the mobius strip

Industry closes anti-coal website - National - smh.com.au

THE mining industry has used copyright laws to close an anti-mining website launched by a small protest group in Newcastle.

The NSW Minerals Council has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a TV, print and billboard advertising campaign and launched a website extolling the virtues of mining. The campaign’s slogan is “Life: brought to you by mining”.

The anti-coal group Rising Tide created its own website sending up the campaign with comments such as “Rising sea levels: brought to you by mining”.

The website’s hosts were forced to remove it within 24 hours of its launch, after the Minerals Council issued a notice under the Copyright Regulations 1969 complaining the content and layout infringed copyright.

We’re likely to see more companies exploring creative legal options for silencing their critics now that they can’t sue for defamation…

Q: Do you think a good journalist needs to be sceptical of authority?

A: Are you questioning my objectivity?

Sydney Morning Herald journalist David Marr caused a kafuffle in 2004 when he commented at the ACIJ’s George Munster forum that journalists naturally belonged to “a soft leftie kind of culture”. The forum was aired, as usual, on Radio National’s ‘Big Ideas’ program.

Marr’s comments were seized on by columnists like Paddy McGuinness as proof, not only of his personal bias, but the ABC’s: “the Herald is a commercial enterprise and no one is compelled to buy it or pay for it. It is what he reflects about the ABC that is the problem. …the Left team expects its propaganda to be financed by the taxpayer… Marr stands as an indictment of the ABC and the kind of journalism it breeds.”

Marr was not discussing journalists’ political opinions, but rather the underlying “culture” of journalism as “inquiry sceptical of authority”. “I mean, that’s just the world out of which journalists come. If they don’t come out of that world, they really can’t be reporters. I mean, if you’re not sceptical of authority, find another job…And that is kind of a soft leftie kind of culture.”

McGuinness was outraged: “What arrogance and bias is wrapped up in the assertion that only the “soft Left” is sceptical of authority!”

“This assumes that authority is anything and anyone whom the Left holds in opprobrium.”

McGuinness said that journalists like Marr are much more enthusiastic in their scepticism of John Howard than of, for example, the ACTU. He also referred to a history of support amongst the left for the authoritarian governments of Castro and Stalin.

Commentators from both the left and the right are fond of accusing the media of systemic bias. A survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center released this year showed that while US journalists are not predominately liberal, they are more liberal than the public at large. Only 9 percent of the 673 journalists interviewed described themselves as conservative, compared to 38 percent of the general public:

“Question: How would you describe your political thinking? Would you say you are very liberal, liberal, moderate, conservative, very conservative, or libertarian?

Very liberal 5%
Liberal 26%
Moderate 49%
Conservative 8%
Very conservative 1%
Libertarian 2%
Don’t know 1%
Refused 7%”

This is the first evidence I have come across that journalists are to the left of the general population (or, more accurately, that they consider themselves to be more ‘liberal’ or moderate). The interesting question is why. Is Marr right? Is there some kind of inherent link between the characteristics of a good journalist and a ‘soft left’ philosophy? I think this depends on which political spectrum the journalist is on the ‘left’ of.

In McGuinness’ piece, he argues that the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ are now “devoid of real content”, other than as “a hangover of musty old ideological notions”. This idea is not a new one, and it put me in mind of a project called the ‘political compass’ – an attempt to update the old left-right spectrum for more complex times:

“On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It’s not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can’t explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as ‘right-wingers’, yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.”

On the political compass, a ‘libertarian-authoritarian’ scale is added to the economic left-right scale to make a two-dimensional chart that takes both social and economic philosophy into account (click on ‘analysis’ and then ‘view the analysis’ to see the chart - unless you want to take the test first!).

Because most people describe the ‘top’ of the authoritarian scale as ‘right’, it is easy to see why Marr might have described journalistic culture as ’soft left’.

I would argue that the philosophy (if not always the practice) of journalism is profoundly anti-authoritarian. Free media is the first thing to be banned by authoritarian governments, and journalists are rarely applauded by their peers for ‘comforting the powerful and afflicting the powerless’. But where does scepticism of authority come from? University degrees? Observation of the behaviour of authority figures during the practice of their profession? Possibly. It could also come from an underlying political belief, such as the belief that power corrupts, or that power should not be concentrated in the hands of the few.

In ‘The Crowded Theater’, Douglas McCollam, a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review, writes:

“Reporters often seem perplexed by the venomous attacks directed at them. They have a hard time seeing that it is not so much the idea of bias that infuriates their critics as the refusal to admit any bias at all. That line is getting increasingly hard to toe, so I’ll suggest an alternative that most reporters, of whatever political camp, might find acceptable: go ahead and admit an obvious bias — a bias against power. It is a presumption in keeping with the profession’s tradition of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Some may still call it liberal, and to the extent that it is suspicious of the status quo, they would be right in a way. But I am advocating admitting to an active suspicion of concentrated financial and political influence and those who stand to benefit from it, not the promotion of any particular ideology, cause, or agenda. This stance puts journalists directly in the crosshairs of any ruling cadre, which is just where they should be.”

The exhortation to be suspicious of of ‘concentrated financial and political influence’ provides some clues about where ‘journalistic culture’ might find itself on the economic spectrum. Every economic system contains the potential for the concentration and abuse of economic power – on the left this is usually in the hands of state bureaucrats, on the right in the hands of large corporations.

In a socialist country, a reporter following McCollam’s advice will probably spend a lot of time uncovering corruption and economic inefficiency, and may therefore find herself labelled as anti-socialist. In a free-market country, she will find herself investigating monopolies, political donations, and inequality, and may find herself labelled anti-capitalist.

The constant scrutiny of ‘concentrated financial and political influence’ could end up influencing a journalist’s political beliefs. By observing the abuse of power, she might end up in favour of polices to curb it - and these policies may well be towards the other end of the economic spectrum in which she finds herself.

Conversely, a philosophy that is at odds with the status quo may provide a strong incentive for journalists to have a ‘bias against power’ in the first place. How well could a passionate socialist critique Castro? How effectively could a passionate free-marketeer scrutinise the Fortune 500 companies?

Of course, journalists often do report in ways that conflict with their personal biases - in many cases they even overcompensate for them in attempt to attain that elusive ‘objectivity’. But I suspect that the best in-depth investigative reporting is driven by a bias against the status quo.

References

Paddy McGuinness, ‘Prejudice mars objective approach’ The Australian, March 18, 2005

Annenberg Public Policy Center Survey on Partisan Bias, Accuracy and Press Freedom, May 24 2005

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

‘The Crowded Theater’, Douglas McCollam, Columbia Journalism Review, 2005 issue 4

Nice little piece about the truth market in today’s Herald

If you thought last year’s nuclear ‘debate’ was a little lopsided, you might want to check out the latest edition of Signature:

On wednesday the world’s six largest polluters will meet in Sydney at the first Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate summit to discuss the role of new technologies in curbing climate change. Nuclear power is likely to be promoted as a potential solution to the world’s greenhouse problems.

The once unpopular nuclear energy industry enjoyed a media revival last year, thanks to a number of prominent politicians calling for a renewed ‘debate’ on the issue.

This month, Signature enters the fray.

MARNI CORDELL speaks with Shadow Minister for Industry and Resources, Martin Ferguson about his push to overturn the ALP’s ‘no new mines’ position.

MIRIAM LYONS investigates one of the longest running PR campaigns in history: the push to sell nuclear power as ‘clean and green’.

And EVE VINCENT reports on the Federal Government’s radical Radioactive Waste Management Bill.

In our photo story the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta celebrate their success in stopping a national radioactive waste dump from being built on their country.

www.spinach7.com/signature 

S’PORE FILM ON TIMORESE VILLAGE BANNED AT JAKARTA FILM FESTIVAL By Valarie Tan CHANNEL NEWSASIA, 04 JANUARY 2006

SINGAPORE: A Singapore-made film “Passabe” was recently banned in Indonesia while Eric Khoo’s “Be With Me” was disqualified from the Oscars. Experts say these can only spice things up for Singapore’s film industry. “Passabe” is a documentary about a remote village in Timor, home to the worst massacres following an independence vote in 1999. Shot over a year, the film captures the lives of those affected four years on. It features a former militiaman who was forced to kill during the violence. The filmmakers were invited by the United Nations-backed Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation to document the “Truth Hearings” and efforts at bridging deep divisions in post-conflict East Timor. But the documentary was banned at last month’s Jakarta International Film Festival. Two other films on the same subject were also banned. “The reason they gave for banning the film was that it would open up old wounds. But in trying to cover up that way, they let the wounds fester. They need to let them air. They need to let people understand what went on at that time,” said James Leong, co-director of “Passabe.” “We really wanted to show it in Indonesia. We feel that it’s important to show it there. That is where our audience should be,” said “Passabe” co-director Lynn Lee. “We’ve been invited back to the next Jakarta International Film Festival. So hopefully the government will reconsider and allow us to show it there,” she said.

Those sedition laws got passed, *sigh* There’s a pretty excellent analysis of the Anti-Terrorism legislation in a special edition of the Human Rights Defender, which can be accessed at www.ahrcentre.org

The Timor Leste Penal Code has finally been passed, and contains jail terms of up to three years for criticism of public officials. Not good, especially in a country where the judges are a bit trigger-happy with their sentencing. This is the update from IFEX:

EAST TIMOR: NEW PENAL CODE CRIMINALISES DEFAMATION

Journalists in East Timor are voicing alarm over a new penal code recently signed into law under which individuals who publish statements deemed to defame public officials can be imprisoned, reports the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA).

Signed by Prime Minister Mari Altakiri on 6 December 2005, the new code enters into force on 1 January 2006. Some legal experts say the code gives more protection to public officials than to ordinary citizens. Under Article 173, anyone can be jailed for up to three years and fined for publishing comments seen as harming an official’s reputation. The penal code does not set limits on fines and other penalties for defamation.

SEAPA says East Timor’s weak and inexperienced judiciary makes the criminal defamation provisions particularly worrying. It also says the provisions could undermine media coverage of the presidential and national elections in 2007.

Local journalists and legal experts had called for parliamentary debate and public consultations on the penal code provisions, but their pleas were ignored. SEAPA says government officials have taken an increasingly adversarial stance toward journalists in the past three years in response to more critical reporting from the country’s fledgling press.

Visit these links:
- IFEX Alerts on East Timor
- SEAPA
- International Press Institute Report on East Timor
- Internews East Timor
- BBC Profile of East Timor

“The Australian Government has withdrawn a grant to an international film festival in the Indonesian capital Jakarta because it says four Australian Films to be screened don’t promote mutual understanding between Australian and Indonesia.”
Radio National

The films cited as reasons for pulling the funding of JiFFest, a fast-growing and well-respected film festival, include “The President versus David Hicks” and “Garuda’s Deadly Upgrade”, a documentary looking at the assassination of Indonesian human rights activist Munir.

read more

Here’ s the response from JiFFest:

JiFFest Responds to Last-Minute Withdrawal of Funds by the Australia Indonesia Institute (AII) due to films that “do not meet objectives”

We are shocked and disappointed by the Australia-Indonesia Institute’s (AII’s) last-minute withdrawal of support for this year’s Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest) - funds that were committed fully five months ago in support of Australian films and workshops at this year’s festival.

Less than 24 hours before the festival’s opening, the AII – which operates under the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs - informed JiFFest of the withdrawal of their support because four Australian films being screened at the event “do not meet the objectives of the AII as set out in the Guidelines.” The films are: The President Vs David Hicks,Dhakiyarr Vs the King,We have Decided Not to Die andGaruda’s Deadly Upgrade.

We are amazed that such a decision should be conveyed to us barely 24 hours before the opening of JiFFest 2005, when AII’s concerns could have been expressed at any point between July 2005 (when the grant was awarded) and a few weeks before the festival – at which point it still would have been feasible to discuss the program content or seek alternative funding. Since JiFFest operates on an extremely tight budget, this last-minute withdrawal of funds will have a very damaging impact on the festival.

At no point did the AII ask to review the films JiFFest selected (or even their titles), or advise JiFFest of any review process. JiFFest does not understand why the films it selected supposedly “do not meet the objectives of the AII”, particularly since The President Vs David Hicks,Dhakiyarr Vs the Kinghave been approved for screening by the Indonesian censor board.

Even if the AII disapproves of the specific films listed above, JiFFest fails to understand why they have withdrawn the entire sum of their grant to the festival, including funds that support master class workshops for Indonesian filmmakers, which represent 45% of the AII grant. Surely this workshop activity is a classic example of “developing relations betweenAustraliaandIndonesiaby promoting greater mutual understanding” between the countries, to quote AII’s own program goals. We therefore regret that this important activity is being sacrificed.

Now in its 7th year, JiFFest has gained a proud reputation as an independent festival dedicated to quality films and the important messages they carry, particularly on the subject of human rights and social justice. We have therefore never allowed funding to influence our film selection, either as a carrot or a stick.

Orlow Seunke, JiFFest’s Director, said “JiFFest will go ahead and screen these films anyhow, as a matter of principle, although the festival must now pay out of its own limited coffers. I hope audiences in Jakartawill now show up in even greater numbers to view what the Australian government is apparently so worried about them seeing. All four films will be screened free of charge.”

For Further information:
Tel 021-31925115
Email info@jiffest.org
Web: www.jiffest.org

I just came across a speech by David Marr that asks a very interesting question: why is it so potent to label the governments’ critics as “lefties”, in a country “which again and again shows its indifference to great contests of principle; a country where you have to struggle to remember the last time the Left had decisive influence on national politics?”

He asks a bunch of conservative columnists for their definitions of ‘left’, and gets some diverse and amusing answers. I like Tim Blairs’:

Those on Tim Blair’s Left: “Greens, Dems, the ABC, and the Carmen wing of the ALP” - are chauvinists, republicans and by nature intolerant. His Left “opposes commercial media (except Fairfax), wealth that doesn’t grow at the same rate for everybody, lack of media diversity (except at the ABC), media deregulation (except censorship), doing anything that makes Australia a terrorist target (except supporting East Timorese independence), liberation of oppressed peoples by any means other than impossible global consensus, inaccurate commentary (except from John Pilger and Michael Moore), scientific advances in agriculture, and an increasingly pleasant, warmer globe. But what is the Left for? Aside from broad, rarely-defined motherhood notions like ‘democracy’, ‘greater accountability’, and ‘justice’, it’s hard to tell. A Lefty friend supported the return of South Sydney to the NRL; maybe that’s it.”

But Marr concludes that there is nothing on any of the pundits’ lists that explains the effectiveness of weilding the left-word as a weapon:

“On all four lists are ideas capable of sparking fears in the community. But not great fears. The lists don’t come near explaining how effectively denunciation of the Left shapes public debate in Australia: rattling the media, sabotaging big public contests of principle this country is so reluctant to face. What is the spectre behind the abuse?

I went back to all four combatants and asked: is it really about money? The Left is never going to seize the assets of the rich, but the Left has plans and they’re expensive. They cost a lot of other people’s money. Is this where the fear comes in?

The idea drew a blank with all four of these anti-Left warriors. But I would put my money on money. “

Translated by the Internews East Timor media monitoring service:

NGO PROTESTS AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
DIARIO TEMPO, OCTOBER 7, 2005

The NGO La’o Hamutuk is protesting the Australian government’s decision to stop their aid commitment to a Timor Leste NGO, Forum Tau Matan (FTM), over the participation of FTM in an action against the Australian
government on the Timor Sea. “The political decision of the Australian government impedes the Aus-AID mission in Timor-Leste to support economic development and contradicts the right of free speech,” said
Santina Soares, a member of La’o Hamutuk NGO, in a press conference on October 6. La’o Hamutuk called on Australian citizens and government leaders to question their government over a decision to cancel aid to
the NGO Forum Tau Matan. “We ask Aus-AID to guarantee to those who have the potential to receive grants in Timor-Leste that they are able to express freely their ideas without any pressure from the government,”
Soares said.

There’s a debate about the new online progressive movement ‘Get up‘ over at webdiary. I’ve just posted my two cents:

‘Get Up’ is an important addition to the progressive toolbox - it will attract large numbers of people to engage in low-key online activism, and will raise a decent amount of money to put towards slick ad campaigns for progressive causes.

Those who have commented that it’s not really doing anything new are correct - it’s simply moving old-school political fundraising and lobbying online. That move has some benefits - it’s obviously cheaper to run a campaign online, and it lowers the barriers for low-key political participation by making it less time-consuming.

Australia doesn’t have a tradition of ordinary individuals making political donations. Even by making it easy to donate online, GetUp is unlikely raise the staggering sums (percap) that were seen with MoveOn. But I could be wrong - I’m glad someone is giving it a go. Advertising is effective - if it wasn’t the ad industry would not exist.

Which brings me to my only concern. If politics comes down to a battle over money & media, it’s pretty clear that progressives aren’t going to win. We have less of both in our pockets.

Our main chance of success lies not in dollars, or even ideas, but in numbers. We need progressives to outnumber conservatives. Even taking the flaws in our democracy into account, I don’t think that’s the case at the moment. We need more people who believe in progressive causes and values and who are willing to act on what we believe in.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why people become activists - and why they don’t. What does it take to tap into most people’s innate sense of fairness and justice & translate that into action against unfairness and injustice?

Buggered if I know. I suspect it usually comes down to personal experience and personal relationships. Although websites might be useful tools, I’m guessing that they don’t make great recruiting grounds.

But I’m in favour of anything that can make progressive organising easier and cheaper while we set our sights on the great outnumbering. So Get Up gets a thumbs-up from me.

Get up got some coverage on the 7:30 report on the 4th August.

As property developers slash & burn their way through Sydney’s cultural undergrowth, a few hardy artisans are hanging in by the skin of their collective teeth.

For the latest battle story check out this email from the friendly folks at the wedding circle (an artist-run space in chippendale):

…At approximately 545pm, as the sun was gently easing into its setting position, 8 members of our community were cajouling and comingling in front of the wedding circle when out of nowhere a camera flash alerted us to two ordinance rangers, clad in flurorescent vests and steely gray janitor suits, who sprung out from behind a tree demanding ID and taking our photograph. We quickly moved inside but were soon greeted by two constables from Redfern who demanded ID and refused to provide information about why we were photographed and what we were being infringed for. Eventually we were told that we had committed three offences: 1) Gathering on the footpath 2) Sitting on the road and 3) drinking alcohol on the street. For the record, there were no bottles of alcohol present, three of us had a glass containing a liquid amber substance (i think it was apple cider) and we were sitting on the steps of the wedding circle and the gutter having pleasant conversation and enjoying the ambience of a late saturday afternoon!!!! As the sole resident of the premises I am now being fined $330! We reckon this is outrageous (and great material for a new contemporary musical called “RANGER DANGER” ) Plans are afoot to hold a local community devonshire tea and scones to talk about “What is the world comming to” kind of discussion and prepare our case for the courts. We reckon a petition would be a good thing to express outrage at this heavy handed and totally irrational application of “THE LAW”. Crikeys, if ya can’t hang out the front of yer house chattin to yer neighbours, what the….

If you would like to know more or want to tell us what you think then you can email me and I will keep you posted on plans for devonshire tea day and the like. Reclaim the Streets, anyone…??

thanks once again to everyone who made our day especially fun! WE ARE HAVING ONE AGAIN NEXT SATURDAY 11AM so please come and gather ye at thee footpath……

STOP PRESS: There seems to be a heavy scent of law enforcement crackdown wafting pungently into the area. Infiltration of plain clothes police officers and detectives into warehouse parties and artist run spaces has increased in recent months. If you start feeling a little intimidated, then you know that its working… Remember: If you see something unusual, tell someone…. (it’s called government sponsored creative expression)

Or you can check out the story Brushed Aside on the cover of the latest City Hub, and read my rambling explorations through the artist-run spaces of Chippendale:

One by one, warehouses that were once home to artists and musicians have been converted to the cult of polished floorboards & bubble-glass window fittings. But despite endless rent hikes, dodgy landlords, and the constant threat of eviction, a band of determined heretics keep fighting for the right to take up space…

This article in Salon on the shooting of another independent journalist in Iraq is worth reading for the rare glimpse it offers of the story behind a military ‘misunderstanding’, but also because it demonstrates the difficulty of extracting information on civilian deaths from the jaws of military PR.

It was a typical misunderstanding, of the sort that happens all the time in Iraq.

After Joe fired at the windshield he walked to the car and saw that Salihee was covering his eye with his right hand, but as he watched the hand fell and blood poured from the wound in the man’s head. Not long after the shooting, Joe’s unit left the area. “We had to leave the scene and that was fucked up, but we had to continue our mission. Then we came back and I saw the lady crying and it got to me because I’m not out here to kill innocent people at all. When I saw her, that’s when I knew something was wrong.” The woman Joe saw was Raghad Salihee, Yasser’s wife, and in our conversation he returned several times to the moment he saw her near Salihee’s car. It’s an image that deeply troubles him.

On 2nd of July, before I found the sniper, Ayman had taken me out to the Salihee house in Saydiyah where I met Raghad Salihee for the first time. She is a lovely woman, also a physician. When we arrived, the entire family was in mourning. Raghad came into the living room and she was weeping when she said, “If I find the soldier, I will kill him.” After I came back from the embed with Joe’s unit, I spoke to her at the hotel about the killing of her husband. She spoke calmly as her daughter played nearby. “I want many things but I want the Americans to stop running in the street, they are killing anyone. I also want them to stop using these types of destructive bullets. I see the injuries in the hospital. If a bullet strikes someone in the abdomen or leg, the person dies. If they are shot in the brain, they die immediately.”

Raghad went on to say, “I want the Americans to go back to America, but I know they won’t go.” She asked me if I knew a lawyer in the United States who could take her husband’s case. As her daughter gazed hypnotically at the hotel pool, Raghad said, “Can you help me? Please, can you help me?”

Yasser Salihee’s name has been added to a steadily growing toll of civilian casualties of the Iraq war. A Web site, Iraqbodycount.net, has estimated that at as many as 26,000 civilians have been killed since the invasion. Because the organization compiled the number from verified news reports, the true toll is higher, since not all of the civilian casualties appear in the press.

Read more

Earlier this year I mentioned that I was keeping an eye on Ruddock’s plans for defamation law reform. So I put quitea lot of research into All rights Reserved, an article published in New Matilda last week.

Australia’s states and territories are on the brink of achieving the holy grail of law reform: uniform defamation laws. But Attorney General Philip Ruddock says he may still override the states if he doesn’t think their model is ‘in the national interest’.

…as Ruddock’s spokesperson said: “the Attorney General has given way on a lot of issues that were very close to his heart”. The fact that corporate defamation is one of the final sticking points says a lot about Ruddock’s definition of the ‘national interest’.

Just a quick plug. My article ‘Taxing times for outspoken charities’ has just been published on New Matilda - if you’re interested in the freedom of NGOs to criticise the government and stay financially viable at the same time, then it might be worth a read.

I’m planning on doing a follow-up story on some of the wider implications of this issue for the community sector as a whole. I’ve interviewed a few people who think its time for the NGO sector to re-think the whole strategy of trying to create change through government:

“It’s time to step back from that strategy and reengage with broader community, create change from the ground up.”
“Because this government has made it abundantly clear that they’re not interested in listening to groups that represent the marginalised people in the community”

- Sarah Maddison, one of the authors of the Silencing Dissent report released by the Australia Institute last year.

If you’re not a New Matilda subscriber you can get a free one-month trial subscription by sending your name & contact details in an email to trialsubscription (at) newmatilda.com

Mike Scrafton, Andrew Wilkie, Lance Collins. You might not remember them, but the Fairfax archive does. They were the people behind the stories that should have been the Watergates of 2004. The sources of the kind of facts that send a slow news day’s pulse racing.

Whistleblowers.
The children-who-weren’t-thrown-overboard-after-all. The Australian government’s full knowledge of the Indonesian army’s plans for a massacre in East Timor after the referendum. For every lie revealed, every cover-up uncovered, someone risked everything to tell us what we need to know, and then disappeared quietly out of view, to spend time with their families amidst the ruins of their career. And unlike Mark Latham, Scrafton and Collins can’t rely on a $150,000 tell-all book-deal to perk up their flagging bank accounts. Exit the whistleblower, stage left, no fanfare.

Every November the journos of Australia gather to trade rumours, booze it up, and indulge in a frenzy of self-congratulation at the Walkley awards. Sometimes the media deserves to give itself a collective pat on the back. Sometimes it can’t see the (dead) wood for the (pulped) trees. But what the media awards never do is raise a glass to the real heroes – those who told the truth with no prospect of peer applause & engraved Perspex at the end of the year.

So I’m starting a one-woman drive to GET A WHISTLEBLOWER CATEGORY IN THE WALKLEYS. There’s an award for just about everything else – from ‘best headline’ to the best ‘television current affairs reporting (less than 20 minutes)’. Why not the bravest whistleblower? The Walkley board are a nice bunch – I reckon they’d give the idea a fair hearing.

If you’d like to chat to them about this you can call the Walkleys at (02) 9333 0945.
Or you can write a letter to the editor of the Walkley Magazine through their website
Or email me at miriam(AT)tsd.net.au

The budget night lock-up is probably the closest a journalist will ever get to an interesting evening at the Treasury. So it’s not surprising that ratbag news-website crikey.com.au was a little peeved when Costello’s gatekeepers said their journo Christian Kerr wasn’t allowed to come to the party. Apparently Crikey wasn’t ‘mainstream’ enough to spend an evening attempting to understand endless pages of budget drool with the big guys from Fairfax and LtdNews. An army of readers emailed the treasury to complain, the Canberra Press Gallery pointed out that Crikey has full press accreditation, and Crikey pointed out that the national youth website vibewire.net had already received permission to send two of its journos to the lock-up. The treasury’s reaction? They cancelled Vibewire’s accreditation, saying that they were tightening their rules allowing “only mainstream media organisations” into the lock-up. Nice.

A message for Costello – since you persist in not listening to reason, perhaps you’ll listen to Murdoch instead. In a recent speech Murdoch declared that interactive, user-driven websites are the new thing: “just as people traditionally started their day with coffee and the newspaper, in the future…it will be with coffee and our website.” There you go Pete – your government practically took its cross-media ownership policy from Murdoch by dictation – the least you can do is be consistent in your kow-towing & rethink your definition of what mediums are ‘mainstream’.

This is from today’s Progress Report, an e-newsletter put out by progressive thnk-tank The Center for American Progress

Rumsfeld’s Press Crackdown

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has launched the latest attack in the administration’s war on a free and independent media. The Pentagon is requiring reporters covering the court-martial of U.S. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar at Fort Bragg, N.C., to “sign agreements that limit their ability to perform their jobs under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” In order to gain access to the proceeding, reporters must “pledge to not interview soldiers at Fort Bragg about the case or ask legal advisors in the media room to speculate on the outcome.” Reporters who don’t sign aren’t allowed to cover the case. These restrictions aren’t taken lightly. To ensure compliance, journalists are “escorted everywhere while on base and some were monitored as they went to the restroom.” Eugene Fidel, a military law expert, “said he has never heard of restrictions against talking to soldiers,” calling such limitations “crazy.”

Ads criticising the Federal Government’s stance on the Timor Sea oil & gas issue have been banned from free-to-air TV on the grounds of defamation risk, The Age reports today.

The Public Relations Institute of Australia is holding a Seminar to big Corporations and their PR Staff on how to undermine the effectiveness of community based activists. Here’s the details:

HOW TO BEAT ACTIVISTS AT THEIR OWN GAME

Canadian PR consultant Ross Irvine will conduct a half-day PRIA (Public Relations Institute of Australia) seminar on Tuesday 19 April on the best strategies to win against activists.

President of Vancouver-based firm, ePublic Relations Ltd, Ross advises clients on how to use activists’ own street-smart tactics in response to their campaigns. He believes activists are winning more and more mining, agriculture, social and consumer issues.

Activists believe they know what is best for us - they have assumed moral leadership on many issues globally and they pressure businesses, governments and society to embrace their ideology.

They often recruit high-profile supporters to their causes, such as academics, media personalities and stars from the entertainment world. For instance, well-known local author Tim Winton was enlisted to support the `Save Ningaloo Reef’ campaign last year in WA.

Activists are hugely successful communicators. Measures of PR success - story placements, number of interviews, shifts in public opinion, legislation supporting their agenda – show that activists not only get their messages heard, but also acted upon.

The Internet is central to their activities because it enables them to pass information around the world instantly to each other to use against their targets.

In Australia, activists have beaten all the efforts of public relations practitioners and consultants from well-funded biotechnology companies to prevent the introduction of GMO (genetically modified organisms) crops in most of the country. In the past 12 months the governments of WA, Victoria, NSW and South Australia have either banned GMO crops altogether or severely limited trials of GMO grains such as canola.

Activist groups are also known as special interest groups, lobby groups or NGOs (non-government organisations). It is estimated there are 50,000 NGOs in the world.

Ross will show how to understand the new activist mindset, how activists use their networks, and the tools they use to win their battles. He will explain how to outflank the attackers and ensure activist organisations meet community standards of accountability and transparency.

The seminar and a panel discussion will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel from 9.00am to 12noon on Tuesday 19 April. Contact the PRIA WA secretariat on priawa@bigpond.com for registrations and enquiries.

PRIAWA Website for contacts

Ross Irvine’s ePublic Relations Inc Website

I wonder what the significance is of holding it in WA? Maybe something to do with all the money that will be flooding into the mining industry in the next decade. Damn, I wish I could be a fly on that wall…

The largest logging company in Australia is suing 20 environmentalists for over 6 million dollars, alleging that their campaigns and protests have defamed the company and damaged its business interests.

On the 13th December 2004 Gunns Ltd, which exports over 5 million tonnes of woodchips a year and has a net worth of $1.278 billion, filed a 216-page writ in the Victorian Supreme court. The 20 defendants targeted in the lawsuit include Greens Senator Bob Brown, environmental group The Wildnerness Society, and a number of individual community activists.

If Gunns succeeds it could set a precedent limiting the legal bounds of political protest in Australia. Activists and NGOs who carry out actions such as blockades, boycotts, and shareholder campaigns could all wind up paying heavy damages. “The implications are enormous. If Gunns is successful, it would echo through all the legal systems of the English-speaking world. It would mean that criticizing a corporation could land you in bankruptcy” said defendant Bob Brown.

“Nobody on the Gunns 20 that I know of has any intention of being intimidated” says Alec Marr, national campaign director for The Wilderness Society and the lead defendant in the case. But at least one of the defendants says the lawsuit has already made her “think twice” about speaking out. “It’s designed to quieten us down”, said Tasmanian grandmother Lou Geraghty.

In the U.S. lawsuits designed to silence public debate have been named ‘SLAPPs’ – Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation’. SLAPP cases are so widespread that most states in the U.S. have introduced anti-SLAPP legislation, awarding punitive damages against corporations found to have sued with the intent of punishing or preventing opposing points of view. No such law exists in Australia.

Gunns chairman John Gay says that the company is not trying to silence its critics but rather draw the line between legitimate protest and what he believes is unlawful sabotage or ‘corporate vilification’. “Gunns Limited and the majority of Tasmanians are sick and tired of the misleading information being peddled about
our industry and our state” says Gay.

While Gunns is alleging a diverse range of offences, including trespass, damage to property, and endangerment of employees’ health and safety, the most costly part of the suit is aimed at speech, not action. A claim that environmentalists pressured Japanese purchasers to stop buying Gunns woodchips accounts for $2.05 million of the $6.3 million in requested damages. The writ accuses green groups of threatening Gunns’ customers with ‘adverse publicity, consumer boycotts and direct action.’

Corporate defamation cases are rare in Australia, but the issue of whether corporations have the same rights to protect their reputations as individuals is now the subject of debate between the states and the federal government. After the Attorney-General Philip Ruddock proposed a uniform federal defamation law last year, the states cooperated to draft their own version. Ruddock has criticised the states’ model because it does not allow corporations to sue for defamation, and has warned that he will press ahead with his own national law if this issue is not addressed by the states.

No court date has been set for Gunns v Marr and others yet, but the first hearing will probably take place later this year. It is likely that the case will drag on for years. An organisation called ‘Friends of Gunns 20’ has been set up to help coordinate the defence and raise funds for the legal costs, which will be substantial.

Quotes and info lifted from:

Darby, Andrew, ‘Lawyers, Gunns and Forests’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27.01.05

Duffy, Michael, ‘Under the Gunns’, Sydney Morning Herald, 25.03.05

Friends of Gunns 20 website

The Law Report, Radio National, 25.01.05

Ferguson, Adam, ‘With lawyers, Gunns and money threatening Tasmania’s Green movement, even free speech may be on the endangered list’, The Big Issue

Price, Tom, ‘Fighting the Big Gunns in Tasmania’, Corporate Watch, 14.03.05