1. Nick Mckenzie and Richard Baker Are First-Rate Journalists Who Have
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From: Mathieson, Clive Sent: Friday, 16 November 2012 12:31 PM To: Menios Constantinou Subject: RE: Media Watch questions 1. Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker are first‐rate journalists who have had the running on the Securency story. At various times, we have attempted to get into the issue by assigning reporters and have broken some stories, particularly when the scandal first emerged in May 2009 and more recently. The point is, as you acknowledge, we are now engaged with the story, unlike the ABC with the AWU issue. I also note that The Age’s sister newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, has been somewhat less enthusiastic about the Securency story despite having access to the copy. 2. They might be valid reasons but only if the ABC was not so conspicuous in its absence on the AWU issue – and if its commentators were not ignoring the story, providing platforms for critics to dismiss it or actively talking it down (something The Australian has never done with the Securency issue). Almost every major news outlet is now engaged with the story, with The Age and The Australian Financial Review breaking good yarns in recent weeks and joining The Australian in the belief there are important questions yet to the answered. Mark Baker at The Age and Mark Skulley at the AFR had to start from scratch – like Hedley Thomas – in finding documents and interviewing primary sources. But that’s what good journalists do. Commercial television and radio networks are covering the political ramifications. The issue gets a good airing on talkback radio. And Neil Mitchell on 3AW in Melbourne says the Prime Minister has questions to answer. Yet the ABC, which so enthusiastically pursued Barbara Ramjan’s allegations against Tony Abbott, is nowhere to be seen on the story. (The fact that Ms Ramjan’s allegations were first published by another media outlet did not hold the ABC back on that occasion.) The ABC’s respected news programs have barely touched the AWU story, while other parts of the organisation actively undermine it. Two examples: On the ABC’s News Breakfast program on Wednesday morning, Liberty Sanger ignored the story dominating the front page of The Australian when discussing daily newspapers. And on Thursday ABC 702’s Linda Mottram gave the Ten Network’s Paul Bongiorno the platform to parrot the talking points from the Prime Minister’s office that the reporting was nothing more than a “smear” because no “smoking gun” had been produced. On Media Watch on August 27, host Jonathan Holmes acknowledged the merit in Hedley Thomas’s reporting when he dismissed as nonsense the suggestion that it was based on “vague claims … recycled from right‐wing hate blogs”. “Thorough, professional, accurate reporting on issues like this, that otherwise fester in the murk of the internet, is a good thing, not a bad one,” he said. “It’s what journalists ought to do.” Unless, it seems you’re at the news organisation with more journalists than any other in this country – the ABC. Clive Mathieson Editor The Australian From: Menios Constantinou Sent: Friday, 16 November 2012 10:02 AM To: Mathieson, Clive Subject: Media Watch questions Dear Clive, Media Watch is taking a look at the issue raised in your newspaper yesterday about the lack of coverage the Julia Gillard/Bruce Wilson story has received on the ABC, and especially ABC News Breakfast’s failure to mention the story on Wednesday morning. We are also interested in the wider issue of journalists and media outlets failing to cover major stories that have been broken by rival outlets. In light of this, we have some questions to which we’d appreciate your responses. In May 2009, The Age newspaper broke a major story involving the Reserve Bank and its currency firm Securency. The ABC’s Four Corners and The Age presented a joint story on the Securency issue in May 2010. The issue has for several years been considered one of Australia's most serious corruption investigations. Media Watch has identified just 10 articles directly relating to the issue published in your newspaper in 2009/10/11, while The Age published almost 30 separate articles on the issue in 2010 alone. 1. How do you respond to the suggestion that, at least until earlier this year when Federal Parliament began seriously to examine the issue, The Australian has “run dead” on the RBA/Securency story, and failed to give it the prominence that an issue of such major national importance deserves? News outlets are often reluctant to follow up each other’s stories. This can be (a) because they do not consider the story as important or valid as their rivals do, or (b) because they do not have the first‐hand research to support claims that their rivals are making and therefore are unwilling to risk defamation writs, or (c) (a reason frequently cited by our viewers) because the story does not fit the political agenda of the news outlet. 2. In your newspaper yesterday, Nick Leys wrote that the Gillard/Wilson issue “remains for the national broadcaster the story that dare not speak its name”. It would be easy to read into the piece the implication that the ABC’s reluctance to follow up Hedley Thomas’s reporting is attributable to (c) above. Do you accept that (a) or (b) might be valid reasons for the ABC’s current attitude to the Gillard/Wilson story, just as they might be for The Australian’s attitude to the Securency story? Thanks for taking the time to consider these questions. We’d appreciate a response by 5pm today. Feel free to contact me on the numbers below. Regards, Menios Constantinou Journalist (Research), Media Watch .