Attempts to silence reporters are becoming increasingly troubling
If the following note seems disjointed, I apologise. Half of it was written last Friday before I was forced to set it aside and attend to an emerging threat to the safety of one of our journalists.
In a concerning trend, interruptions like this have become more and more frequent of late.
Threats and bullying of our journalists exist on a broad spectrum ranging from public derision to intimidation and acts of physical violence. Almost every journalist whose stories you read in The Age will have been targeted by threats or harassment at some point in their career.
Donald Trump’s tactic of singling out and picking on journalists is designed to silence and distract from serious questions. Credit: AP
It’s a side of our industry that is rarely discussed, but I suspect it is something better dealt with through dialogue. Few, if any, of society’s problems are improved by silence.
To be clear, I’m not talking about criticism, debate or argument. Journalists provide a platform for public criticism and our work, in turn, is open to criticism. The more of that, the better.
I am talking about personal threats, intimidation and bullying designed either to stop journalists from revealing uncomfortable truths or because of some misguided apprehension that people who work in the public eye are somehow fair game for appalling treatment.
I am talking about incidents such as the recent experience of our leading investigative reporter Nick McKenzie. An act of apparent sabotage and intimidation occurred at his home. Thankfully, he was unharmed. CCTV footage captured images of an offender and police are investigating.
The incident followed his involvement in the Gold Walkley Award-winning Building Bad series, which exposed a triangle of corruption between organised criminals, and senior figures in the CFMEU and building industry.
The failed attempt to intimidate McKenzie into silence might be one of the most high-profile examples of such conduct, but it is far from isolated.
Age cartoonist, Melbourne artist and Chinese dissident Badiucao has for years been subject to threats and intimidation due to the political nature of his work, which has been highly critical of the Chinese Communist Party regime and its stifling of free speech.
As Badiucao’s profile has increased, so too have the threats. Credit: Matthew Absalom-Wong
Good Weekend recently told the story of his futile bid to hide his true identity to prevent threats against him and his family in China. The story, beautifully illustrated in his own inimitable style, also revealed a bizarre and mysterious incident in which someone impersonated the illustrator. His story was told with the help of The Age’s opinion editor, Patrick O’Neil, and nominated for a Walkley Award, the nation’s highest journalistic honour. Badiucao already has one such award to his name.
This time, however, things were different. Badiucao and O’Neil were subjected to trolling, harassment and threats online – mostly in Mandarin – calling for the nomination to be rescinded. While Badiucao has been the subject of threats and intimidation for more than a decade now, it is no less unsettling.
These are just two recent examples that are fresh in my mind. Other reporters at The Age have been subjected to harassment and intimidatory behaviour, especially those reporting on the rise of the far right.
While these examples are at the more extreme end of the spectrum, threats and intimidation are becoming increasingly frequent. And not just at The Age. Anecdotally, I hear the same concerns from colleagues at different outlets.
Even in settings once considered relatively safe, such as press conferences, reporters face intimidation and bullying with chilling intentions. We saw that in September when a neo-Nazi crashed a press conference for Premier Jacinta Allan. Less threatening but also intended to silence, Donald Trump accused ABC reporter John Lyons of “hurting Australia” for asking about his financial dealings while president. Trump called our own North America correspondent Michael Koziol “nasty guy” in another exchange.
These tactics of singling out reporters and picking on them have been adopted by several Australian politicians on both sides of the divide. You can probably guess which ones I’m talking about.
Like other threats and intimidation, the tactic is designed to silence or distract from the serious questions at hand. But every time it is deployed, it sends a small signal that it’s OK to treat reporters poorly, or with disrespect. It is not.
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