Before she flies off to New York to cover the US elections, the Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine has been given a rap over the knuckles by the media watchdog.
In an article and a podcast Devine railed against medical professionals for supporting children who choose to transition.
In “What Madness Can Justify Mutilating Our Children” she talked about a “pernicious social fad for transgenderism in children which has been embraced by an activist subset of the medical profession” and argued that “new laws in Victoria can punish therapists who oppose transitioning children”.
But it was her statement that there was “no evidence” the medical procedures were necessary which was found to be inaccurate and misleading by the Australian Press Council, and a breach of the code.
“The council considered that, given the existence of medical guidelines which recommended various treatments and procedures to assist transitioning children and adolescents, the statement that there was ‘no evidence’ was made in such absolute terms that it was inaccurate and misleading,” the council said in its adjudication
However, the press council also ruled it was OK for Devine to use offensive and prejudicial terms like “mutilation”, “child surgical abuse” and a “monstrous assault on their developing bodies” because the language was “justified in the public interest”.
Chorus of criticism for the Australian
The Australian, which lost a handful of staffers in the recent cull of 55 News Corp journalists, has also parted ways with two of its best reporters, both of whom chose to throw bombs on the way out.
It’s true! I’ve left The Australian after seven years, almost all of that as the newspaper’s social affairs writer. I’ll miss my colleagues the most. I worked with some of the best in the biz.
— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) June 11, 2019
First out the door was social affairs reporter Rick Morton who never returned to reporting after unloading on his own paper in a candid talk with journalism students at UTS.
“There is a real mood that something has gone wrong,” Morton said in a podcast posted online by UTS last month.
“People will tell you going back a decade it used to be a very great paper, and in many ways it still is, but some of the craziness has been dialled up.”
Morton said he has left without a job to go to but is writing another book.
Investigative reporter Anthony Klan, who won News Corp Australia’s highest journalistic honour, the Sir Keith Murdoch Award, has revealed he resigned after 15 years on the paper because he had “serious misgivings” about the way the Oz was being run.
Hi all, a month ago I resigned from The Australian after 15 years. I had, and have, serious misgivings about the direction that is now being taken. Australia faces unprecedented external threats. To do otherwise, I felt, would be treasonous. DM me with any and all leads. Thanks:)
— Anthony Klan (@Anthony_Klan) June 9, 2019
The high-profile departures followed the publication in Guardian Australia of a widely read opinion piece by the Queensland journalist Tony Koch in which he blasted his former employers for their “shameful bias” towards the Coalition.
Another former leading light of the Australian, George Megalogenis, added his voice to the chorus of criticism when he asked Rupert Murdoch’s Holt Street leader Michael Miller if his stable of newspapers could “stop playing politics and return to a journalism first approach at all times”.
The paper has, however, also picked up some new reporters under editor-in-chief Chris Dore, who hired BuzzFeed’s political reporter Alice Workman, Your Money’s Leo Shanahan as well as Zoe Samios, Bridget Cormack, Miles Godfrey and Nick Evans.
Dore declined to comment on the departures.
Michael, now the AFP is raiding the ABC perhaps your organisation can stop playing politics and return to a journalism first approach at all times. The government didn't get the idea it could bully the media in a vacuum. News helped create this culture with its anti-ABC vendetta. https://t.co/40Zsn9AmIc
— George Megalogenis (@GMegalogenis) June 5, 2019
Collective action
All the metropolitan dailies owned by Nine and News Corp and national mastheads the Australian Financial Review and the Australian will run full-page ads on Friday carrying an open letter to Scott Morrison, Anthony Albanese and all the members of parliament about the “grave threat” to press freedom in Australia posed by the recent AFP raids.
“A healthy democracy cannot function without its media being free to bring to light uncomfortable truths, to scrutinise the powerful and inform our communities,” it says. “Investigative journalism cannot survive without the courage of whistleblowers, motivated by concern for their fellow citizens, who seek to bring to light instances of wrongdoing, illegal activities, fraud, corruption and threats to public health and safety.”
The letter has been signed by leading journalists and editors from all the major publications, press clubs and industry bodies and was financially supported by the newspapers.
“We urge parliament to legislate changes to the law to recognise and enshrine a positive public interest protection for whistleblowers and for journalists,” the journalists say. “Without these protections Australians will be denied important information it is their right as citizens to have. We urge you to take prompt action to protect our democracy for all Australians.”
Back on the beat
Publisher Anthony Catalano is not wasting any time stirring things up at the Canberra Times.
When our newest media mogul bought a $115m media business he promised to pay some much needed attention to the 160 regional and rural mastheads once owned by Fairfax Media and then sold to him by Nine.
First the Canberra Times announced it was putting up a paywall and now the capital city paper has decided to restore its federal political bureau in Parliament House.
The Canberra Times, which has a proud history of covering the public service, moved out of Parliament House in 2012 and took its federal political coverage largely from the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age.
Exciting news part 1: the @canberratimes is heading back to the hill to cover #auspol. Exciting news part 2: I get to be part of the team. Really looking forward to the challenge. https://t.co/L4vpRxtbex
— Sally Whyte (@sallywhyte) June 7, 2019
Former Canberra Times editor Michelle Grattan, who now writes for the Conversation, welcomed the move.
“I am delighted that the Canberra Times is re-establishing an independent federal political team,” Grattan said. “This will be good for the paper and the local Canberra community, and for diversity in the media voices covering national politics.”
Jones a turn-off
It’s not always well received when ABC news invites Alan Jones on Q&A as a panelist but for many viewers Jones’s being honoured by Aunty with a portrait on Anh Do’s Brush With Fame was a bridge too far. Commenters said they’d give it a miss when it was teased on social media, and it looks like many did give it a wide berth. Ratings reports say there was an average of 544,000 viewers of the program on Wednesday night. But when Anh Do painted cricketer Michael Clarke a few weeks ago, it was the most-watched non-news show of the night with 625,000 metro viewers.
Known for his persistence and complex character, how will Anh capture media personality, @AlanJones? Anh's Brush With Fame starts now. #ABWF pic.twitter.com/Z8rYkZRllB
— ABC TV + iview (@ABCTV) June 12, 2019
Latham on the BBC
The BBC also chose to invite a divisive figure to appear on a prestigious program when it chose One Nation’s NSW leader, Mark Latham, to take part in a Global Questions debate panel on Thursday.
Latham sat alongside the Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Greens MP Jenny Leong, and comedian and broadcaster Sami Shah to discuss the question, Is Multiculturalism Failing? We can’t think of a more inappropriate person to ask than Latham.
Just last month the former Labor leader said Wollongong risked becoming “the Bangkok of the south” due to immigration levels.
Our panel for Sydney:@samishah - Comedian and Writer@Senator_CFW - Senator, Liberal Party@RealMarkLatham - State Leader, One Nation Party@jennyleong - MP, Green Party
— @BBC Global Questions (@BBCGlobalQuest) May 31, 2019
Register to join us here: https://t.co/6CeXXPyfYp. And send your question to: globalquestions@bbc.co.uk pic.twitter.com/OETMcEhynX
Prue who?
Last year the Australian Communications and Media Authority found Sunrise breached broadcasting standards for accuracy and provoked serious contempt on the basis of race when it aired an all-white panel discussing the adoption of Indigenous children and child abuse. The legal fallout from that ugly episode is still before the courts.
The segment, hosted by Samantha Armytage with commentators Prue MacSween and Ben Davis, contained strong negative generalisations about Indigenous people as a group. A group of Indigenous people from the remote community of Yirrkala is suing the Seven network for defamation.
A request this week by Channel Seven for the federal court to strike out all aspects of the lawsuit have failed, according to a report by BuzzFeed.
Justice Steven Rares said all the issues could and should be argued at trial and had some choice words about Prue MacSween, who argued that Indigenous kids should be adopted by white families: “To me she’s a nobody. I’ve never heard of her and I’ve got no idea what contribution she possibly could have made to the program,” Rares said.
