A New Chairman

Professor Dennis Pearce has retired at the end of his term and the Australian Press Council has appointed Professor Ken McKinnon as his successor.

The Australian Press Council has appointed Emeritus Professor Ken McKinnon as its new Chairman, his term commencing on 1 December.

One of the country's most distinguished educators, Professor McKinnon was Vice Chancellor of Wollongong University from 1981 to 1995. His professional interests and achievements have covered a wide field in education, science, technology and the arts, both in Australia and in Papua-New Guinea.

Professor McKinnon will succeed Professor Dennis Pearce, a former Commonwealth Ombudsman, who was appointed Chairman of the Council in 1997.

He will be the Council's sixth Chairman since its inception in 1976 and the first who is not a lawyer.

Professor McKinnon

Emeritus Professor Ken McKinnon is one of Australia's most senior educators, with experience at the highest levels in universities, schools and government. Since 1995 he has been a consultant to higher education in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific (as a principal of McKinnon Walker Pty Ltd). Projects have included work for the sector as a whole, national organisations (DETYA, the AVCC, and IDP Education Australia), and fifteen individual universities (including a year as Vice-Chancellor of James Cook University during 1997). His latest publication (with Walker and Davis) is Benchmarking. A Manual for Australian Universities (Canberra. Commonwealth of Australia. February 2000)

He was Vice-Chancellor of Wollongong University from 1981 until 1995. During this period he was President of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (1991 & 1992) and Chairman of IDP Education Australia (1993 & 1994). Earlier he was Chairman of the Australian Schools Commission (1973-81) and Director of Education in Papua New Guinea (1966-73).

He also served as Chairman of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO from 1984 to 88 and was Chairman of the State Board of Education, Victoria, 1982-85. Since 1994, he has been a Director of the NSW College of Law.

He was educated at Adelaide, Queensland and Harvard Universities (where he took his doctorate in psycholinguistics as a Harkness Fellow).

Professor McKinnon has a long-standing interest in the arts and has been Deputy Chairman of the Australia Council, Deputy Chairman of the Sydney Dance Company (1981-95) and chaired the National Opera Enquiry (Opera in Australia) 1980.

The Press Council's Vice Chairman, Lange Powell said, "Professor McKinnon's experience and personal standing demonstrate precisely the independence and commitment to the public interest that the Council wants to maintain. We are delighted that he has responded with such enthusiasm to our invitation to take up the Council's key position."

Professor McKinnon said he relished the opportunity to be part of the effort to maintain the strength, freedom and fairness of Australia's press.

I've long valued and admired that tenacity, skilled news-gathering and irreverence for sacred cows that characterises our press. It has to fight off regular attempts to muzzle news sources, cover up scams and take refuge in antiquated defamation laws.

There is equal interest for me in combating the potential modern technology offers for completely stripping away the privacy of individuals. Technological develop-ments are forcing the press to grapple with a fascinating range of new questions of fairness.

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Professor Dennis Pearce

Professor Dennis Pearce has completed a three-year term as Chairman of the Council and has retired to concentrate on other activities. He continues as a Professor Emeritus of Law at the ANU and with his work on the Copyright Tribunal, among other interests.

Mr Powell noted that Professor Pearce's Chairmanship had greatly enhanced the Council's role and public profile.

Dennis Pearce has been a strong moving force in many areas of interest to the Council, and has extended its reputation as a vigorous, independent advocate for newspaper readers and for the freedoms and responsibilities of the Australian press.

Dennis has led our representations to the Federal Government on media self-regulation, cross media ownership rules, and privacy legislation. He has guided several major structural and procedural changes needed to ensure the Council remains responsive to new developments in the press, such as the growth of on-line publications.

Above all, he has provided just the right mixture of diplomacy, intellectual rigour and, on occasion, sheer negotiating toughness. They're essential qualities in a Chairman of an organisation that regularly has to mediate between the competing perspectives of private individuals, editors, and commercial, professional or political interests.

Professor Pearce says that, when he was appointed Chairman, he did not know what to expect of the Council.

It is a condition of appointment that the Chairman have no connection with the press. I was perhaps over-qualified in this respect!

He notes that he brought to the job the general disrespect that most Australians have for the press and arrived at the height of Media Watch's open season on the Council, with its almost weekly dose of derision.

My learning curve had to be very rapid."He observed from the first meeting how wrong the accepted view of the Council was. "Rather than a lap-dog of the industry, the size and diversity of the membership results in vigorous debates across interest lines, with no certainty at to the outcome of adjudications.

"The Council composition ensures differences of viewpoint and the Council's appointments have meant it is an extraordinarily disparate group, representing almost all shades of opinion in the community." Professor Pearce's conclusion after three years is that the Council is an ideal body to judge whether the press is acting responsibly in exercising its freedom. "This is a range of experience which could never be achieved by a government-appointed body."

Another difference from the accepted view noted by Professor Pearce is that, far from being the press's puppet, the Council is disliked by sections of the press. "An adverse adjudication stings. A number of editors are as inept at acknowledging errors and apologising as some politicians. Their being obliged to do so by a Council finding hurts."

The other feature of the Council's activities noted by the out-going Chairman is its role in "ensuring the freedom of the press is safeguarded from the almost continuous attempts to curtail it. Realising the importance of there being a body that performs such a task was a significant step in my learning process.

"Being Chairman of the Council made me more appreciative of the fundamental importance to our society of a free press.

"I believe the Council is a successful example of self-regulation and I feel privileged to have been its Chairman. It's an experience that I will always value greatly."

see also
Index of Dennis Pearce's material on the website

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