Australian Press Council Prize 1999-2000

Winner
Honourable mentions
Judges' comments

The Australian Press Council has announced results of its 1999-2000 essay Prize. The Prize is awarded for the best essay submitted on a set topic.

In 1999-2000 the topic was:

Principle 5 of the Council's Statement of Principles states in part that newspapers should disclose "any commercial or other interest which might be construed as influencing the publication's presentation of news or opinion". In the light of the recent revelations of the possibility that commercial interests may have influenced some radio personalities, to what extent is the press obliged to reveal any conflict of interest which may be involved in the reporting of news and the publication of opinions.

Entries were invited from tertiary students (as at 30 June 2000), who had a 2,500 word limit

There were 40 entries in the essay prize.

Winners were selected by a panel of judges, Professor Clem Lloyd of the University of Wollongong; John Morgan, former editor in chief of the Herald and Weekly Times and an Editor Member of the Australian Press Council; and Jack R Herman, the Council's Executive Secretary.

The Winner: the first prize of $2000 was awarded to Jacob Aldridge of the University of Queensland.

Jacob was born in Brisbane but moved to Murwillumbah, northern New South Wales, with his family in 1988. He returned to Brisbane in 1995 as a boarder at Marist College Ashgrove.

When he graduated from Marist in 1998 was awarded an Overall Position 1, which placed him in the top 2% of his graduating year.

Jacob is now studying a parallel Bachelor of Journalism/Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Queensland. He has already had an article published in the Department newspaper, The Queensland Independent, and was commissioned to write the sixty year history for the Dalby Rotary Club in 1999.

The judges also awarded Honourable Mentions to three other entrants:

• Nick McKenzie, from Melbourne; and
• Michael Malouf, of Western Australia;
• Emilia Verzeletti, of Brisbane;

Nick McKenzie
Nick McKenzie is nineteen years old and is completing his second year of Journalism at RMIT. He hopes to complete an additional post-graduate in industrial relations/politics after he has finished his course.

His ambitions are fuelled with idealistic endeavour that he hopes will never leave him. He aims to become a foreign correspondent or industrial relations reporter and always maintain his independence and subjectivity, even when working for business-oriented newspapers.

Other than that, he is a keen surfer and has also travelled throughout South East Asia for several months. He plans to return later this year if he doesn't succeed in getting a cadetship at a newspaper.

Though he might add, three years of chasing ambulances and going to court seems like a rather daunting prospect, nevertheless he does recognise that it is a long way to the top in journalism and is prepared to begin that ascent.

Michael Malouf
Michael Malouf, 43, completed a BA last year at the University of Western Australia with a double major in English and Ancient History. He was accepted into a postgraduate year in Journalism at Murdoch University which will finish by the end of November 2000.

In the past Michael has mainly held clerical and mainframe computer operations positions in Australia, Scotland, New Zealand and South Africa. He "burnt one remaining bridge rather spectacularly in Sydney 8 years ago", fled to Perth, and he never looked back.

Michael describes himself as a "media hypocrite" because he loves scouring broadsheets from cover to cover, while being cynical about the process that produces them. His course placement in second semester was two weeks of a political internship with the Australian Democrats where he wrote press releases and letters to the editor.

Michael says that his long-term aim is to win Lotto and never work again.

Emilia Verzeletti
Emilia Verzeletti completed her Graduate Diploma in Journalism with the University of Queensland in June 2000 and is now researching her Doctorate of Philosophy on international media.

The focus of her PhD research is on how the media can influence the outcomes of separatist conflicts, East Timor being a case-in-point.

Emilia studied for her GradDip externally from her base in Singapore where she also works part-time as Communications Manager for The Australian Chamber of Commerce, and looks after her 4-month old baby. Emilia competed her Bachelor of Arts with Deakin University in 1997 whilst serving as an officer in the Australian Army.

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Judges' comments on the 1999-2000 APC Prize

[See also the comments made by the 1994 judges and
the comments made by the 1998 judges]

The 2000 judges semi-endorsed these comments by John Morgan:

The academic standard of the 40 essays entered in the 2000 APC Prize (on the question of journalistic conflicts of interest) was high; the journalistic standard was, probably of necessity, lower. Non-conformist thoughts, let alone sparkling new ideas, were markedly few.

Only one or two entrants went out and talked to journalists toiling in the field of newspaper or media endeavour. No one offered anything that looked like a fresh insight, from the journalists' point of view, into complications of reporting news and views.

All too often the entrants uncritically repeated the views of academics, the ponderings of theorists comfortable in their think tanks and institutes, and the pontifications of journalists who have wandered from the paths of righteousness to write textbooks. Hardly once was a contrary view espoused.

The almost universal approach was to call for mandatory disclosure of potential or actual conflict of interest, with hardly any concern for the legal minefield of imposing it - a lawyers' bonanza of court-like cases, appeals, restraining orders and whatever. Idealism was high; practicability low.

The essays clearly show that in Australia, as apparently in the rest of the English-speaking world, there is something of a crisis of confidence in the press and the media in general. This lack of confidence shows up in talking to the public, and listening to complaints to various regulatory bodes, talk-back radio and TV media-watch programs. How far do these complaints reflect a genuine, widespread concern, or is it all an outburst of semi-hysteria whipped up by the army of media-watchers who, by their very nature, have to find something wrong at every turn?

It would be ridiculous to suggest that the media doesn't care about believability, trust, respect and, yes, influence; although some papers, magazines, radio and TV programs give rise to serious doubt about that. However, the sobering fact is that those papers, magazines, radio and TV programs that clearly do value their quality reputation are invariably the ones with circulations/audiences below 'popular' competition where it exists.

Is it that the real problem is not lifting media standards, so much as lifting the standards of the audience? Nothing illustrates the question more clearly than the recent 'cash for comment' scandal in Sydney radio ...

The details need not be repeated here. John Laws and Alan Jones swore to the Australian Broadcasting Authority that the thousands of dollars they received in payola didn't affect their views expressed on air one little bit. Laws disdained to call himself a journalist, rather he was a salesman and entertainer.

The revelations provoked a storm of indignation in the press and among commentators and writers of letters to the editor. The ABA had no legal position to take action against Laws and Jones; its choices were a slap on the wrist of 2UE or the extreme of revoking its licence to broadcast. Since the station basically denied knowledge of the kickbacks the stars were getting, the ABA decided on the slap on the wrist, together with lots of promises of better self-regulation from the station and the overall commercial radio industry.

The ABA also ordered Laws and Jones to announce any sponsorship before giving any comment on anything to do with the donors, the station was also required to list on the internet the pairs' dollar-donors. All of which resulted in Laws ringing on air a cow bell -- more or less the old 'unclean, unclean' call and making a joke of it all - before he delved into a donor's affairs, obviously with a not-too-critical eye.

And what was the effect of the shock, horror of this terrible scandal? Practically nothing. Laws and Jones are still filling the morning air waves, still almost as popular as ever and still raking it in by the trunkful, with only a few sponsors pulling out. So help me, a survey made only a few days ago show them as the most trusted people on radio. Ye gods!

On the other hand, station 2UE appears to have lost a little revenue.

Perhaps the government will listen to the ABA's plea to strengthen its powers, but there's a general election coming, and Laws and Jones can pull a lot of votes.

So much for ethical standards. Not only of the media, but also most importantly of the public. Could it be that until the public 'buys' higher quality and passes over the tainted trash, nothing will fundamentally change? Are the press defenders right in saying the public gets what it wants and is prepared to pay for?

The problem faced by all those concerned with media integrity is how to achieve it. The choice seems to be self-imposed or though semi-autonomous bodies basically funded by governments. The trap is always revealed by the money trail ... 'autonomous' bodies funded by governments, be they courts of law or licensing authorities, must in the end listen to government ideas and be influenced by them; self-regulatory bodies must in the end be influenced by those who design the body and who pay the bills. Is there such a thing as a completely independent body?

Government-funded bodies are anathema to newspapermen, journalists and management alike; the dangers to a free press and media are all too obvious. Bodies such as the ABA are tolerable since the broadcast media have a limited span, as opposed to the open-go free-for-all possible on the unlimited Internet. But in ABA-style bodies there are the obvious problems of favouritism and bias, and in the Internet the problem of unbridled freedom for every nut.

In the self-regulatory area, too, there are problems galore. The Australian Press Council is made up of about 20 members evenly divided between the public and independent journalists on one side and the press on the other, plus an independent chairman. It is funded by the industry itself. It meets mostly once a month to hear complaints against the press and to consider the many dangers that appear to threaten press freedom. It has a list of principles that say the usual things. Its only power is to issue adjudications on complaints, which it then expects the complained-against paper to publish (in 99.9 per cent of the cases they do). It also offers advice to government and the like (often they seek it).

The usual complaint against the Press Council is that it is toothless. Does that complaint make sense? Do we really want an outside body with coercive powers to force publication on a paper, to restrict circulation, or even to halt publication? Isn't that the stuff of dictatorships and 'guided democracy'? How independent would a government body be? How free of political bias?

The journalists' union has its own code of conduct, which against says all the right things. Complaints can be made to it, but only about individual journalists (the Press Council does not accept complaints against individuals, only publications). It has power to reprimand, fine and expel members. The snag is that not all journalists are members, and anyone can walk out at any time, leaving the union and its sanctions high and dry.

The vast majority of papers have their own codes of conduct, which again say all the right things. They, of course, have the right of hire and fire, which is pretty strong stuff. At least one has tried the experiment of appointing an ombudsman, but it made the mistake of putting a lawyer in the job, instead of an old, experienced journalist. The result eventually was a rebellion by the staff, who were spending more time answering his questions and producing documentation than on chasing stories.

All these various codes prohibit the cash-for-comment behaviour and its like. Cash for no comment has to be covered too, where the 'wrong' news is ignored.

A protective measure advocated by many of the essayists, and gaining ground in the press, is the disclosure of interest, in such areas as finance and real estate, and the revealing of freebies in travel, restaurants, CD reviews and the like. But here, surely, some commonsense has to be applied. Must every political reporter reveal that he leans to the right or the left? Does every football commentator have to announce his bias towards the Roosters rather than the Panthers? Must the odd free lunch be reported? Should the reviewer pay for his show tickets?

Many a columnist has taken to giving an e-mail address at the end of each piece, clearly a way of increasing transparency - and a method of getting feedback. However, one of the best columnists has dropped the idea, mainly because he is probably the most controversial in the land, and he gets bombarded with hate mail.

Editorials (leaders) are another source of controversy. Some say they should be signed, even if they are a collective opinion of editorial leadership; yet others ask why should a paper label any opinion as its own anyway? Is it the editor's opinion or the owner's? One millionaire owner - in the days before billionaires - famously told a gathering of journalists: "Who says your opinion is better than mine? There's no reason why my paper can't express my opinion not yours."

Owners' outside-the-media interests, perhaps, should be listed. What? Each shareholder's? They are owners, too.

Advertorials fall at least part way into the cash-for-comment net. Together with PR-led stories they find their way into the press. Critics say that the truth is that the finance pages are often half advertorials, with far more 'puff' stories than disturbing revelations - where were the at-the time-exposes of Bond, Skase, Elliott? Ditto the motoring, travel and leisure pages - the faults in last year's car are revealed when the new model comes out.

But isn't that exactly what readers expect? Don't they understand and cope with it? Perhaps all that should be required is that there should be no confusion about items that might not clearly be soon as 'sponsored'. Motoring pages are motoring pages; real estate blurbs are just that; dream holidays are mostly dreams.

Then there's the horrible truth that PR, dealing with anything from rock stars to premiers, plays and an important part in feeding the voracious media, blank pages, empty hours on radio and TV, and ferociously competitive magazines. It's a newshound eats newshound world out there.

For some, the greater truth is that many a small, local paper would go under without the sort of stories that are at least half advertorials from local stores and organisations. Whatever the theorists may say, the commercial imperative is in the end supreme. The first function of a paper is to exist; all the Scott-of-the-Manchester-Guardian good intentions can flow only from a paper that manages to continue to exist. Isn't that so?

Papers fall into two categories: they either stand on their own two feet or they are subsidised and, if they are subsidised by commercial organisations, political bodies, governments or even benevolent billionaires, then eventually the piper has to be paid. Only papers that are commercially strong can provide the editorial freedom that goes to produce quality and integrity; that's the platform for excellence, but the desire and determination have to be there, too. Unfortunately, commercial success can be most easily bought through low quality and lack of integrity ... is that a reflection on the public as much as on the journalist, managers and owners who take advantage of it?

These were the areas that were explored to varying degrees by the entrants in the APC essay competition. The essayists didn't come up with all the answers, but, then, nobody else has.

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See also:
2000-1 APC Prize topic and conditions of entry