HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------Tables turn on Australia's toughest reporter
09.03.2002
A libel trial in Australia is exposing some of the secrets of television journalism, as Weekend Herald correspondent BILLY ADAMS reports.
Those fortunate enough to be present could barely believe their eyes.
In front of them a journalistic rottweiler renowned for his merciless interrogations of hapless interviewees had broken down in tears.
This was Richard Carleton, the TV hardman whose breathtaking impudence reduced senior politicians to quivering wrecks; the same Richard Carleton who is so fascinated by war zones he goes there on his holidays; the same Richard Carleton who not just seeks the truth, but is obsessed by it.
"When in the field or in the studio, he fears not for personal safety or popularity," declares his almost evangelic biog on the website for 60 Minutes, the top-rating Australian current affairs show where he is the number one star.
"Time after time you will hear in his stories and interviews", 'So you lied' or 'Are you telling the truth?' For him it is at the heart of every story, every interview - and pity the person he catches out."
Last week, in the witness box at the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra, one of the best-known faces on Australian TV presented a very different demeanour.
He was discussing a story he compiled to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the massacre of more than 5000 Muslims during the Bosnian War, a conflict in which he was both deeply interested and affected. "I saw all the cruelty," he sobbed.
But the hard-nosed hack was not in court for a public display of his more sensitive side. He was there to clear his name over what he regarded as an outrageous attack on his professional reputation - that his story amounted to plagiarism.
"I'm now like somebody in the community accused of paedophilia," Carleton told Justice Terence Higgins. "Plagiarism is to journalism what paedophilia is to the general community."
It was all very emotive stuff, rather like the personality-led show for which he works. And just another intriguing moment in what has shaped up to be an extraordinary case. Australians are being treated to the novel spectacle of, effectively, one journalist suing another over what one said about the other's work.
Shortly after Carleton's report was aired in July 2000 (it screened in New Zealand two months earlier with the title To Hell and Back), the ABC's Media Watch programme claimed 60 Minutes had lifted much of the story "lock, stock and barrel" from a previous BBC documentary.
Along with the Bosnian story's producer, Howard Sacre, and 60 Minutes executive producer John Westacott, Carleton is suing for defamation.
Carleton told the court his reputation had been "totally destroyed" by the assertion. He had been portrayed as "a thief [who] shouldn't be on television."
Strangers called him a plagiarist, colleagues made comments, he said. In the Channel Nine canteen "there was plenty of room in the queue for me, because no one wanted to be near me."
Carleton responded to the Media Watch piece by sending a letter demanding an apology. But it merely prompted further taunting. "Perhaps it's plagiarism, certainly it's lazy journalism," Media Watch presenter Paul Barry said of the 60 Minutes report the following week.
The glass of whisky Carleton was drinking as he watched was thrown in anger at his TV. Defamation proceedings were soon lodged, leading to a drawn-out exchange last week during which Carleton, in the face of repeated questions from the ABC counsel, was forced to admit he had lied to viewers during the report.
The irony would certainly not have been lost on all those interviewees who have been on the receiving end of Carleton attacks over a celebrated 35-year career.
None more so, perhaps, than former Prime Minister Bob Hawke. After rolling his friend Bill Hayden for the leadership of the Australian Labor Party in 1983, Carleton boldly opened an interview by asking Hawke if he was embarrassed to have blood on his hands. The ensuing tantrum has gone down in television legend.
Even the present Prime Minister John Howard has failed to emerge unscathed.
When a damaging report went to air, Howard, then Treasurer, demanded a right to reply. No sooner had the interview begun than Carleton boomed: "You've got something to say, what is it?"
Born in Bowral, New South Wales, in 1943, Carleton made his name working for the better part of 20 years on ABC shows like This Day Tonight, Nationwide, The National and the Carleton-Walsh Report.
Establishing an award-winning reputation of someone who could intimidate merely by leaning forward in his seat, he remains widely regarded as the fiercest interviewer Australia has produced.
In 1987 he joined the Australian version of 60 Minutes, a Channel Nine institution now in its 24th successive year. On a personality-driven tabloid style show where the reporter seems as important, if not more so, than the story, Carleton has travelled the world covering the major scoops.
According to the 60 Minutes profile, he seeks out the kind of trouble spots other reporters may reject as too difficult or dangerous; traits which have made him "one of the most feared and admired reporters in television history".
Never far from controversy, the last time Carleton really was the story came in 1999 when he and his crew were expelled from East Timor after canvassing voters' intentions at the independence ballot. While Carleton insisted he acted properly, there was widespread criticism that his approach at such a sensitive time put lives at risk.
In the past fortnight he has been under the spotlight again, spending more than four days in the witness box.
At the heart of the defamation case is the 60 Minutes report which contained footage lifted from a previous BBC Documentary, Cry from the Grave, and interviews by Carleton with the same subjects.
What Media Watch suggested was plagiarism, Channel Nine's counsel Bruce McClintock said, was historical footage which would never be repeated.
"We were telling the same story," he said. "Were we supposed not to use images as powerful as that?
McClintock doubted whether even the bravest cameraman would have asked to reshoot brutal Serbian leader Ratko Mladic, whose role in the slaughter saw him indicted for war crimes.
"The criticism of using the footage of Mladic walking the towns is the same as criticising us of using footage of D-Day at Omaha Beach. It only happens once," said McClintock.
But the primary plagiarism argument has arguably been overshadowed by revealing insights into how the report was put together.
At one point Carleton does a piece to camera while standing next to a mass grave. The impression given is that the reporter is speaking from Srebrenica. He was in fact 300km away in Prijador, the scene of a 1992 massacre.
Under repeated questioning by ABC counsel Terry Tobin, Carleton eventually admitted he had misled the viewers, although argued that the scenes had enhanced their understanding of the atrocities. "If I may take the word lie to mean mislead, yes, I misled, in the technical sense and in the sense that meaning [is] lie, yes, I lied," he said.
Perhaps even more revealing was Carleton's role in the compilation of the report.
The Balkans was a subject he felt passionately about. Talking about it caused him to break down. He had also successfully persuaded Westacott to part with the A$120,000 ($146,150) required to make the film - four times the price of a piece on Madonna, he said.
But he told the court he was not responsible for the final product. He did not write the draft script and could not recall which of the show's four film editors compiled his report. He did not choose the footage, and watched the final cut for the first time when it went to air.
This week the ABC opened its defence but declined to put Media Watch's Paul Barry or executive producer Peter McEvoy on the stand.
"Now we all know [they] do not have guts to get in the witness box and defend their attacks on me and the programme," responded Carleton in a statement. "The reason is obvious."
To Carleton, at least. By being denied the chance to cross-examine Barry, the Channel Nine legal team was unable to quiz him about remarkably similar allegations to those he was making against them.
Five years ago, and long before Barry went to Media Watch, the programme accused him of re-voicing a BBC story, and that his resulting piece for a Channel Seven programme amounted to "theft".
Barry chose to take no action.
Instead he addressed the issue at the beginning of his first Media Watch in early 2000. "Come on, Stuart [Littlemore, the previous presenter], that was centuries ago, but I'm guilty as charged. Hello, I'm Paul Barry. Welcome to another thousand years of Media Watch and thanks for joining me in a new millennium where I will be the judge."
The ABC clearly felt they had nothing to gain - and perhaps lots to lose - by putting Barry on the stand.
Instead, they produced tapes of another five examples in which 60 Minutes allegedly copied or lifted stories previously broadcast by other media organisations. The ABC is hopeful that its defence of fair comment will prevail, arguing that Barry left viewers to decide for themselves if the 60 Minutes piece amounted to plagiarism.
As the case was adjourned until later this month, Carleton said his show had told the Srebrenica story with "complete honesty and truthfulness".
With defamation suits notoriously difficult to predict, the outcome remains in the balance. But should Carleton win, it will be surely be a hollow victory.
The case has exposed information about the making of these shows that would have remained private had Carleton and Channel Nine decided against their legal pursuit.
Outside Channel Nine, many media types, a traditionally cynical bunch, have been enjoying the spectacle.
"Carleton's a very bright bloke and in his day was a considerable heavyweight," says one senior media figure. "When he was at the ABC he was a wonderful interviewer who really put the knife into people. It was lovely to watch. But there's a fairly widely held view that he sold himself out for a relatively easy life with 60 Minutes."
The critics remind each other of how, on his expulsion from East Timor, Indonesian authorities confiscated Carleton's chilly bin which contained, among other things, quince paste, smoked salmon, oysters and fine Australian wines.
The defamation case suggests a man somewhat removed from reality, says one commentator. An ego gone too far.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=news&thesubsection=&storyID=1190717
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