McClymont tells journalists to ‘look behind the spin’ and challenge authority
Investigative journalist and Gold Walkley winner, Kate McClymont has challenged Australia’s journalists to “to look behind the spin” and continue questioning authority as the best way of ensuring continued press freedom in Australia.
McClymont told the Walkey Foundation’s annual Press Freedom dinner in Sydney last night that press freedom in Australia was under threat from powerful business interests, such as Gina Rinehart and Nathan Tinkler, who were using the courts in an attempt to intimidate journalists and their publishers.
“Litigations can have the unfortunate effect of making other media players gun-shy. Journalists and their bosses become wary of ‘litigious’ people and are often reluctant to take them on,” said McClymont referencing current court action by mining magnate Gina Rinehart against journalists Steve Pennells and Adele Ferguson who is attempting to use subpoenas to compel them to reveal their sources.
Very easy for Kate to say when she specialises in this and Fairfax gives her the time to do so, but 99% of journalists are under pressure to crank out the stories – and not just for print but something ASAP for online, oh and also shoot & file some video while you’re at it please – so there is simply no TIME to invest in digging deep behind the spin, doing all the legwork required to ‘follow the money’ and get the sources and pull together a champion piece. That takes many many days, and few publishers will let their journalists spend several days on a single story! Sorry, but these days it’s very much churn-and-burn.
Problem is any one you try and interview is invariably surrounded by publicists and sponsors and is so media trained these days it’s hard to get anything out of their mouths other than sponsored drivel they’ve been trained to spruik. Australian politicians are the same – they just regurgitate the spin that’s been hounded into them… “working families” anybody? Actors and sportsman too have become totally brainwashed bores…
Sorry Jack B. Nimble but if newspapers and news web sites do not invest in quality they will be replaced by social media. The future is not more and quicker, it is in supplying to best. Kate is a good example as to why people will pay for news. People will not pay for trivia.
For a look at where investigative journalists might start on the Boston bombing, take a look at how Russa Today, Russia’s 24hr English-language news channel, reports the events:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GcxmAunB4Ck
Is there an Australian journalist prepared “to look behind the spin”?
It appears that Kate McClymont conveniently neglected to mention that press freedom also includes freedom from the yoke of:
(i) Conroy and the ALP attempting to shut down freedom of speech, and freedom of the internet as happened so infamously between 2012-2013
(ii) freedom from journalists ceasing to indulge their Bourgeois Left world-view on climate change, illegal immigrants, so-called ‘animal rights’ and other hypocrisies;
(iii) journalists of that persuasion within the ABC acknowledging that it’s a public broadcaster, not an activist megaphone for them to indulge in their ideological onanism.
Very true, the problem is that if the Canberra Press Galley does not toe the Government line, those who dont get cut out and the other complying journo’s get the scoops etc.
Never fear MIke. The way Fairfax is managed it won’t be around for long and all you’ll have to worry about is which is the utterly boring, comment-filled and remarkably predictable columnists you prefer at News Ltd. Kate’s one of the last and – you might lo note – it was she and not the geniuses at the Oz who turned over the rocks to find Eddie Obeid at work.
The only people who say the ABC is biased to the left are the those who think the News Limited newspapers are not biased to the right. However as we have press freedom in this country those newspapers are free to be biased. It would be nice if sections of the right stopped trying to force the ABC into becoming as one eyed as Rupert’s newspapers are.
As for members in the Canberra Press Gallery not toeing the Government line the boot is on the other foot. It is the opposition which is getting the free ride.
@ Lindsay… “if newspapers and news web sites do not invest in quality they will be replaced by social media” … rubbish. So far social media in this country shows no sign whatsover of breaking news of any quality. It’s all self-indulgent opinion and brainless gossip. Even the so-called news web sites with an independent approach – Crikey, New Matilda and the Global Mail (remember them?) – never break anything of any significance and largely just write around subjects while commenting from a leftie perspective – not that there’s any thing wrong with that because of the way News Ltd is stacked towards the other side.
Maybe the Australian Guardian will do something but, again, I fear it will be more opinion than news breaking of any great significance. Australia is a small market and will remain so and when it comes to uncovering big stories that politicans, business etc don’t want uncovered it’s still up to the big boys – although they’re not as big as they used to be. They’re the only ones who have the time and resources to do the digging, even if they’re also less inclined to do so.
All in all, it’s a dismal picture and we should be grateful that Fairfax at least gives Kate McClymont a go.But as staff continue to be cut and pump out as much as you can as quick as you can becomes the order of the day you have to wonder how long such an indulgence will last – the human resources number crunchers are probably at it as we speak.
zumabeach I think you have agreed with me (“if newspapers and news web sites do not invest in quality they will be replaced by social media”) and expanded on what I had written. I would add that it is the self-indulgent opinion and brainless gossip that will kill newspapers not the quality content along the lines of what Kate McClymont normally supplies.
However I do not agree with you that Crikey, New Matilda or the Global Mail have a left perspective, they are not, they are middle of the road or just not biased to the right. Then again they would seem to be left if you were viewing them from the right.