The squalor of buying a scoop undermines good journalism

The ever-growing cluster of self-immolation surrounding the Lehrmann case has now remorselessly spread to journalism, thrusting it into the unaccustomed role of a guilty bystander while besmirching a profession vitally important to a fairer society.

Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media has turned some of journalism’s most lauded tenets into something rotten and corrosive. Credit: Marija Ercegovac

The culture exposed inside the Seven’s Spotlight program is of such unredeemed squalor that, if true, the network’s owners, Seven West Media Limited, have turned some of journalism’s most lauded tenets – guarding democracy, speaking truth to power and following a code of ethics that includes not allowing personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine accuracy, fairness or independence – into something both rotten and corrosive.

The defamation trial brought by former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann against Network Ten and its journalist, Lisa Wilkinson, was reopened to hear evidence from former Seven producer Taylor Auerbach, who told the court his network had paid for sex workers, dinners and even cocaine in an effort to secure an exclusive interview with Lehrmann. Lehrmann’s barrister attacked Auerbach’s credibility and motivations.

In an era when opinion, shoddy opinion polls and surveys sometimes counterbalance news and analysis, the Lehrmann matter has highlighted the media’s role in bringing alleged injustice and wrongdoing to light and the unethical lengths some journalists go to for scoops in a competitive environment.

The Herald’s Jacqueline Maley has noted how the Brittany Higgins-Lehrmann case has turned into a litigation superstorm and done the journalistic profession few favours while underscoring the dichotomy of doing her job: “The rest of us can only look on and weakly protest that we are not all like that. Even as we report on this ghastly saga.”

Journalism historically suffers from a poor reputation and rarely receives good press. It is a cross to bear that in no way inhibits or lessens the need to aim high and continually strive for the highest standards in ethical journalism.

The words “Yellow Journalism” entered everyday language towards the end of the 19th century when two New York publications that emphasised sensationalism over facts fought a bidding war over a cartoon character known as the Yellow Kid. The pejorative term became shorthand for the style of journalism they purveyed.

All the President’s Men and the more recent film Spotlight portrayed journalism as a noble quest, but the great works of fiction about the business, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s play The Front Page, and Nathanael West’s novel Miss Lonelyhearts, Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop and Michael Frayn’s Towards the End of the Morning, all depicted journalists as bibulous, cynical and lazy.

Buying a scoop is slothful and no different from attending a real estate auction. The biggest bid wins. Just now, thanks to Seven’s Spotlight program, the stench is high, and it is perhaps no accident that it was the mindset within the network which was also a staunch defender and supporter of the disgraced Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith.

Six years ago, the Herald revealed Roberts-Smith had murdered helpless Afghan civilians and prisoners and ordered or bullied others to kill them, too. He sued the Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times for defamation. He lost. In defence of good journalism and good journalists, we backed our reporters, Nick McKenzie, Chris Masters and David Wroe, because we had faith in their integrity. We also chose to adhere to our own code, which was not to remain silent but to go where the evidence took us and stay the distance. Seven’s tawdry standards, as delineated in the Lehrmann matter evidence, are an affront to faithful viewers and reporters who work under such tainted journalism standards.

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