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ANZ, IBM withdraw advertising from e-journal that published opinion piece against gay marriage

5 Feb

I am a strong supporter of the political and social online journal, On Line Opinion, founded and run by Graham Young.

OLO publishes all manner of opinion, no matter how contradictory, as long as it’s well argued and not abusive.  In this, OLO is a rather unique site, and at times its fora are extremely lively.

OLO is a rare gem. It offers voice to many disparate views. Under no circumstances should we have to do without it.

So when I read in today’s Australian that two major sponsers, IBM and the ANZ bank, have withdrawn their advertising from OLO in protest at the publication of an article by Bill Muehlenberg in which he argues against gay marriage, I thought I’d fallen down a rabbit hole.

I remember Bill’s article well. In fact I wrote a contrary opinion that Graham subsequently published.

I totally disagree with almost everything Muehlenberg says in his piece, but by all the gods, I defend his right to say it.

Apparently OLO has come under attack from some gay activists for publishing Bill’s piece. While the arguments in it are not to my liking, I cannot find them hateful, or inciting hatred. They are quite easily addressed and refuted, as others besides myself have done. I cannot see any reason at all to not publish, that is to censor, Muehlenberg’s opinion piece.

Apparently the ANZ Bank and IBM don’t agree.

As Christopher Pearson reports in his article today, the ANZ states that they do not advertise on blogs that “do not align to our organizational values.” That is, Muehlenberg’s anti gay marriage article offends the ANZ’s pro gay marriage values so profoundly that they’ve pulled their advertising.

Oh, that they would only show such integrity about their business relationships with the manufacturers of land mines!

I’m a staunch supporter of gay marriage. But I’m alarmed that some gay activists apparently seek to silence authors and publishers who do not agree with them, and wish to present an opposing view.

This can never be good for society. To fight for a freedom, and then attempt to deny it to those who don’t agree with you is tyranny. There were no grounds for silencing Muehlenberg in that article, unless you just didn’t like it that he said it, and that doesn’t count.

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Press council replies to complaint against SMH

13 Jan

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Image via Wikipedia

Further to the post of January 7 2011: “Today we sent a complaint to the Australian Press Council claiming that the article by Paul Sheehan, Sydney Morning Herald January 3 2011, titled Cast adrift from reality, the slick spruikers of ‘our’ shame, breaches Principles 1,2,3 and 6 of the Council’s Statement of Principles.”

I received the following email from the Australian Press Council today:

Dear Dr Wilson,

The Council has received a complaint from you, in which you raise a concern with terminology used by a bylined opinion columnist in The Sydney Morning Herald.

For your information, a copy of the Council’s principles and practices can be found on the Council’s website http://www.presscouncil.org.au. Therein are set out the standards of journalistic ethics that the Council upholds and the procedures it uses to deal with complaints alleging breaches of those standards.

Attached, for your information, is a copy of the Council’s Guideline No 288 on the issue of asylum seekers.

The Council believes that columns such as Sheehan’s should be given a reasonably wide licence to express a point of view. They are the clear expression of a viewpoint of the individual writing them and are commentary upon the news.

The terminology you complain of talks of  “illegal boats”. Since the boats can be seized and their crew tried before the courts, there is good reason to suggest that the arrival of the boats is in fact “illegal”.

Have you submitted a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald for publication in response to the published column? The Council has consistently said that the best response to a disagreement with such material is the submission of a contrary view for publication. I therefore urge you to take the matter up direct with the newspaper in the first instance, if you have not already. I will write to the newspaper urging it give due consideration to any submitted letter as a way of dealing with your concern.

I will bring your concern to the attention of the newspaper but believe that the best settlement of your concern, in this case, is through the letters to the editor column.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Kirkman, Acting Executive Secretary, Australian Press Council

To which I replied as follows:

Dear Ms Kirkman,
I have indeed twice written to the SMH letters on this matter, as I stated on my complaint form, and neither letter has been acknowledged.

To reiterate, the terminology I complained of is as follows:

1. Illegal boat arrivals. If Sheehan was referring only to the arrival of SIEVs, or to the crew of SIEVs, then these references makes no sense at all in the context of his paragraph.

It is rather disingenuous to suggest that Sheehan was referring to the vessels and their crew, given that the crews are arrested and the vessels are impounded, therefore the problem is addressed immediately at the source and offers no basis for Sheehan’s on-going angst.

Sheehan then goes on to comment on the “relatively small number of people who arrive by boat,” thus clearly confirming that he is indeed referring to the passengers who are seeking asylum, and not to the SIEVs and their crew.

2. Those who arrive by illegal means,and those who arrive without proper papers.

The UN Refugee Convention, to which Australia is signatory, recognises that refugees have a lawful right to enter a country for the purposes of seeking asylum.  

The Convention stipulates that what would usually be considered an illegal action, eg entering a country without a visa, should not be treated as illegal if a person is seeking asylum.

Australian law, in line with the Convention, also permits unauthorised entry for the purposes of seeking asylum.

Therefore, under Australian law, and under the terms of the Convention we have signed, a person who is seeking asylum has the legal right to enter this country without papers, and by any method of transport, even SIEVs, and has the legal right to remain in this country, until his or her refugee status is established through the proper legal processes, to which, as asylum seekers, they are legally entitled.

Their mode of transport does not render asylum seekers “illegal,” as suggested by Sheehan.

This was re-affirmed by the High Court of Australia in November 2010.

Again, my complaints  relate to numbers 1, 2, 3, and 6 of your Statement of Principles.

Sheehan has misrepresented the facts of this situation – asylum seekers are not illegal, even if they enter the country on SIEVs.

Sheehan has suppressed facts that are available to him, i.e. the facts that under domestic law and by international agreement, Australia does not consider those requesting asylum to be illegal in any way, no matter how they arrived in this country, including if they arrived “without proper papers.”

The illegality of their mode of transport is a separate issue, as the law recognises, and is dealt with as a separate issue. Asylum seekers are not held responsible for the legality or otherwise of their mode of transport.

Sheehan has misinformed and misled the SMH readership by conflating the two, and in so doing, ignores Australian law and the UNHCR Convention.

Since when has it been acceptable that even an opinion writer has the license to misinform their readers about Australian law, and the legal status of a particular group of people?

Sheehan has not presented his readers with the facts, and his opinions are not based on the facts. Sheehan has acted irresponsibly in putting forward an uninformed point of view as his opinion. The facts are readily available to him. Surely even opinion pieces are supposed to have some basis in reality?

I have requested that the SMH correct Sheehan’s inaccuracies and conflations. I have received no response

Yours sincerely,

Jennifer Wilson.

Australian Press Council Guideline 288 in regard to Asylum seekers.

Guideline No. 288

Describing “asylum seekers”

Issued: October 30, 2009

For immediate release

The Australian Press Council has updated its guideline on “asylum seekers”, replacing General Press Release 262 with the attached guide. The Council issues guidelines from time to time. These are, in essence, amplifications on particular issues arising from the Council’s Statement of Principles. The guidelines apply the Principles to the practice of reporting and are intended to guide the press on how it should report certain matters. These guidelines are not intended to be prescriptive instructions to the press but act as a series of advisories on the application of the Principles that the Council seeks the co-operation of editors in maintaining. A list of the extant guidelines (and links to them) can be found on the Council’s website athttp://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/activities/gprguide.html.

The Council has from time to time received complaints about the terminology used to describe people who arrive in Australia through means other than regulated immigration and visa transit processes. They are often referred to by the press and others as “illegal immigrants”, “illegal boatpeople” and so on –  or simply as  “illegals”. The descriptor “illegal(s)” is very often inaccurate and typically connotes criminality.

The press has, by and large, abided by the Council’s 2004 Guideline about the use of inaccurate and derogatory terminology to describe such people.

Having considered the matter further, the Council believes that the term “asylum seeker” is a widely understood descriptor, generally a fair and a sufficiently accurate one, and one which avoids the kinds of difficulties outlined above. The Council recommends its use as the default terminology in relevant headlines and reports both by the press and others.

The Australian Press Council comprises representatives of the public and of the industry and acts to preserve the freedom, and the responsibility, of the Australian press. It was founded in July 1976 and has been in continuous operation for over 30 years.

End of Guideline 288

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Complaint to Press Council

7 Jan

Further to the post: The propaganda and collusion at the heart of “Stop the boats.”

Today we sent a complaint to the Australian Press Council claiming that the article by Paul Sheehan, Sydney Morning Herald January 3 2011, titled Cast adrift from reality, the slick spruikers of ‘our’ shame, breaches Principles 1,2,3 and 6 of the Council’s Statement of Principles.

These Principles address misrepresentation of groups and individuals; suppression of available facts; deliberate misinformation through omission or commission, and fairness and balance.

We claim that these principles were breached by the use of the terms “illegal” and “without proper papers” when referring to asylum seekers arriving by boat.

The propaganda and collusion at the heart of “Stop the boats.”

3 Jan

January 8 2011: No Place for Sheep lodged a complaint with the Australian Press Council, claiming that Sheehan’s article breaches principles 1,2 3 and 6 of the Statement of Principles.

No Place for Sheep earlier sent the following letter to the Editor at the Sydney Morning Herald:

In the last paragraph of his article of January 4th, Mr Sheehan refers to “illegal boat arrivals” and arrivals “without proper papers.”

Will Mr Sheehan kindly explain his complete disregard for the Australian law that permits those seeking asylum to arrive in any manner, and without documentation?

It used to be that journalists were required to get their facts right.
This would seem to be an example of either woeful ignorance on the part of Mr Sheehan, or deliberate obfuscation in order to promote political propaganda.
Would the SMH please explain Sheehan’s campaign of disinformation?
This was not published.

 

In the Brisbane Courier Mail on December 20 2010, Opposition leader Tony Abbott called for: an “urgent” return to temporary protection visas, the reopening of the Nauru detention centre and turning the boats around.

“We stopped the boats before, we can stop the boats again if we put the right policies in place,” he said.

It’s not clear just where Abbott intends to “stop the boats” and “turn them around.” Presumably before they enter Australian waters. Nobody has yet requested that the Opposition Leader clarify his proposals.

Will he use the navy, and will they fire on vessels that disregard instructions, risking death and injury to asylum seekers and their children? In international waters?

Will he kill and maim them rather than let them apply for asylum?

Why is nobody in the mainstream media asking him these questions?

Instead, on January 4 2011, Sydney Morning Herald senior journalist Paul Sheehan yet again resorts to using the completely wrong term “illegal boat arrivals” and yet again makes the completely irrelevant characterisation of boat arrivals as people “without proper papers.”

The Coalition mantra of “Stop the Boats” disregards Australia’s international obligations, incurred as a consequence of signing the UNHCR 1951 Refugee Convention. Asylum seekers who arrive by boat, even without papers, are entitled to apply for refugee status in Australia, according to both our domestic and international law.

For the last few years, politicians from both major parties have sought to find ways around our obligations to those seeking asylum, rather than ways to responsibly fulfill our undertakings.

One of the major tactics used is the propagandist description of boat arrivals as “illegal.” The mainstream media in general support and promote this propaganda. The justification is that boat arrivals have breached our sovereignty, and our right to protect our borders.

What’s not acknowledged is our domestic and international legal obligation to accept asylum seekers no matter how they arrive. Those seeking asylum are not illegal immigrants breaching border security. Their pursuit of asylum legally removes them from that category.

In July 2010 both Adrienne Millbank of the Age and Greg Sheridan of the Australian, launched calls in their respective newspapers for Australia to withdraw from the Refugee Convention, claiming that 1951 Convention is no longer appropriate for world conditions. These calls continue in the blogosphere, and in the mainstream press.

In fact, Australia revisited our agreement to the original Convention and subsequent updates and additions as recently as 2008, so the Convention has not exactly languished unexamined for almost sixty years.

There may well be reasons why the Convention needs re-assessment. However, until such time as it is revisited, the facts remain that Australia did not add a rider to the Convention limiting the manner in which asylum seekers could arrive in this country. Australia did not specify that those seeking asylum must have a certain amount of money, or no money. Australia did not say we would accept asylum seekers only from specific countries. Australia did not add a clause specifying only people in queues.

At the heart of “Stop the Boats” is a profound dishonesty and immorality. Those promoting this position are making a mockery of UN Conventions, and domestic law.

They are advocating the behaviours and attitudes of a rogue state, while in an act of two-faced political bastardry, continuing to apparently support the principles of the Convention, by virtue of making no move to withdraw from it or change it.

If we don’t intend to abide by our obligations we should withdraw from the Convention, and change domestic law. As it is, we are inviting asylum seekers to seek sanctuary in Australia, then incarcerating, criminalizing or refusing them entry when they accept our invitation.

We are subjecting them to indefinite mandatory detention when they have done nothing more than recognize Australia as a democratic country that has signed the Refugee Convention, and therefore as a safe place for them to seek asylum.

This is a despicable act of duplicity, of which our nation should be thoroughly ashamed.

On December 6 2010, Amnesty International launched a campaign they titled Stopping the spin on “the boats.” Amnesty’s research found that hostility towards asylum seekers originates not in racism, but is primarily caused by myths and misinformation, for example their portrayal by politicians and some mainstream commentators as “illegals without papers.” This framing implies to the community that boat arrivals are committing a criminal act by attempting to force their way into the country ahead of a mythical queue comprised of those who do not arrive by boat. This offends a strong community sense of the fair go, and provokes antipathy and outrage, and is entirely inaccurate.

It’s a brilliant example of the power of propaganda when applied by both politicians and colluding media.

In November last year, a High Court ruling put all asylum seekers on an equal footing under Australian law, regardless of their mode of travel. (Sydney Morning Herald November 11 2010. Court casts doubt over legality of processing off-shore asylum seekers.) In spite of this re-affirmation of our domestic law by the High Court, Abbott and many media commentators still continue to use the term “illegals.”

Assertions that asylum seekers want to come here because they know they will receive welfare payments etc makes little psychological sense. 

People with the drive, ingenuity and courage to undertake journeys such as theirs, are not usually people who easily accept welfare as a life-style.

However, when people with these strengths are incarcerated for indefinite periods and/or issued with temporary protection visas (TPVs) whose long term uncertainty has alarming effects on their well being, they are damaged in ways they have not been damaged in the countries they fled, and may well be much reduced in their extraordinary strengths, and their will to survive and prosper. Their spirits can be broken.

Australian governments manage to achieve what the Taliban could not.

As a nation, we cannot continue to behave in this duplicitous manner, giving lie to the international commitments we voluntarily undertake, as well as to our own domestic laws.

Politicians must be forced to acknowledge our international responsibilities, along with our domestic laws and concerns. Politicians must not be allowed to toss our international obligations, and our corresponding domestic laws out the window, in order to win an election.

Whenever one of them starts up about stopping the boats, somebody needs to ask, what about the Refugee Convention we’ve signed? What about our own laws?

When will the mainstream media abandon its role of political apologist, and ask these questions?

Bush, Blair and Howard ignored the UN and its weapons inspectors, and took us to war in Iraq. It isn’t difficult to ignore the UN, very little if anything happens as a consequence.

But is that the point? Isn’t the point rather about being a country that cares about the morality and ethics of its way of being in the world? A country with the common decency to abide by its commitments?

Does our word as a country mean so piteously little that we are under no compunction to abide by it?

Are we happy to be a country whose signature on an international UN Convention is worth less than the paper it’s written on?

The questions need to be asked of all politicians engaging in the refugee debate. We should be demanding straight answers, and refusing to accept this ongoing campaign of disinformation.

Asylum seekers are not the problem, but they are an easy target.  The real problem is politicians with no moral compass, and not much interest in anything more than winning the next election.

The problem is politicians who have decided to exploit asylum seekers, even to their deaths, for their own political gain.

The problem is a tame media, who lack the courage to confront political inaccuracies and lies.

We have a responsibility to instigate a reassessment of the Convention if it is no longer to our liking. Until then, we are obliged to fulfill our commitments. Just as with any domestic law, we cannot decide to ignore it because it no longer seems appropriate.

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And the ABC’s Drum beats: shoot the messenger

28 Dec

by Darryl Yeoh, flickr

On December 6, I wrote an article in On Line Opinion, also published on this blog titled The death threats, the media, and the government’s sycophantic pursuit of Julian Assange.

I was, among other things, critical of the way in which the Wikileaks story was handled by a panel on the ABC’s Drum on December 2.

On December 8 there was another panel hosted by Steve Cannane, with guests Alan Anderson, a former advisor to Peter Costello; Scott Stephens, ABC Online Editor of Religion and Ethics, and actor Rhys Muldoon. I’ll elaborate on this panel later. But first:

The art of silencing a whistleblower

There are three basic methods of discrediting a whistleblower used by those who wish to shut him or her up.

There is demonisation, as exemplified by certain figures in the USA likening Assange to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and calling for his assassination as a terrorist and a “treasonist.”

There is the technique of criminalizing the whistleblower, as exemplified by Julia Gillard’s ignorant description of Assange’s activities as “illegal,” and the comments to be found everywhere that claim he is guilty of alleged sexual offences before he has been charged and tried.

The third method is to pathologise the whistleblower, as did John Howard when he announced that whistleblower Andrew Wilkie was “emotionally unstable.”

There are sub-headings under these categories, such as minimising and discrediting the messenger in order to minimise and discredit the message. As exemplified by Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales on the previous week’s panel. This is best done by focusing on real or imagined negative characteristics of the messenger’s personality, instead of on the message that’s being delivered.

It is the pathologising method that held sway in the December 8 panel on The Drum. Assange was described (and I’m afraid I cannot recall which panellist made which accusation, other than that Mr Muldoon was not much involved) as a megalomaniac, a narcissist, and an anarchist. This last perhaps fits the category of criminalizing as well as pathologising.

Deconstructing the denigrations

  • Assange is an anarchist.

A quick look in the dictionary will reveal that Assange is anything but an anarchist. He does not envisage a world bereft of all government and cast into unregulated chaos. His interest is in maintaining governments, but making them transparent and honest.

  • Assange is a megalomaniac

Megalomania is psychiatric disorder in which the patient experiences delusions of great power and importance. Mr Assange may well consider himself to be powerful and important, as far as I know nobody has asked him about this. But there is no doubt that “powerful and important” accurately and realistically describes his position in the world at this time. He is not suffering from a psychiatric disorder if he holds this opinion of himself.

It is difficult to imagine anyone who has achieved anything on a global scale, for better or worse, who did not have immense confidence, faith and belief in their ability to bring their vision to fruition. This mind set only becomes a disorder when the assessment is unrealistic, and the visionary delusional about his or her capacities.

  • Assange is a narcissist

Narcissism is a personality disorder characterised by the patient’s overestimation of his or her appearance and abilities. The patient also has an excessive need for admiration, and is extremely self-centred. Never having met Assange (and I suspect the panellists haven’t either) or anyone who knows him, this is not a diagnosis I would care to make, and I am trained to make such diagnoses. No one on the panel has the expertise to do this, as far as I know. If they do, they didn’t reveal it.

All three terms are commonly used abusively, to denigrate, discredit, ridicule and otherwise do harm. People generally resort to the use of such abuse when they are unable, incapable, or too lazy to present an intelligent argument against another’s position. As with most abuse, they reveal far more about the abuser that they do about the abused.

The Twelve Leaks of Christmas

On December 10 there were several serious articles on Wikileaks in The Drum, and one very silly poem by Ms Crabb. This consists of  the Wikileaks events rendered into verse and titled TheTwelve Leaks of Christmas. This would not matter, one could cheerfully ignore it, except for the fact that Ms Crabb is The Drum’s Chief Online Political Reporter. She sets the tone, as it were. Stumbling across her doggerel is rather like watching the ABC television news and suddenly being confronted with Chris Uhlmann lying on the roof of Parliament House in his underpants swigging vodka and belting out a globally significant news event to the tune of Up the Old Red Rooster.

It would be fun at a party, but if you want to know what’s going on in the most intriguing, and quite possibly the most revolutionary story on the planet at the moment, doggerel just doesn’t cut it. Not from the CPR.

If there’d been any serious, insightful in-depth commentary and analysis from the Chief Online Political Reporter on Wikileaks, the silly poem wouldn’t matter so much. But there hasn’t. Why not? What is The Drum up to?

Loewenstein strikes again

In his article published in The Drum on December 10, titled Wikileaks challenges journalism – politics partnership, Antony Loewenstein again challenges the media’s cosiness with politicians and diplomats. This cosiness continues to be most annoyingly evidenced whenever a journalist tells us there’s nothing in the cables that everybody doesn’t already know.

Which “everybody” would that be? Because there’s a very, very large “everybody” who don’t earn their living as politicians, journalists and diplomats, and practically nobody in that cohort knows anything much at all about the cables. Last I looked, it was the media’s job to inform us especially the publicly funded media, and quite frankly, I’ve had it with hearing that because they know all about them that means the cables aren’t interesting.

As Loewenstein observes: The cosiness between these players (media, politicians and diplomats) is exactly what WikiLeaks is aiming to challenge.

He continues: Why do journalists allow themselves to be romanced without revealing the kinds of agendas they’re pushing? It’s obvious why; being close to top officials and politicians makes them feel connected and important. Being an insider is many reporters’ ideal position. Independence is secondary to receiving sanctioned links and elevated status in a globalised world.

The WikiLeaks documents challenge the entire corrupted relationship between media and political elites. Founder Julian Assange is an outsider and doesn’t attend exclusive and secret meetings where the furthering of US foreign policy goals are on the cards. He aims to disrupt that dynamic. Many in the media resent not being leaked the information themselves and are jealous. Others simply dislike a lone-wolf citizen with remarkable tech-savvy to challenge their viability.

Could any of this explain the denigration of Assange and Wikileaks by some panelists and some journos on The Drum? The abusive descriptions of him? The silly poem? The refusal to take either Assange or the Wikileaks dump seriously enough to consider the complex and manifold implications of his activities? Because the way it’s shaping up, The Drum’s chief online political reporter is going to be one of the last journos on the planet to get her head around what the dump means and might mean for the future, including the future of her own profession.

Mark Scott, please explain

My questions to our public broadcaster are, why are some of the ABC’s employees using these classic methods to shoot the messenger in their reporting on Wikileaks? Because I do not wish to financially support the ABC if its policy is to shoot messengers, even just a little bit, and they are currently doing it quite a lot.

Are some ABC journos doing the government’s bidding in this matter? Are some of the reporters far too close to politicians and diplomats, and therefore unwilling to treat the Wikileaks story with the seriousness that the public deserves, and finances?

Is The Drum’s television panel really about informed commentary and analysis, or are the hosts going to continue to permit these personal attacks on Assange? Because if they do, I hope he instructs that battery of lawyers he’s got on board to go for their jugulars.

It is extremely important that the ABC presents points of view that disagree with and argue against those who support Wikileaks and Assange. Everyone I know is very willing to read other perspectives on this story. But the ABC producers and editors, for the television panel and articles, need to remind their contributors that personal denigration is not intelligent opposition or robust debate.

Salacious speculation as to the nature and circumstances of the alleged sexual offences and the guilt or otherwise of any of the parties involved is extremely unfair, both to Assange and to the complainants. Speculation such as this is neither intelligent opposition nor robust debate.

For example, on December 10, The Drum published a piece by Marion Dalton in which the author implied that Assange might have infected his partners with two different sexually transmitted diseases. (This article was also published on OLO on December 9). Calling upon spin and innuendo to carry her unsavoury message, Dalton weaves what she describes as a “hypothetical” case of sexual assault in with the real accounts of the allegations of sexual assault against Assange.

Does The Drum or OLO really believe its readers are too stupid to notice this deliberate conflation of the “hypothetical” with the actual?

There were an overwhelming number of negative comments on this article on both sites. Will The Drum and OLO get this message?

The ABC spins

“DavidPerth” posted the following on the comments for Loewenstein’s article:  I just heard on ABC news that several hundred FANATICS had gathered to protest in Australian cities.

 Come on, what is going on here with the ABC?

I heard on the ABC news on December 10 that “disciples” of Assange had gathered in Sydney to protest against the treatment of Assange and Wikilekas.

“Disciples” are devoted followers of a spiritual leader. The word is frequently used to describe those entrapped by a charismatic cult. It is often used in a derogatory, belittling manner.

Those protesting are neither fanatics nor disciples. They are citizens in a democracy, exercising their democratic right to express their discontent with their government’s actions, and the treatment of Assange.

Exactly what narrative is the ABC working to produce about Wikileaks, and about those who support the organisation and Assange?

This bias really must stop. Until it does, it’s reasonable to assume that the ABC, at least in parts, is consciously or unconsciously in collusion with the global efforts to shoot this messenger, in an attempt to distract from and discredit his message. Shooting messengers is a tawdry and unintelligent occupation. Many people today are far too sophisticated and engaged to be taken in by a tactic that has long since reached its used by date, even if they aren’t employed as journalists, diplomats or politicians.

But the most interesting question is, what is ABC’s agenda and who is driving it?

This article first appeared in On Line Opinion, December 14  20102

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The death threats, the media, and the government’s sycophantic pursuit of Julian Assange

26 Dec

By Raymond Salvatore Harman via flickr

I’m indebted to Antony Loewenstein for his article of December 2 in The Drum titled Where’s the media’s backbone over Wikileaks?

In his article, Loewenstein takes the Australian media to task for its collective inadequacy in the reporting of the 250,000 US cables dumped by Wikileaks.

One aspect he singles out for attention is the series of calls for the assassination of Assange, the demands that he be tried as a terrorist and condemned to death, and the demands for him to be killed without benefit of a trial at all.

These reactions, or more accurately, these incitements to murder, came from senior political and media figures in the USA and Canada, individuals with a wide ranging public voice, and plenty of influence. Their calls for Assange’s death were reported globally.

Demands have also been made for Assange’s arrest by the US, on as yet unspecified, even nebulous charges. Australian Attorney General Robert McClelland has offered to assist the US in its pursuit of Assange, and together with Prime Minister Gillard is exploring the possibility of bringing criminal charges against him in this country.

Julia Gillard has, with no substantial grounds at all, repeatedly referred to Wikileaks and Assange’s activities as “illegal.” Whether or not the Wikileaks dump is “illegal” is far from certain. Even in the US, who is the primary victim if indeed any crime has been committed by Assange, the legality or otherwise of his actions remains unclear.

Australia has not been sinned against in the dump, but irrespective of that, in their desperation to assuage the USA Gillard and McClelland are casting about to find an offence, any offence, with which to charge Assange.

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen. Our Attorney General and our Prime Minister have publicly committed to doing everything they can to assist the US in its pursuit of one of our citizens, a citizen who has now been threatened with death several times by several different figures, in that country.

This is really quite remarkable. Our government is supposed to protect its citizens, as it protects US citizens, from threats of death. After all, didn’t we just go to great lengths to ensure that American Gabe Watson, convicted of manslaughter, would not be returned to his homeland unless they first agreed not to kill him? Yet we’ll hunt down one of our citizens who has not been charged with, let alone convicted of anything, and offer him up for assassination apparently without a qualm.

What a very special relationship indeed we have with the USA.

But what is breathtakingly alarming is that nobody in the mainstream media, and in government, seems to find it at all necessary to remark upon the fact that Assange’s activities are considered by influential and senior figures in the USA and Canada to be deserving of death.

If you ring up your ex and say, “if you don’t stop telling everybody I’m a tosser I’ll kill you,” on the message bank, you’re in big trouble. But if you’re a powerful figure in the media and politics in the USA you can volunteer anybody for slaughter for any reason, and nobody will hold you to account for it.

And if you’re the Australian government and it’s one of your citizens being subjected to that threat, you can offer to help find him and nobody in the mainstream media will question your sanity and your ethics.

It seems that in Australia we’ve now sunk to such a level of moral turpitude that we are not at all ruffled by the notion of a whistleblower in a democracy being murdered for his activities.

Silence implies complicity. Silence implies approval. Silence implies that it is fine by us to incite the assassination of someone who has caused bother and embarrassment to important people.

Embarrass important people? Of course you’ll be killed!

Loewenstein appeared on The Drum on ABC TV December 2, to discuss his perspective on the media’s coverage of the Wikileaks dump. The panel consisted of Annabel Crabbe, Leigh Sales (both senior ABC journalists) and Joe Hildebrand of the Daily Telegraph. It very quickly proved impossible to persuade any of these three panellists to seriously address the media’s coverage of the Wikileaks affair, or indeed the affair itself. They would not address the contents of the cables, or the death threats. Not even the implications for free speech and dissent if the US does declare Wikileaks a terrorist organisation (as has been suggested by the US Administration and others) could tempt them into a more thoughtful state of mind.

In fact, the panel illustrated exactly what Loewenstein is complaining about. Amid much giggling, Crabbe remarked that Assange had thrown a “tantie” about a New York Times article, and asked what did that tell you about the man. Well, not a lot, really. He can spit the dummy. And this matters because?

Sales insisted that Assange is a journalist and not, as Loewenstein suggests, a whistle blower, on the grounds that he releases his material through the mainstream newspapers. Therefore he ought to be playing by journalists’ rules, which apparently don’t cover dumping 250,000 cables in the manner in which he has dumped them.

Mercifully, I cannot recall Hildebrande’s contribution, other than that it involved a lot of noisy laughter.

These comments from Al Jazeera reporter, Mike Hanna, give an indication of the information that is now available to us, thanks to Wikileaks. Hanna is referring to allegations that US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton ordered US diplomatic staff to steal the personal data (credit card, frequent flyer information) of highly placed United Nations officials:

Even the most cursory read (of the leaked cables) makes clear diplomatic staff is being asked to conduct a massive intelligence gathering exercise – involving, to put it bluntly, the theft of personal data. This, on the face of it, is a document asking diplomats to carry out activities that are not only against all accepted protocols, but are illegal in terms of US or international law.

To repeat, it is couched as an order, an instruction, not a request.

In other words, there was plenty for The Drum panel to have an opinion about, and intelligently discuss.

The panel’s attitude to the Wikileaks story was, and remains, inexplicable.

And why host Steve Cannane didn’t rein them in and give them some direction also remains inexplicable.

Assange has scooped every mainstream journo on the planet. He’s rewritten the rules of investigative journalism with his massive dump, and he’s not even a journalist. Reporters have to go to the secondary source because Assange controls the primary. He’s not one of them. He’s an outsider. He plays by his own rules. And he pays the price.

Loewenstein suggested that envy and jealous rivalry might be a contributing factor in the Australian mainstream media’s apparent determination to give the Wikileaks story as little in depth attention as possible. This the only explanation I can find, unless they’re in cahoots with the Gillard government to give the matter the minimum amount of credence, as authorised by the PM, and instead to distract us by focusing on Assange’s hair colour, temperament, and how he should list his occupation on his CV.

Wait a minute. Isn’t that what they did all through the election campaign? Gillard’s earlobes? Abbott’s swimmers? Devastating dearth of substantial policy discussion? Buried us instead under great mounds of twaddle till we couldn’t bear to listen to the news one more time.  Could that also have been a conspiracy between media and politicians to keep the punters deep concerns repressed, and thus less troublesome?

Fortunately, outlets such as the Guardian, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, and many other international mainstream media have had the sense and the integrity to set their egos aside and report fully on what Wikileaks continues to dump. Perhaps these media organizations are not as afraid of the US as are the Australians?

Lowenstein also suggests that some Australian media are far too cosy with centres of power, and far too impressed by them. They are thus rendered incapable of comprehensively analysing an attack such as Wikileaks has made on that centre. He gives the example of the ABC’s World Today Eleanor Hall, of whom he comments: “It was painful on Monday listening to ABC radio’s The World Today grilling a New York Times journalist about his paper’s decision to publish some of the revelations. Virtually every question asked by host Eleanor Hall could have come from the State Department. The contents and implications of the cables were mostly ignored.”

This is scary stuff. Is it now becoming the media’s role to shoot down the messenger and ignore the message? To ask questions on behalf of a government? To put obstacles in the way of the public dissemination of subversive material?

Thank you, Antony Loewenstein for sticking your neck out on this matter. I hope they’ll still give you gigs on The Drum.

And thank you, Julian Assange. Better not stick your neck out for while though mate.

And thank you bloggers, On Line Opinion, overseas news outlets and other online sites where a person can find still something with a bit of grit and substance to get her teeth into.

This article was first published in On Line Opinion 6.12.2010 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/

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