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Read the Australian's Full Response to Media Watch's Questions From: Mitchell, Chris Sent: Friday, 10 September 2010 5:07 PM To: Lin Buckfield Subject: RE: Questions from Media Watch Dear Lin, Bob Brown criticised the ABC for ignoring the Greens during the federal election campaign and not treating his party seriously. We assigned a senior Canberra bureau reporter to travel around the country with Mr Brown during the early part of the campaign and gave extensive coverage to the party throughout the campaign, including its campaign launch. We make no apologies for applying scrutiny to the Greens’ policies, something other media organisations including the ABC appear to have paid scant attention to, and all the more important given their balance of power position in both Houses. 1 Possibly but not exclusively. We have covered many Greens news stories straight. 2 We are not a big circulation newspaper and we are not silly enough to think we could wreck anything. We are scrutinising a major party (as we did the Howard Government during the AWB story) and we are scrutinizing a new government. We do not seek to be part of any “rainbow Coalition” but just to do our jobs 3 We would have run several hundred political stories since August 15. Twenty negatives on the greens seems very few. We would have run many more negative stories about Labor and the Coalition in that period. 4 The public interest in this story is obvious. Imagine if we found Bob Katter’s wife was employed by Tony Abbott. That would have been reported in the public interest. No one thought it inappropriate to report the familial relationship of Bruce Hawker and his cousin Tony Windsor. 5 The Greens’ views on the economy, death taxes, the shutting down of the coal industry etc need to be widely reported. Just as The Australian refused to be intimidated by Mr Rudd last year, we have no intention of bowing to Bob Brown’s bullying this year. Chris Mitchell From: Lin Buckfield Sent: Friday, 10 September 2010 4:18 PM To: Mitchell, Chris Subject: Questions from Media Watch Dear Chris, I’m hoping you can help with brief responses to the following questions regarding your editorial of yesterday (September 9, 2010) and your coverage of the Greens in the lead up to the election and over the past few weeks: 1. In your editorial yesterday you wrote of Bob Brown: “We believe he and his Green colleagues are hypocrites; that they are bad for the nation; and that they should be destroyed at the ballot box.” Have you acted on this editorial belief? Has The Australian been running articles attacking, undermining and discrediting the Greens? 2. You also say, “Greens leader Bob Brown has accused The Australian of trying to wreck the alliance between the Greens and Labor. We wear Senator Brown’s criticism with pride.” Does this mean you are attempting to wreck the alliance? Why? 3. The Greens claim The Australian has run more than 20 articles that are actively hostile to the party since August 15, just days before the election. Is your editorial coverage intended to be unbiased? Or are you comfortable about campaigning journalism that reflects a particular worldview? If your aim is to report impartially, how do you explain the volume or articles attacking the Greens in your news pages? 4. A story on September 2 under the headline “Bandt slept with the enemy in campaign” claimed that the fact that Adam Bandt’s partner was a former Labor staffer showed the Greens are “merely an offshoot of old Labor”. How does a personal relationship of one party MP justify such a claim about the political philosophy of a longstanding political party? Was the purpose of this article to attack the Greens? 5. Also on Thursday September 2 the front page of The Australian featured three stories all hostile to the Greens. “PM’s high-risk Greens embrace” and “Shockwave sent through mining heartland” and “Pact puts Labor brand and Gillard leadership on the line”. There was another story attacking Greens economic policy on page 4 under the headline ‘Economic policies from the quaint past”. The Greens claim they are being subjected to a vindictive and ideologically driven campaign and they are not given a fair hearing in The Australian. What is your response to that claim? Can the Greens expect to be reported fairly in the pages of The Australian? Sincerely, Lin Buckfield Executive Producer Media Watch ABC Television .
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