Case Studies

Case Study 4 (November 2000):
Dad Slain

The article

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The Complaint

Enclosed is a reduced photocopy of today's front page taken from the Everyday News.

The arrogant cruelty of it and callous disregard for, (firstly) the murder victim's wife and children, (secondly) his family and friends as well as most Victorians is more than astounding, it's disgusting.

I'm writing to you asking that you take this matter up with those responsible for this gross kind of gutter journalism. As an ex-journalist myself, I can see how many decent, hard working journos would cringe at rubbishy sensationalism such as this, as these eds are obviously tossing an experiment to the masses in order to see what kind of response they get back, at the expense of an already badly mauled family.

It's my hope these perpetrators of such insipid material will be harshly dealt with by your organisation, the actual publication of such material is morally criminal. Even years from now, this poor man's children could stumble across this crass front page and see the bloodied image of their father stabbing into their eyes.

I am heartily ashamed of such exhibitionism and disregard for human dignity, even in death. This particular front page hails the murderers, giving no sympathy, shock or regard to the victim and/or his loved ones.

I join with many thousands of irate Victorians in asking you to bring those at the Everyday News directly responsible to task about, in the most severest measure possible.

Note: By the time the Council heard this matter, a total of four complaints had been received regarding the photograph.

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Further article and editorial

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Letters to the editor

Everyday News, 20 September 1987

Privacy Invaded

I take strong objection to the photo of Mr Robert Rogers on the cover of your paper. Mr Rogers is entitled to privacy at least in death. The man is unfortunate enough to be murdered, but to add insult to injury you splash his photo across the front page. This might sell a lot of newspapers and would go down really well in America, but we're in Australia - and you shouldn't get the two countries confused. This photo is an offence against Mr Rogers and his family and a gross invasion of their privacy.
V. JONES

No Respect

I was absolutely disgusted with your tasteless choice of photograph (18/9). Have you no respect for his wife, family and friends? I feel that you should apologise to his wife.
M F BOROUGH

Careless Action

We are writing to register our disgust and abhorrence of your action in printing the graphic photograph of Mr Rogers on the front page. We are appalled at the lack of care and responsibility shown by your newspaper towards Mr Rogers' family and to the general public.
NINETEEN SIGNATORIES

A great disservice to profession

On Wednesday morning I bought my usual paper and coffee and saw before me a headline and picture in league with any good horror story. Only this sensationalism was not out of a Stephen King book - this was real. It seems the editor thought the picture of the mutilated body was good reporting. All you have succeeded in doing is to disgust a lot of people. And did you ever consider the people you personally hurt? You said the wife of the deceased was very distressed. Do you think she would be over the moon with joy to see your paper? You have done a great disservice to your profession. I don't suppose you'd have the guts to print this in your letters column.
DAVID BLOOM

Exposure to Violence

CONGRATULATIONS on your excellent photograph on the front page (18/9) of murder victim Mr Robert Rogers. Sure it might upset a few people, such as the dead man's family and friends, but after all it's unlikely they would ever want to buy your paper anyway.
The important thing is to cater to the tastes of the silent majority who really don't seem to get enough exposure to violence in the media today.
P. SCOTT

I WISH to express my disgust at the picture of the "Slain Dad". This represents no consideration for the wife or family and certainly a page I would not wish my children to see. I am sorry you did not have the foresight to consider the grieving family. It just goes to show that the News will do for sensationalism.
A. B. CASE

I would like to voice my total objection to the front page headline photo in your paper. We purchase the News daily and are disappointed in that type of unnecessary, unpleasant journalism. I feel it is sensationalising a story to sell newspapers and hope for more responsible reporting of news in the future.
MIKAELA ANDERSON

I EXPRESS my abhorrence at the disgusting and cruel way you have chosen to publish the picture of a murdered man in your newspaper. It is even more grotesque when you couple it with the head-line "Dad Slain".I am sure most people would find this type of journalism sadistic and unthinking. Yet it must be far worse for those persons who know the man and are forced to relive the situation so you can sell papers. I can only hope common sense and decency will prevail in future and that you will refrain from resorting to such base journalism.
PETER NATHANIELS

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Editor's reply

1. Various residents of Melbourne have complained to the Press Council about Everyday News' 18 September publication of a front page picture of a man murdered in the front yard of his house. From the nature of the complaints it must be assumed that the Press Council will have to consider:
    
   whether the publication had due respect for private rights and sensibilities; and
    
   whether it was guilty or not of a lapse of taste so gross as to bring the freedom of the press into disrepute.
    
2. Everyday News freely acknowledges that the photograph was stark, shocking and capable of upsetting many of the people who saw it. But it vehemently denies that its publication was in breach of those parts of the Press Council's statement of principles as paraphrased above.
    
3. And with equal force it denies that publication of the picture was an act of irresponsibility as alleged by some of the complainants.
    
4. Therefore, the following submissions are made in support of those assertions.
    
5. Due respect for private rights and sensibilities is a worthy dictum but it is one which must be honored more in the breach than the observance if the press is to present the news without an unacceptable degree of self censorship.
    
6. With every report of the conviction and sentencing of persons for criminal offences there is a better than even possibility that publication will add to the humiliation of the accused and cause embarrassment and hurt to that person's close family.
    
7. In the florid Australian political milieu, any report of attacks on and discomfiture of a politician cannot fail to hurt and embarrass the politician's close family.
    
8. In the interests of brevity only two such examples are given but, obviously, many more could be presented.
    
9. It is bound to be argued, of course, that reports of the type just outlined are matters in which the public interest outweighs considerations of private rights and sensibilities.
    
10. In respect of the present complaints it is submitted that murder is a matter of prime public interest. It is the ultimate crime against the person and the public has a legitimate interest in being informed about its incidence and prevalence, about police investigations and, in the long run, the outcome of murder trials.
     
11. In the case at issue it is legitimate to ask whether publication of the picture served the public interest.
     
12. It is submitted that it did by very reason of its starkness. It brought home more forcefully than any words the brutality, destructiveness and finality of murder - things which usually are appreciated only by those police, journalists and others who actually see murder victims.
     
13. Could that not have been conveyed in words? Indeed, it could although not as eloquently. The written report of the murder could have recorded, for instance, that the victim slumped in his front yard drenched in blood from the gunshot wounds which killed him.
     
14. Had that been all Everyday News published it is unlikely that any complaint would have been made to the Press Council but surely it would have had an equally distressing effect on those close to the murder victim. (It is also relevant to consider the likelihood of members of the victim's family actually seeing him in the position in which he was photographed.)
     
15. Turning now to whether publication of the photograph was a lapse of taste so gross as to bring the freedom of the press into disrepute it is submitted that the mere publication of a picture of violent death is not a lapse of taste so gross as to undermine the freedom of the press, albeit that it is stark and horrific.
     
16. Photography is an important part of journalism. It cannot adequately do what words can do in many cases, but it often surpasses the written word in describing atmosphere and emotion. It has an especial impact in depicting violence and tragedy. (In passing it might be observed that one such picture of violence and tragedy has been accorded the status of an artistic masterpiece and that was Robert Capa's photograph of a Loyalist soldier falling dead during a charge in the Spanish Civil War.)
     
17. For this reason, pictures of violent death are not a regular part of journalistic fare nor are they published without serious reflection. Such as the case at Everyday News on the night it was decided to publish the photograph.
     
18. Nevertheless, for generations the Australian press has published such pictures when occasion demanded - nor has press freedom been brought into disrepute.
     
19. The press has published, and still republishes from time to time, the ultimate in nauseating pictures of death - those of the victims of Dachau, Belsen and Auschwitz piled in naked heaps. It has published photographs of Buddhist monks burning themselves to death in Vietnam. Not long ago it published pictures of the victims of the so-called Fathers Day massacre in Sydney. More recently virtually every Australian newspaper published a picture of a murdered Israeli woman slumped on the bow of a yacht in a Syprus harbor. The press has continued over the years to publish pictures of the dead of a dozen different wars.
     
20. One cannot but ask why such pictures have been accepted while Everyday News' picture has let loose a torrent of indignation.
     
21. Is it because people - and especially the present complainants - do not equate foreigners or soldiers or slain bikies with real human beings? Is it inconceivable that they should so think?
22. Or is it more likely to have been the fact that the dead man pictured in Everyday News was identified as an actual Melbourne resident murdered at a readily identifiable place?
     
23. It is submitted that this is the most probable reason for the complaints. The circumstances merely combined to bring home to readers the reality of murder.
     
24. And, if such be the case, Everyday News should be applauded rather than condemned.
     
25. Everyday News therefore asks the Press Council to accept its submissions and to find in its favor.
     
26. To argue the opposite point of view one might say, "Well, as a general proposition it is valid for the press to publish on occasion that which is distressing or offensive but in these particular circumstances...."
     
27. On the night the decision was made to publish the picture, all the particular circumstances were considered - not only by the editor but by his journalists - as was the likelihood that publication would cause offence, perhaps even damage the paper's viability. It was a decision soberly made.
     
28. A finding based on the proposition of "but in these particular circumstances...." would have the salutary effect of constraining not only the editor of Everyday News but all other editors to be timid in the future, to place their fear of censure above what they might perceive to be their duty on occasion.
     
29. No less a body than the Supreme Court of the United States has pointed to the danger (in Gertz v Robert Welch, 1974).
     
30. If newspapers were only about being nice and innocuous there would be no problem. But newspapers are not only about being nice and innocuous.
     
31. Everyday News therefore urges the Press Council not only to find in its favor but in a more general sense to declare in forthright terms that the press has not only a right but a duty to publish on occasion that which even a majority of readers might find distasteful, distressing or even downright abhorrent.
     

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The complainant wrote further

It is with regret that I note the absolute unrepentant and totally arrogant attitude of Everyday News' management. I am quite able to believe that what we are dealing with is not a basic freedom of the press, but a policy that in order to "sell papers", place the accent on sensationalism, no matter what the cost. Everyday News is careful to state that it is now fighting for a principle, the right to tell the truth editorially or pictorially...I believe it should be made aware of the fact that the very dictatorial idealism it pertains to be fighting against, the paper is now practising itself...dictating what we the public should and should not read and see and be offended and hurt by.

I don't wish to dictate anything but common decency, honesty in journalism and one other major ingredient the newspaper has apparently thrown out of the window, and that it something I was taught as a trainee journalist many years ago ... again and again ... "be in touch with the public, know who they are". Everyday News, in its defence has stated it couldn't care less, it has a policy to keep up with and in so doing, is totally out of touch with people, their feelings, their ideals and goals, families, compassion and intellect.

The paper's submission is definitely NOT satisfactory...they don't care! I therefore request a hearing in this matter, someone's got to make a stand for a decent and honest newspaper without the sensationalism and gore.

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Questions to consider