The best way to appreciate press freedom is to lose it
I’m late to this fight.
I find myself a little uncomfortable standing in the same corner as the over-the-top Daily Telegraph response to Stephen Conroy’s proposals for media regulation. But in truth, I’m a fellow traveller.
Conroy’s proposal to effectively end press self regulation is a bad thing.
The risk posed to freedom of the press is relatively small, but it opens the door a crack.
And in the last few days, I’ve found myself thinking about the miserable year I spent editing a magazine in a country that censored the press.
Actually, it was the Tele’s satirical double page spread of government-approved stories that did it for me. They reminded me a little too much of the Dubai press. More on that shortly.
My Middle Eastern adventure began about eight years ago. I was hired to launch a magazine about the advertising and marketing industry.
Officially, we were told, Dubai had a free press. There was a ring fence around the Royal family and Sheikh Mohammed’s Vision For Dubai, but apart from that we were free to go for our lives.
However, directly or indirectly, the Royal families of the United Arab Emirates owned most of the major institutions, including the media. And we were writing about the media. And our publication was subject to licensing by the powers that be at Dubai Media City.
Still, we launched strongly. We were more direct than our predecessors. If you think Mumbrella occasionally causes ripples here by being a tad, erm, spiky, imagine how that editing style would go down somewhere as conservative as Dubai.
We were taught the nuances. You didn’t acknowledge in print that people drink alcohol in Dubai. You refer to “a drop of grape” or similar. You never mentioned Israel.
I began to present a weekly radio show about media and marketing on the local talk radio station – also Government-owned. Because construction workers cannot be made to work outdoors if the temperature rises above 50c, I was taught a code for weather forecasts. I could say that it was “likely to be 49 degrees or higher”.
As people began to notice what we were writing, the pressure grew. At that stage nobody had actually censored what we had written – they just grumbled a lot.
The first time I had to take a stand was from an unexpected direction when we were put under pressure to pull a profile of a rival media owner. We had been too sympathetic.
It was a huge moment for me. I’d never censored a story before. For the first time in my life I seriously lost concentration at the wheel of my car as I headed into work for the confrontation. I crashed – fortunately slowly – into the back of the car in front of me.
When I got to work, I threatened to resign and meant it. Eventually I got my way. We published the piece, albeit a week late.
Meanwhile, the government-owned media company launched a new newspaper. It was a daily tabloid called Emirates Today. Staffed by trained journalists from around the world, including many westerners, it looked like a good mid-morning tabloid, and read like one initially.
Jeez, I hated Modesh
Quickly though, it began to slip almost into self parody. Not untypically – but the most memorable for me – was a picture caption story about a billboard poster promoting a shopping centre featuring a yellow character called Modesh. The caption read something along the lines of – and I’m not exaggerating – “Modesh is smiling. Perhaps he’s excited by the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates.” I kept a copy somewhere.
In our diary column, we began to refer to the newspaper as Emirates Toady. Eventually word reached me that the boss of the media company – a powerful Emirati – was unhappy. But we carried on calling it Emirates Toady.
My weekly radio show was on the station owned by his media group. A week or two later, I turned up for my show. The way I found out I was fired was that my electronic card no longer worked. As I wasn’t actually paid, it wasn’t the end of the world.
That same boss later called me. He used the somewhat melodramatic words: “I could make your life in Dubai very unpleasant.”
It made me think of a previous warning my boss had give me. If a journalist displeases the authorities and gets deported, they don’t give that as a reason as this is a country that officially has a free press. They find cocaine in the journo’s apartment, he told me.
The internal pressures also began to build. One day, I sat outside with my deputy, who I’d brought over with me from the UK. We discussed whether we should just give in and give the management and authorities the blander fare they wanted. We were being very well paid, and if we didn’t rock the boat we could have a very nice life and go back to proper journalism once we left. But we decided that once you do make those compromises, the habit is probably too hard to break after returning to the real world. We decided to see it through.
The conversations with my boss were a real exercise in seeing it from both sides. He had a multimillion dollar business to protect, and was responsible for hundreds of jobs. He could be shut down on a whim. He argued that the pragmatic approach was to keep pushing the boundaries, and if we had to retreat from time to time “not to mistake the waves for the direction of the tide”. It was a view I respected, but couldn’t live with.
The internal pressures came to a head. I discovered a cracking yarn. The executive creative director at a large ad agency shifted to a rival. The powerful owner of his agency told the police he was a visa violator. The cops turned up at his new agency and arrested him. He was to spend the weekend in prison and face a deportation hearing first thing the next week. Fortunately, his new owner was powerful too, and got him out.
Bravely, he went on the record. I wrote the story.
The afternoon before publication it was spiked.
It was actually the first time that I had lost one of those battles and failed to get something published. I decided that was the line I couldn’t cross. I saw the paper to press that night, wrote my resignation letter to my boss and left it on his desk. He was extremely gracious about it.
I returned to the UK, and within a few days, out of nowhere, was offered the job that brought me to Australia. Back in Dubai, a few weeks later, the magazine’s licence was withdrawn the night before it held its awards in front of 1000 people. The awards were cancelled and the magazine closed.
So why have I shared this lengthy anecdote, when Australia does not face anything like this level of censorship? (Let me stress, the comparisons between the two situations are small: but it happens to be my personal experience before being in Australia)
First, I should say that I strongly believe the press should have standards and face stringent self-regulation. That’s why we joined the Press Council last year. We’re probably their smallest member.
If you’ve got a problem with what I write, you can complain to the Press Council. Their details are at the bottom of this page. If they decide I’m in the wrong, they’ll say so, in excruciating detail. Even if I disagree with the umpire’s verdict, I’ll have to publish it.
What I do have a problem with is that somebody appointed by whoever the media minister at the time is, will have the power to tell the Press Council whether the standards and rules it sets are acceptable. This is somebody who has relied on the minister’s patronage to get the no doubt well paid job, and who will presumably be reliant on them to keep it.
In reality, any attempt by such a person to nobble the Press Council would probably cause an uproar. But it would certainly be a bigger possibility than before.
For what it’s worth, I think the response by News Limited – and the Daily Tele in particular – has been strategically poor. The front page comparing Conroy to despots plays rights into the hands of those who believe News Limited has too much power. (That’s despite the fact that as a journo there’s a part of me that thinks of it as front page of the year for its agenda-setting impact).
The follow-up, featuring Emirates Toady style double page spread gave me greater pause. But even then, the risk is not as dramatic as is being suggested.
But just because the Daily Tele has gone over the top, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
The truth is that press freedom is not binary. Every country has laws, and in effect has a spectrum of press freedom. A government-appointed overseer of the regulator takes us backwards on that spectrum away from a free press and towards censorship – even if it’s only a couple of steps.
In this case , the tide is going out.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
Linkedin
A great piece, attacking the same agenda but with much greater class than others referenced above. That makes it all the more powerful IMHO.
I’ve long been a fan, but that reached a new level with this statement:
“We were being very well paid, and if we didn’t rock the boat we could have a very nice life and go back to proper journalism once we left. But we decided that once you do make those compromises, the habit is probably too hard to break after returning to the real world. We decided to see it through.”
Kudos to you sir.
User ID not verified.
“However, directly or indirectly, the Royal families of the United Arab Emirates owned most of the major institutions, including the media.”
The press in Australia is owned by the Australian Royal Family (Murdoch, Singo, Reinhart, etc)
We need some sort of reform to protect the ignorant from the greedy don’t we? Surely?
User ID not verified.
Great piece Tim.
More like this…
User ID not verified.
A great read. Thank you.
User ID not verified.
“If you’ve got a problem with what I write, you can complain to the Press Council. Their details are at the bottom of this page. If they decide I’m in the wrong, they’ll say so, in excruciating detail. Even if I disagree with the umpire’s verdict, I’ll have to publish it.”
You mean, you will actually have to publish the verdict? That’s just straight out draconian already! Bloody Stalinist, commies.
I mean if that severe punishment is not enough to incentivise journalists in a commercially struggling industry to publish the truth and not sensationalise things – well then I just don’t know what could!
Best leave it the way it is then I guess, any talk of extra media standards should be dismissed immediately.
One quick question – is Conroy allowed to sue the Tele for defamation for depicting him as a mass murdering dictator?
User ID not verified.
yawn.. who cares. these laws are not going to get up past the senate anyway.. all a big hoo ha over nothing.
brilliant tactical diversion by Gillard though. her own leadership issues are now 2nd place to the so called media reforms as the headline stories in every paper
User ID not verified.
Thanks Tim. A well balanced and mature piece.
User ID not verified.
Well argued, well said. I toiled in Myanmar in 2005 and saw the full effect of govt interference in the media.
Coincidentally today Mizzima reports
he Myanmar government have suspended a controversial draft media bill until mid-April. The media bill drafted by the Interim Press Council will now be put forward to the Lower House when the parliamentary sessions resume after Myanmar’s traditional Water Festival ends on April 17, Kyaw Min Swe, the general secretary of the Interim Press Council, told Mizzima.
The bill was drawn up by the Ministry of Information without input from media groups. Now a meeting will be held on March 23 for politicians to discuss the draft bill with journalists.
User ID not verified.
Very pertinent article and glad you published it.
User ID not verified.
I think the laws are pretty tame once again News going into over drive. Self regulation hasn’t worked in UK and it’s not working her either.
User ID not verified.
Nice piece, but so far with this debate all I’m hearing is complaints without solutions.
Media Sheik is on the money: “We need some sort of reform to protect the ignorant from the greedy don’t we?”
At the moment, we’re simply debating which group of powermongers we should allow to exercise too much control over what we read/see/hear in the mass media: the government or the media moguls. Both have strong agendas that would often be best served by obfuscating, censoring or ignoring the truth, and punishing those who tell it.
Conroy may have stuffed this, but something needs to be done, and the Tele front page only proves it.
User ID not verified.
Correctly said, but simply not severe enough in examining, from a helicopter view, the ultimate issues.
After a couple of world wars, thousands of Aussie soldiers dead for the western worlds sense of freedom this party of supposed higher moral principles, has been trying to join Pravda and Der Sturmer. Their assault on press freedom will bring us closer to the Eddie Obeid look a likes getting away with anything. The larger issue is not that there should be a free press and media, but that this government owns two major media outlets- ABC and SBS – just like Stalin and Himmler did.
Irrespective of the principal that no Government should own a substantial suite of media, it is also a travesty of my tax payer funds. Did the ABC or SBS discover Eddie Obeid’s misdeeds – the worst theft by a public official of Government assets in Australia’s history – despite a budget of $1.4b pa – No. It was a free from ABC/SBS, media.
Furthermore, if the government wants to compete in the ideas market, let media supporting the Government be self financing. The ABC SBS should be advertiser and PAY subscription supported at least before final privatisation or conversion to a PBS public donation style foundation. This tax subsidy to an un means tested TV watching elite is, given trends to means test health, education and other Government services on the grounds of equity, unjustified. The hoi polloi watch ACA or Today Tonight and suffer advertising, the upper class watching the ABC news and 7.30 report, doesn’t.
User ID not verified.
An informed piece. However, Media Sheik above captures the flip-side that the mis-guided Labor efforts are trying to counter.
User ID not verified.
p.s. If a tabloid mimicked Malcolm Turnbull the way a tabloid has mimicked Conroy; do you think Turnbull would sue? He has certainly taken media to court before…
User ID not verified.
In this day and age, with most most media companies here seemingly in a slow death march, this entire debate just feels so ridiculously quaint.
User ID not verified.
Tim, great piece.
A quick question as you will know far better than me, but I though the proposed legislation was that the PIMA was to be bilaterally appointed, i.e. with the support of the government and opposition of the day. A small point I know, but an important one.
User ID not verified.
You talk about powerful men in the UAE controlling who says what about whom, and worry that the same kind of censorship will find its way into Australia… we already have that with Murdoch and to a lesser extent Packer.
Look at Gina Rinehart’s attempt to buy into Fairfax for the clear purpose of controlling media…
We already have media censorship thanks to the Murdoch family – censorship that means trash like the aforementioned DT articles runs, and media owners control the news, rather than there being honest and unbiased (or at least not sensationalist) journalism.
The media regulations are there to stop sensationalist and biased crap that the DT and other papers put out and try to brin reporting back to a respected state. There’s a reason why journalism is one of the least-trusted professions…
User ID not verified.
Most Australians are disengaged from politics. It takes a front page like that of the Telegraph’s comparing Conroy to despots to wake people up from their slumber and realise what exactly’s being proposed here. Australians have had it so good for so long, they just believe that either party is much the same and will have their best interests at heart. It is time for Australia to wake up. Labor seem to be a bumbling mess but one needs to ask why would they want to muzzle the media, what is the agenda?
User ID not verified.
I find a little daily dose of internet conspiracy theory is a good antidote to an overly global-mogul mediated media.
User ID not verified.
Tim, or someone, could you explain why ensuring the Press Council enforces its own rules is such a bad thing? As I understand it, that’s all the new legislation proposed. Perhaps I’m wrong. You might talk about the principle of having a government body ensuring a private body enforces its own rules, but the broadcast media has been subject to much stricter control for years (and yes, I do know the difference between the publically-owned spectrum and the print media, but these days the difference is well blurred). And, Roger, please take of of Kev’s cold showers. You are reading too much Daily Telegraph.
User ID not verified.
Interesting piece, thanks… BUT.
why is it assumed that.. “The Media” are the only people interested and capable of deciding what is legitimate?
we all KNOW..without question and undoubtedly that the Press Council is piss weak and its decisions and punishments are rarely (if ever) as damaging as the stories that they are acting on.
I could not be more opposed to manipulation of the media… but seriously, we are supposed to already have it and the current set up is doing close to NOTHING to ensure it is becoming any more free and open.
A government selected council worries me LESS than a Murdock/Reinhart/Stokes selected group of yes people.
User ID not verified.