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Television journalist Richard Carleton, who was recently forced to admit in court he lied to /60 Minutes/ viewers. He did a piece-to-camera beside a mass grave pretending the bodies being exhumed were from Srebrenica, Bosnia, when he was hundreds of kilometres away and the grave contained no bodies from Srebrenica. When Mr Carleton said in court he was !!! "more interested in the impact of the story than the relevant details", !!! he sounded like a Hollywood film producer. <> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/03/27/1017089549276.html The Age.com (Australia) Read all about it By Matthew Ricketson March 27 2002 Everybody knows what journalists do. It's obvious. The media are everywhere. You can't turn around without bumping into their handiwork. But consider the following, who are all doing journalistic work: · The late Daniel Pearl. He was a 38-year-old journalist with /The Wall Street Journal/ who went to interview an Islamic extremist leader in Pakistan, was kidnapped and murdered in February, leaving behind a wife pregnant with their first child; · The former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett. The man who infamously threw spadefuls of sand at assembled journalists and described the ABC as a leech on society is now drive-time host for struggling commercial radio station 3AK. Rather than take home a salary, Mr Kennett has a $4.8 million share package worth 18 per cent of the station's listed value; · The so-called media pack, whose continued pressure and scrutiny has gradually unearthed how the Howard Government, during last year's election campaign, misled the public about whether asylum seekers threw their children overboard; · Various touring Australian Test cricketers, such as Shane Warne, who "interview" teammates live on air in the lead-up to matches, and recently retired footballers, including Dale Lewis, who write newspaper columns about their sport; and · Television journalist Richard Carleton, who was recently forced to admit in court he lied to /60 Minutes/ viewers. He did a piece-to-camera beside a mass grave pretending the bodies being exhumed were from Srebrenica, Bosnia, when he was hundreds of kilometres away and the grave contained no bodies from Srebrenica. When Mr Carleton said in court he was "more interested in the impact of the story than the relevant details", he sounded like a Hollywood film producer. These are just some current examples of a broader picture. Nearly 100 journalists worldwide were killed last year simply doing their job; at the other end of the spectrum are highly paid and influential people who sometimes do journalistic interviews and sometimes accept large sums of money to spruik a particular product or cause. Most people are confused about journalism and the media. They don't understand the variety of activities that go by the name of journalism. They are deeply ambivalent about these activities; some, like interviewing a Hollywood celebrity, seem exciting and glamorous, while others, like interviewing the grieving relative of a car accident victim, seem intrusive, even ghoulish. Such ambivalence goes some way to explaining why, although opinion polls are forever showing the public believes journalists are about as trustworthy as used-car salesmen, university journalism courses are among the most popular on offer. Each year at RMIT University, for instance, 1000 people sit the entrance test for 45 places. What kind of things can they expect to do as journalists? What sort of skills do they need? *The variety of journalistic work* Journalists work in different media, from newspapers and magazines to radio, television and the Internet. Their work may be visible - writing articles, reporting on air or in front of a camera - or it may be unseen by the public. Newspaper and magazine subeditors check journalists' raw copy for style, accuracy and possibly defamatory comments; in radio and television, unseen producers do much reporting and interviewing legwork for the presenters. Some journalistic work is straightforward, some requires rare skill and judgment. For Mr Kennett, practised at public speaking and used to thinking on his feet, it is relatively easy to sit behind a microphone and talk to listeners. All he would have needed - and no doubt received - was technical assistance. Comparable help would be given to sports celebrities, or their newspaper columns ghost-written by staff journalists. Most people would find it difficult to step into a newsroom and start reporting news stories. Career teachers at school tend to direct students with good English skills to journalism courses but, in my view, anyone really passionate about words should try creative writing. Most journalists spend much more time gathering the news than writing it. Sound writing skills are useful but they are actually more common than the ability to unearth a news story. Even in the newsroom of a respected broadsheet newspaper such as The Age, the rarest and most valued person is the one who can break major stories. Think of Andrew Rule's revelation last June that the chairman of ATSIC, Geoff Clark, had allegedly raped four women; his story won the highest honour in journalism, the Gold Walkley award. There is other journalistic work that requires rare skill and judgment. Not everyone can work coolly and quickly in the chaos and danger of a war. As one foreign correspondent put it years ago: "Whenever you find hundreds and thousands of sane people trying to get out of a place and a little bunch of madmen trying to get in, you know the latter are reporters." Not everyone has the ability to persuade people to act against their own best interests and speak out publicly; not everyone has the sensitivity to interview, for instance, a child-abuse victim for a feature article or documentary; and very few people can force a politician to give anything other than the party line. Even routine journalistic work may require uncommon skills; Dale Lewis' recent newspaper column claiming that 75 per cent of AFL footballers had used "recreational drugs" showed good news sense (everybody has been talking about the column) but he lacked the expertise to check his story with a range of sources to confidently quote a figure. *The varied roles of journalism* Journalists and editors are forever trumpeting the media as a fourth estate or watchdog on those in power. It can be a noble role. Journalists' work in unpicking the distortions and deceptions of the so-called "children overboard" affair is almost a textbook example of the necessity of the media acting on behalf of society to scrutinise those in power. The ability of journalists to expose the wrongdoings of powerful people and institutions to a wide audience gives them influence and exposes them to danger. Such danger is not usually expressed overtly in liberal democracies, unlike in countries where governments exercise firmer control over the media. Instead, dangers are expressed covertly, either through threats or legal action. Acting as watchdog is only one of the media's roles, and a relatively young idea - it's less than 200 years old and even today confined to Western liberal democracies. News, on the other hand, is not new. It is perennial and universal. As Mitchell Stephens writes in /A History of News/: "It is difficult, if not impossible, to find a society that does not exchange news and that does not build into its rituals and customs means for facilitating that exchange." News has always been about entertainment as much as information. There are many definitions of news, but the simplest is: it is what is on a society's mind. Some people are interested in the Government's policy on refugees but many more are fascinated by the lurid tale of football's most famous son being forced to leave his club because he allegedly had an affair with his vice-captain and best mate's wife. Some media critics like to believe sensationalism was invented by "the dirty digger", Rupert Murdoch, but he is only the latest in a long line of populist newsmen that stretches back far past Joseph Pulitzer in the 19th century. Mitchell Stephens refers to the first newspaper printed in America, Publick Occurrences, in 1690. It reported the King of France "used to lie" with his "Sons Wife" (sic) and told the story of an unfortunate "Water-town" man, who, in despair, hanged himself in the "Cow-house". There is evidence, though, that the media diet has shifted. American author and columnist Barbara Ehrenreich told a Melbourne Writers' Festival audience a few years ago that television news was primarily entertainment and that serious journalism was declining. Ms Ehrenreich made three points: there is more news today about entertainment; there is less news that is not entertaining, and there is more "trash" news. For instance, over the past two decades the number of /Time/ magazine cover stories about entertainment or celebrities has doubled while those about foreign affairs has shrunk to a quarter of their previous number. She said: "The need to grab people's attention is paramount when there is so much competing for people's limited attention. What's wrong with this trend? The decline of citizenship. People know less and less about things that may affect their lives, like toxic waste in their neighbourhood, and more about the ex-wife of the second prosecutor in the third month of the O.J. Simpson trial." *Should we regulate journalism?* Despite its important role in society and the difficulty of some journalistic work, anyone can call themselves a journalist. There are no formal requirements for entering the news media industry. The only educational qualification is successful completion of year 12 or, in some cases, a degree, though not necessarily a journalism degree. Nor is it compulsory to join the union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Why? Anyone wanting to practise as a doctor must have specific qualifications and can be prevented from practising if they fail to conform to a code of professional conduct. Some people have suggested a similar approach for journalists, hoping to raise professional standards and build confidence in the media by making journalists accountable for their actions. However, the power of the news media and the importance of freedom of speech mean it would be essential that any licensing body was independent and impartial. There is a long history of governments of all political persuasions using regulations and licensing to erode freedom of the media. Journalists and law reform bodies have argued for many years that the nation's defamation laws are deeply flawed but no government has yet done anything. It is no coincidence that parliamentarians are the most active users of defamation actions. Freedom of the media is bound up with questions of freedom of speech. A licensing system could be abused to prevent the expression of a plurality of views that is the heartbeat of democracy. On a practical note, there is no body that represents all those working in the news media, and it is hard to see powerful media proprietors such as Mr Murdoch and Kerry Packer welcoming further regulation of their activities. The various roles of the journalist immediately throw up questions for licensing. Do the same legal and ethical rules apply whether journalists are uncovering police corruption or a celebrity starlet's cosmetic surgery? Who decides which rules apply when? And, is the dividing line between news as public service and news as entertainment always so clear cut? The existing regulatory systems for the media are at best patchy and at worst ineffectual; for evidence, look no further than the tawdry "cash for comment" scandal. Today journalists and the media offer their audiences more shining entertainment than ever before - and more information too. What is under threat, from within and without, is the kind of information for which the British newspaper proprietor Lord Northcliffe coined a famous definition: "News is what someone somewhere doesn't want printed - all the rest is advertising." /Matthew Ricketson coordinates the journalism program at RMIT./
