Category Archives: MEDIA

Fairfax’s sense of gender balance

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I’d just finished watching an ABC Q&A show about feminism and decided to take a flick through SMH on iPad before retiring. I started noticing lots of male images. Had the program on feminism oversensitised me to sexism? But it wasn’t the first time I’d noticed what seemed an overwhelming preponderance of male images on the SMH iPad version. Indeed it was questions about whether my initial perceptions were accurate or simply the product of an odd bad male day at SMH that led me to get involved in New Matilda’s Where are the women in the media? project. We’re looking for hard facts. Part 3′s on the way.

So in the meantime, I decided to do an extra small research pilot on SMH iPad images and gender. The flick through was horizontally across from the front page tonight. Up to where I started bumping into yesterday’s stories, I counted 100 images of men compared to 13 women. Just 12% of the people I saw were women. Overall, the story is one of men who speak, men who represent, men who play sport and men who are always there.

The 13 women included a murder victim in another country, two women associated with fashion week, a woman who looked a bit like actor Gwyneth Paltrow decorating an article on clean food, a woman who is head of a health support NGO, the face of a woman TV star, one caricature of Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart and four images of PM Julia Gillard. If, as looks likely, we replace Gillard with Abbott, we would be down to 8% of female images. As you flick through your ipad, the story of women is one of food, fashion, highly made up faces, carers and the odd woman whose has become powerful.

The dominant thread is men. Who are they? They are many things – leaders, politicians, sportspeople (all of them), journalists, entertainers, business people and just ordinary old people in the background.

Last week, the SMH’s section Life and Style ran an article about women sliding out of bed to put on make-up so their partners don’t see their faces. Yes, even long term partners.Could things really have got that bad? Can you imagine the strain and secrecy that would impose on a relationship?

The story about women waking early to get on their make-up (if indeed it is happening on a widespread level) could be a page one story, not a slightly daring comment piece on Life and Style It’s a great topic to discuss on breakfast and talkback radio.

The SMH’s gender biased image practices need to be publicly discussed. Despite Sarah Oakes strong resistance to having the word ‘women’ applied to her Daily Life section, is Daily Life just a new form of women’s pages with a soft touch of feminism, designed to hold advertisers and readers when paywalls come into place? This isn’t to reject the feminist stories that do regularly appear on Daily Life amidst the food and bodies, or the efforts of women who are trying to push editors’ and publishers’ boundaries. But whose editorial vision is being pursued in the selection of images for the SMH? Is selection determined by individual editors? Or is it the product of market research of readers for advertisers? Is Daily Life a sop to hide gender bias in the rest of Fairfax publications? A few add-on pages can’t disappear or justify gender bias elsewhere.

I’ve also got to be honest and say that our ‘Where are the women in the media’? project is coming up with far worse results than I expected. I think I believed that gender discrimination in the media was gradually improving for women. I’m no longer sure about that and we haven’t even started on women in broadcasting. I am thankful to Destroy the Joint which now has more than 27,000 facebook followers for pushing a public rewakening of these issues. They build on earlier research and feminist action.

You can follow our women in the media project on New Matilda and/or watch our progress by joining our Facebook page. Read Julie Posetti’s post on our facebook page written from her sickbed yesterday where she spent the day listening to a very male ABC. The results are also not good.

A Q&A with an all female panel plus male host for one night is not enough.

Note: In an earlier version of this post, I wrote that the piece about women getting out of bed to put make-up on was in the Daily Life section. Daily Life editor Sarah Oakes has pointed out that it was not. It was in the Life and Style section. The piece was arguing against the practice of hiding one’s unmadeup face from male partners. My point is that a few feminist pieces, whether in Life and Style or Daily Life could be seen as commercially based appeals to a female audience, otherwise turned off by the regular fare of content biased towards men. This is not a personal attack on female journalists who write or edit such stories or sections but an argument that these sections may also play a role in reinforcing and reproducing gender stereotypes. If you are not regular reader, have a look and see for yourself.We will be able to analyse this issue further in Part three of our Where are the Women in the media? series.

Gillard should forget minders and listen to Carlton

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I’m a fan of Michael Carlton‘s who writes the backpage on Fairfax’s weekend NewsReview. Last weekend, he tackled the ‘farce of the mining tax’, the latest sympton of what he calls Labor’s ‘terminal disease.’

Vintage Carlton. But then came the very good bit about Tony Abbott.

“Tony Abbott was oddly silent all week. Invisible, even. There was no silly TV stunt at a fish shop or a widget factory, no poncing around in Lycra or hard hat. He kept his head down, allowing his shadow ministers and his obsequious media claque to do the public gloating over the opinion poll.

It was clever politics. Any comment from him would have looked like smart-alec hubris, which is one reason that voters have so disliked him in the past. Abbott still believes he was born to The Lodge and will do anything to get there, but he is learning to disguise this. The election is still his to lose, as his former mate John Hewson managed to do in 1993.

With Labor in turmoil and the smell of blood in the water, the opposition blithely carries on as a policy-free zone and gets away with it.”

Now read this carefully. If you enjoyed it last weekend, you will enjoy it again.

“Yet you know exactly what the Coalition will do if it wins government in September. First up there’ll be the Gothic horror of a Labor budget “black hole” – even worse than expected, we’ll be told. This will be the pretext for a savage round of expenditure “savings” and the sacking of thousands of public servants.

That done, all the same-old, clapped-out Tory machinery will creak into place. Once again there’ll be grovelling deference to the Americans in our defence and foreign policies. Billions will be wasted on bright and shiny military hardware, just as the Howard government did by buying 59 useless main battle tanks for the army, the navy’s Seasprite helicopters that could fly only in daylight in fine weather, and the eye-watering extravagance of the struggling Joint Strike Fighter project for the air force.

Domestically, Labor’s reforms in healthcare and education will be scrapped, with money ripped out of the public sector to be shovelled back into private hospitals and private schools. Climate change will be crap again. WorkChoices will eventually re-emerge with a new name; there will be a swingeing ideological attack on the ABC, enforced by a whopping funding cut; the national broadband network will be gutted; social reforms like same-sex marriage will be further off than ever; and the gap between rich and poor will grow ever wider, as it does in the US.

Been there, done that, deja vu all over again.”

Hard to sum it up better than that. Many of us have been there before and those that haven’t, don’t need to. Tip for Labor. Get rid of the mindless repetitious ‘working men and women’ version of Howard’s ‘working families’. Carlton, perhaps jokingly, says that he emailed John McTernan, your PR “apparatchik from the British Labour Party” last Christmas suggesting a drink but he hasn’t heard back.  I would take him at his word and sit down and have a chat with him. He might have more ideas. I doubt he’ll charge you an arm and a leg, like those expensive lobbyists and advertising firms.

For a start, I’d ditch trying to jolly up those journalists who have been campaigning to get rid of you for years and deliver Carlton’s column to every home in Australia. Skywrite and tweet it phrase by phrase.

Then I would get try one last treatment for that terminal disease and instead of dumping on the Greens follow their advice – fix the mining tax, stop the appalling abuse of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus, speak up about war crimes in Sri Lanka and restore the income Labor’s taken from single parents and give those on unemployment allowance a rise of $50 which just about everyone who has tried living on the allowance recommends as a minimum.

Note : The last 40 words in the first published version of this post were slightly different. Edited for clarity and accuracy.
 

Judge finds News Ltd’s reporter was not part of abuse of process.

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Most of the focus on today’s Federal Court judgement in the case brought by ex-Federal Parliament Speaker Peter Slipper against his staffer James Ashby will be on the central finding that Ashby’s sexual harrassment case against his ex-boss was an abuse of process.

Justice Rares found:

Mr Ashby instituted the proceedings without reasonable cause because they were and are an abuse of the process of the Court.

The court also found that Ashby’s co-worker Karen Doane and ex LNP Mal Brough acted with Ashby for the purpose of inflicting political damage on Slipper. But Slipper also alleged that News Ltd’s senior Daily Telegraph reporter Steve Lewis was part of Ashby’s plan to damage the Speaker. Justice Rares’ finding in favour of Lewis will be a relief to reporters who are often accused of being involved in political games. Lewis, he found, was just doing what reporters are expected to do – chase stories.

Rares subjected the actions of Lewis to detailed examination and found his actions as a reporter played an important role in the affair. But he found there was nothing unusual in a symbiotic relationship between journalists and people involved in politics. ( This is certainly true).

Lewis had been reporting on Slipper unfavourably for two years. Ashby and Doane would “have believed that Mr Lewis would give their stories attacking the person for whom they were working a sympathetic, if not enthusiastic, airing.” Nevertheless, Rares concluded that Lewis was merely acting as most reporters would do in vigorously pursuing a story and that there was no evidence that his actions were politically motivated.

His findings in relation to Lewis can be found in the judgement from Par. 142 onwards:

Mr Lewis appears to have pursued, enthusiastically, the stories potentially available to him based on Mr Ashby’s and Ms Doane’s information. However, I am not satisfied that Mr Lewis shared with them the purpose of advancing the political interests of Mr Brough or the LNP or of aiding Mr Ashby or Ms Doane in their future prospects of advancement or preferment. It is more likely that Mr Lewis was focused on obtaining good copy for stories to sell newspapers. He may not have been so naïve that he was blind to the motivations of Mr Ashby, Ms Doane or Mr Brough. Mr Lewis was no doubt wanting to encourage them, as sources, to continue to provide material which he could use to publish. But, that did not involve him in seeking to achieve the same end as his sources, despite some overlap. Publication of significant or sensational news can have significant impact on the public perception of persons or bodies referred to in the stories that favours one side rather than another in the political debates of the day. However, that consequence does not necessarily suggest that the journalist or publisher is seeking to aid or support the side of politics that benefits from the publication. Rather, it is more likely that, by publishing the story, the journalist or publisher is simply fulfilling his, her or its role of reporting news. Once presented with sources such as Mr Ashby and Ms Doane, together with the prospect of a story such as in the originating application, it is difficult to think that any journalist would have acted differently to Mr Lewis in pursuing and publishing that story.

The question many will ask is whether Lewis would have been as enthusiastic if he was pursuing Abbott, Hockey or Bishop.The truth is that News Ltd’s agenda is so well known that sources seeking to damage the Coalition would have been less likely to approached Lewis and News Ltd would not have encouraged him so keenly to pursue such an investigation or paid the sources’expenses. News Ltd’s disdain for the Gillard government has been open. Political reporters act within professional boundaries but are often used to meet the poltiical goals of media companies that employ them.
The role of Lewis needs more examination.

Packer’s Casino Present

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In late October, New Matilda began our series on James Packer’s proposal for a new casino in Sydney. I worked on this series with Lawrence Bull.

Through its media management strategies and political networks across the NSW Liberal and Labor Parties, Packer had been able to make his casino seem like a foregone conclusion. He has achieved first stage approval for a second casino in NSW from the Premier Barry O’Farrell without any independent or public scrutiny.

The deal however has not yet been finalised. Casinos require licenses for which owners pay fees and taxes on turnover and there are processes for checking to see whether those proposing to run them can pass a “fit and proper test” and financial scrutiny. But the NSW government led by Barry O’Farrell is planning to by pass these laws and work through the ‘unsolicited proposals’ procedure which avoids a debate about whether the community wants another casino or not. O’Farrell has appointed ex head of the Commonwealth Bank David Murray to examine the proposal in the second stage of the approval process. It is very likely there will be allowance for public submissions. Public submissions would be allowed if the procedures set down the NSW Casino Control Act were followed.

Packer’s proposed hotel with casino is part of Barangaroo, a huge Lend Lease development on publicly owned land near old Sydney docks. The likely site is on what is known as Barangaroo South where it would be built near the water, along six three commercial towers and a residential development.

To really explain this story, we needed to provide some history rather than simply a blow by blow description of the game which clinched the deal.

The story goes back to the early 1990s when Kerry and James Packer were bitterly disappointed when they failed to win the tender for Sydney’s single casino. They kicked up a hell of a ruckus and got some help from the Labor party but couldn’t win over the Casino Control Authority which had been set up to regulate the newly legalised casino industry. ( If you are interested in this aspect, read Paul Barry’s book, Who Want’s to be a Billionaire? )

You could say however that the story of Packer’s Liberal party links goes back even further than that to the days of notoriously corrupt Liberal Bob Askin government whose successful election campaign in 1964 was directly funded by James’s conservative grandfather, the media boss Frank Packer. Bob Askin used to play poker at Frank ‘s home. James’ uncle, Clyde, was a NSW MP.

Links between senior Labor figures and the Packer family are just as strong as Liberal ones.

In the first story, we look at how the impression that the second casino was a fait accompli has been achieved and review some of the relevant political background. There is also a chart showing the current shape of Packer’s complicated business empire. At the top of the Chart is Consolidated Press International Holdings (CPIH)  and behind that the family trusts where the private profits end up. Sadly we can’t tell you much more as the trusts are secret.

http://newmatilda.com/2012/10/25/packers-casino-game

We start the second story in February this year when James Packer’s announced that he proposed to ‘gift’ Sydney with a 6 star casino/resort on the public land part of Barangaroo. This announcement was made through an exclusive interview on the front page of the Australian Financial Review.  We look at how the Liberals and Labor locked in behind Packer.

http://newmatilda.com/2012/10/26/casino-macquarie-st-wants

Supporters of the casino repeat James Packer’s claim that his casino will be an economic winner for the people of NSW. But has anyone seen a copy of the Allen Consulting Group report on which he relies? As Greens John Kaye said in an interview I did with him,  consultants will come up with what is required and will limit their findings to what questions are posed. We wanted to know if Premier O’Farrell had seen a copy of the report at the time he endorsed the proposal, just two days after Packer had formally announced it. At the time, O’Farrell said that Packer had mentioned his desire for the casino on a number of occasions when they met. So when did the plan really get hatched? It could even have been back in the days of the Labor government which was repeated to be on the cusp of awarding Packer with a casino back in 2007. We’d like to know the answers to these questions, but unfortunately O’Farrell preferred not to answer them.

Why we posted the O’Farrell questions

I think that part of independent Journalism should let the public know when people won’t answer their questions. It should be part of the extra transparency offered by online publishing. So New Matilda published the questions. If you have any suggestions about how to get the answers put up a comment on New Matilda, or send me a direct message to call you via twitter @Wendy_Bacon or email to New Matilda or me at wendybacon1@gmail.com

Questions we put to O’Farrell

The Packers’ Liberal party links go back a long way but the family’s connections to Labor are just as impressive. We compiled a list of people in their current network across business, media and politics. You can also find out how much the Crown directors are paid. I was also struck although not surprised to see that they get free services at the Crown casinos in Perth and Melbourne. When you think about how much rooms and food might cost, this item alone could be worth many thousands on top of the annual income from directorships.

Team Packer

The next story in our series focused on how casino regulation is supposed to work in NSW and how O’Farrell’s plan to “get on with it” removes a lot of safeguards put in place to protect NSW against organised crime and corrupt influences which have a history of targetting casinos. If NSW wanted to have a new casino, the first move would have been to amend the Casino Control Act to make it possible to have more than one casino in NSW. At the moment only one is allowed. After that the procedure is set out very clearly in the Act. You call for expressions of interest, then hold a tender which involves detailed checking of applicants. The unsolicited proposals legislation raises risk of improper influence and has few of the safeguards in the Casino Control Act.

We also look at the the Independent Gaming and Liquor Authority‘s ongoing investigation into whether Packer’s company Crown should be allowed to raise its shareholding from 10% to up to 25%. Through a public submission, Stephen Mayne has raised some significant issues which he wanted the Authority to follow up during its inquiries.  There are lots of issues the inquiry could explore – but will they?

Red Tape cut for Packer 

Asylum Seekers protest against indefinite detention on Nauru

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Earlier in the year, I prepared a timeline covering the events for the period between 2001 and 2007 during which the Australian coalition government locked-up people seeking asylum on the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru, 4000 kilometres away from Australia. I prepared the timeline because I was upset by the way the Australian media failed to inform the public about the history of detention on Nauru at the time when the Gillard Labor government decided to restart the so-called Pacific Solution by opening detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island in PNG.  After all, people who are eighteen now were still in junior high school when the earlier events occurred. This lack of backgrounding by the media makes it easier for politicians to mislead the public. By presenting the news in a very narrow frame, significant issues are made invisible. 

You can find the timeline on New Matilda here and here. The story is an ugly one of human rights abuse, hunger strikes and forced repatriation that led to deaths. After it was elected in 2007, the Rudd government shut down the detention centre.

On Friday, October 12, New Matilda reporter Adam Brereton reported on an attempted suicide by one Iranian asylum seeker.

Asylum Seeker attempts suicide on Nauru

Two days later, I attended a protest on October 14, I attended a protest outside Sydney’s Town Hall. During the protest, asylum seekers were on the phone from Nauru. I left the protest, expecting that some of this would be reported. Silly me. So when I found no report the following morning, I did this one for New Matilda

Nauru asylum seekers protest delays.

There has however been some good reporting on asylum seekers recently

For example. Kerry Brewster did this excellent report on ABC’s Lateline on the terrible situation of two Tamil detainees.

Tamils speak out against Asio Security Rulings

Speaking at Wikileaks forum at NSW Parliament – September, 2012

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On September 11, I was fortunate to be invited to speak at a forum on Wikileaks sponsored by the NSW Greens and supported by the Stop the War Coalition. Here a video of the speech. The event was Chaired by Greens MLC David Shoebridge. Human Rights Lawyer Kellie Tranter also spoke and has posted a transcript of her speech on her blog

WENDY BACON – Assange, Wikileaks & the Law in a post 9/11 World from CaTV on Vimeo.