Did Al Jazeera’s undercover investigation into One Nation overstep the mark?
Was Al Jazeera’s One Nation investigation a step too far? University of Melbourne’s Andrew Dodd questions the ethics behind the documentary in this crossposting from The Conversation.
The sheer audacity of Al Jazeera’s three-year ruse is astounding.
The news company’s investigation unit has carried out a sting that has captured both the National Rifle Association of the United States and Australia’s One Nation Party in all sorts of compromising positions.
The series, “How to sell a massacre”, has exposed the NRA’s manipulative media practices and revealed One Nation’s desire to cosy up to the US gun lobby to find ways of funding its domestic campaign to overturn our gun laws.
As shown, it is clearly a combination of all mentioned above – entrapment, Invasion of privacy, and secret filming of extraordinary length. The entrapment may have been much more obvious off camera over three years. Did the journalist actively culture the two ONE Nation ‘s member opinions. We shall never know.
This program is a foreign Government interference into domestic politics by an anti-Christian dictatorship’s media outlet, to damage a domestic anti- party domestically. Whether Russian interference in the 2016 USA presidential campaign, Chinese Government interference in Australia media where China controls or influences most of the Chinese language press in Australia, should have put the ABC on notice about showing this program without knowing in full, how this was set up.
Please explain … intelligently.
If a journalist can “actively culture” PHON opinions and actions that easily, it says something very damning about how easily persuaded Ashby and Dickson are. If “anti-Christian dictatorships” actually wanted to influence these two – and if they really are as highly susceptible as Roger believes them to be – imagine what real foreign agents could have had them do. The mind boggles.
Do your beliefs on foreign interference extend to Murdoch?
When it comes to exposing corruption and immoral behaviour in politics, the gloves are off. The people need to know. This exposé would never have happened if Al Jazeera hadn’t approached it in this way. The farce of Australian politics (or UK or USA at the moment) should be a wakening to democracy everywhere. Well done Al Jazeera for maintaining this investigation for 3 years to draw out the truth. The true exposé is not that Al Jazeera enabled such a meeting, but that such a meeting was sought and leapt upon and carried out with impertinence and evil cunning.
I would suggest the Qatar-based Al Jazeera or the US-based exec producer don’t care too much about the MEAA’s Australian code.
Sadly, the declining standards of journalism in the 21st century makes the whole idea of “ethics” rather moot. So many so-called “journalists” today see themselves as part of the story rather than impartial observers of “facts” so it is almost impossible to contemplate where “reporting” ends and “story-telling” starts.
Didn’t the Qatar government try and shut down Al Jazeera some time back? Hardly Qatari inclusion into Australian politics if so…
incursion not inclusion (bad, bad auto correct!)
Al Jazeera (the media organisation that most accurately reported on the War in Iraq) are to be congratulated, most particularly from my Australian perspective, for showing how totally amoral Ashby and Dickson are. They and ON are a blight on the political landscape.
Yes and hell yes.
No ethics breaches at all, this is journalism uncovering the truth of politicians and operatives representing Australians. If only those wishing to represent citizens were honest in their beliefs, motivations and reasons for decisions in the first place, such journalism wouldn’t be needed.
That seems like such a crazy notion doesn’t it – the idea of honesty and transparency – and as the doco reveals, decency – from those we pay our taxes too, to make decisions that determine our lives.
Thanks Al-Jazeera.
I think the public interests warrants such actions, similar to whistle blowers