aboriginal disadvantage?

There’s a reason why programs like ‘A Current Affair’ and ‘Today Tonight’ don’t feature heavily in the annual journalism awards. It’s also far easier to ‘break’ a news story supplied to you by a ‘friendly’ government minister than it is to report an issue that relied on leaks and research. That’s otherwise known as not biting the hand that feeds you. Journalists also happen to be very competitive bastards.

Most journalists measure their success (sometimes even their very existence) by the number of by-lines they get. So the pressure on a journalist to keep up with the Jones boy in the next cubicle is enormous. And if journalists are not prepared to take the government ‘hand-out’ and splash it all over the front page, then the Jones boy will be. Why fight it? The media pays pretty well and no by-lines means no money for the pub. Apart from anything else, it’s exciting when a government minister remembers your name at a press conference.

The media, though – for all its faults – is merely a mirror of Australian society. Certainly, it dumbs things down for its consumers, but it does so because that’s what consumers want. The truth is that Australians allow their media to be lazy and inaccurate. Rarely, if ever, does the media as a whole meet the high moral standards that it imposes on politicians and leaders. It’s as oafish, bureaucratic, egotistical and occasionally downright dishonest as the people and organisations it criticises.

So what can you do about it? If you want quality mainstream news reporting of Aboriginal affairs, how can you motivate Australian journalists to give it to you? Fortunately, there is a solution and it doesn’t rely on setting fire to yourself outside a newspaper office (although that would provide ‘great art’).

A mainstream newspaper, radio station or television network is a commercial venture, like all other businesses. It’s as sensitive to ‘supply and demand’ as any other industry and in the corporate world, if you don’t give your clients what they want, then you don’t exist. For example, the best reporting on Aboriginal affairs from within the mainstream media comes from the ABC and SBS. No prizes for guessing which two mainstream media organisations enjoy the smallest market share and rely almost entirely on government funding to exist. The ABC and SBS aren’t subject to the same market forces that other mainstream media slave under, so they can afford, occasionally, to give Australians what they need, rather than want.

That’s where you, the consumer, come in. If you’re not happy with the coverage of Aboriginal affairs in mainstream media, then complain about it. Write a letter to the editor. Ring the radio or TV station. If you get no response, don’t consume it. Don’t buy the Sydney Morning Herald. Don’t buy The Australian. Switch off 2UE. Boycott Kerry Packer’s products.

Don’t stop there, either – harass editors and journalists about their reporting. Ring them. Twice a day. Fill up their voicemail with advice and tips on good reporting. If you see a journalist down the pub, tell them what you think of their reporting. The bigger the ‘name’, the more you should harass them.

Learn about one issue in depth – the stolen wages scandal is a good start – then earbash everyone you meet at dinner parties with the shocking details. Phone your local radio breakfast program, tell the receptionist you want to bash a blackfella, and then when you get on air, change your position. Radio hosts do that all the time!

In short, don’t suffer in silence and don’t let Aboriginal people suffer by your silence either. Above all else, consume Indigenous media. Read the Indigenous Law Bulletin. Read NIT. Read the Koori Mail and listen to and watch ABC, SBS, Sydney’s Koori Radio, Radio 4KNG in Townsville, Radio 3LND in Victoria. The mighty Radio 4AAA in Brisbane.

The job of some Indigenous media, increasingly, has become to ‘keep the bastards honest’ and the bastards don’t just include the mainstream media. The other big target is, of course, your local member. Collar him (or her) at the next function you meet and spray them about the lack of government action on Aboriginal issues. The media hates being held personally accountable, but just wait until you see how a politician reacts when you berate them in front of their constituents. Forcing change in corporate Australia will feel a little like trying to turn around an oil tanker with a paddle – it’s going to take time. But elections come around every few years. And here’s the icing on the cake – by targeting politicians, you’ve got a good chance of killing two birds with the one stone. Journalists and politicians spend a lot of time in bed together, and before long the pillow talk will perhaps turn to maybe, just maybe, giving blackfellas a fair go.

Chris Graham is the editor of the National Indigenous Times newspaper.

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