Mark's Blog: Ethics and the Media

Tonight was the last in this year's Newington Ethics Centre lecture series, delivered by "one of Australia's most popular political commentators" and (literal) neighbour of Newington - Annabel Crabb. She was certainly one of the most witty and entertaining speakers this year, though she didn't really say anything most semi-informed people didn't already know. Perhaps most interesting were some of her ancedotes as a reporter, including one from her stint in London in 2005 during the 7/7 bombings, when working for a Sydney tabloid as its UK correspondent. The neighbour of one of the suspects had been interviewed on tv and was evidently Australian - so given that any reference to any Australian overseas is instantly newsworthy back home, she fixed up an interview with her in the pub. On arrival she discovered a reporter from the Daily Mail and one from the News of the World involved in a bidding war for her story. The woman from the Daily Mail was in tears, saying that she would be sacked by her editor if she didn't get the story. So, having promised the girl £2000 and a night in a hotel, plus playing the sympathy card, she won the battle. And yet the story never ran and the money was never paid (she did get her night in a hotel, at least) - the woman from the Daily Mail had simply been successful in preventing a rival from getting a possible story. Such ruthlessness, whilst characteristic of newspaper media in the UK, is not present in Australia (presumably because of the lack of competition: there is only one national paper (The Australian) and in Sydney there is the Sydney Morning Herald (broadsheet, plus its Sunday equivalent) and the Daily Telegraph (a comic for those who can't read, plus its Sunday version).

She also spoke interestingly about the changing nature of journalism and the time pressure of having to decided whether or not to run a story - and the fact that if you don't, someone else probably will. She also said that news media must take some of the responsibility for the quality of politicians' contributions to tv and radio news: given 24 hour news channels and the constant need to fill the schedules, journos are constantly asking politicians to say something about anything; however, given that the more a politician says the more likely they are to say something stupid, wrong, true but inappropriate, or just inappropriate, instead they have developed a new way of speaking where they actually don't say anything at all; leading to what she calls 'a carapace of blandness'.

Of course, she did refer to the phone hacking scandal, as well as the US media and its obsession with the private lives of public figures; indeed, their obsession with the private lives of anyone who might one day become a private figure.

There was nothing groundbreaking, insightful or revolutionary, but it was interesting to hear from one of the country's leading journalists about the way in which their role has changed (and continues to change) and the difficulty in upholding an ethical code out of the ruins of the old "gentleman's club" approach to media ethics; an approach that was finally destroyed when the internet and now smart phones have made everything and anything instantly printable and knowable.

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Gill's blogpost:

Whilst many of Crabb's observations about the changing mediascape weren't groundbreaking for anyone who consumes Australian media on a regular basis and is witness to the gradual decline in relevance of print media, they were insightful in the sense that she could offer some great anecdotes from the course of her career, whilst highlighting the contrast between past and present ethical dilemmas.

From old school practices like 'grass knocking' (whereby a journalist goes around to a victim's family's house to ask them how they're feeling straight after a traumatic event, and in defiance of your chief of staff's demands, you knock on the grass, not the front door) to the lack of control editors now have and the lack of control and power the mainstream media now wields as a result of social media undermining any concept of exclusivity or timeliness that newspapers once had. She also made particular reference to her time in the UK working as a journalist and the starkly different ethical 'code' that existed, or rather, didn't exist there compared to Australia.

It was nice to hear that Australia seems to be one of the few places where an ethical code, in various incarnations is consistently somehow adhered to, and not just in a purely regulated way. Crabb conveyed the intrinsic sense of personal respect that has existed within the Australian media, specifically print media, in contrast to places like the US, where a politicians personal life becomes public property as a result of the media tirelessly probing and investigating in an attempt to uncover every significant and insignificant detail about a politicians personal life and airing it without hesitation or contemplation and regardless of consequence.

Crabb was a fantastic speaker, and her stories and insights were incredibly entertaining, slightly self deprecating and at times hilarious. It's refreshing to see someone who is clearly so consumed by the media industry still retaining so much perspective, and optimism for that matter. Her final remarks about the unadulterated joy of holding a newspaper in your hands and flicking the pages was almost tear jerking, but she was quick to bring light to the situation by concluding that if newspapers cease to exist 'how are people going to know what's important?', implying that if people can pick and choose what information they read they will never pick up on the 'clues' as she called them, that are obvious in papers, such as a superannuation story being on page one; hint, this one's important, people. Some solice lay in the fact that according to the SMH readership analysis team, a significant portion of people were in fact only buying the paper in the first place, for the tv guide. In which case, nothing will really change.

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Last week we went to see Mumford and Sons at the Entertainment Centre in Darling Harbour with Meg and Pete; unfortunately it coincided with both the the 'Surviving the HSC / IB" evening at school at which I was a speaker, and also being sick. Still, I made it for the main event, having unfortunately missed Willie Mason and the excellent Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. I did have to overcome my initial shock when it appeared that Paul Adnitt was, in fact, the leader of the band. Despite the disappointment in realising that he wasn't, it was still a great concert and well worth it.