Chris Mitchell’s book: ideology trumping fact-based reporting

Journalism is certainly in crisis, even if there are more platforms for its distribution.

Chris Mitchell, right, with The Australian’s current editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker and executive chairman Rupert Murdoch. Picture: Alan Pryke

Journalism is certainly in crisis, even if there are more platforms for its distribution than at any time since I joined the profession in 1973. I have many thoughts about what is wrong with modern journalism but, for the purpose of simplicity, I have divided them into three quite separate challenges: the business model is failing, digital innovation is privileging the immediate and the shallow over the difficult and the deep; and ­finally, the training of journalists has been overtaken by ideology and affirmative action (the same forces we see killing the study of history and overtaking genuine ­instruction in the classroom).

The profession also needs ­serious reflection on the question of public trust. This is tied to activism in media education. Scepticism of all claims, including those of activists, and the ability to remain in touch with the community and its expectations with a clear identification with mainstream values should be the prime qualities of the good young journalist.

If you just read the two previous sentences as a working journalist and think they reflect a culture war view of journalism, I will make two points. You are either very young or you are yourself way to the left of mainstream media readers. The positioning of the journalist on the political spectrum is at least as big an issue for the profession as the decline of the business model and the rise of public relations. We saw this in the attitudes of many reporters to Pauline Hanson and One Nation in the late 1990s. The best recent example has been the failure of the wider journalism class to come to terms with the electoral rise of Donald Trump. I am not a fan of Hanson or Trump, but I am totally committed to ­honest, fact-based reporting of what is actually happening in the world of the journalist. The same scrutiny and judgement need to be applied to populist demagogues like Hanson and Trump as to progressive serious politicians such as Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard or serious conservatives such as Tony Abbott and John Howard.

Professor John Henningham of Brisbane’s private journalism education provider Jschool wrote about the political leanings of journalists when he ran the journalism department of the University of Queensland during the 90s. His surveys found a strong inclination towards the progressive side of politics among journalists. David Marr, leading writer at The Guardian, has described the culture of journalism as “vaguely left wing”. A former Weekend Australian, editor Nick Cater has written that in Australia’s capital cities journalists overwhelmingly live in inner-ring suburbs: those most ­associated with Labor Left federal MPs and more recently with Green MPs in state parliaments. Does this mean much?

I think, given that Labor’s federal primary vote has been stuck around 35 per cent for five years and the Greens poll between 10 and 12 per cent each federal election, this would suggest that modern journalism is positioned to the left of its readers and the wider community and a long way to the left of where it was 40 years ago. And I do think this matters.

In an era in which newspaper circulations are falling and mainstream TV news and current ­affairs audiences are fracturing, surely it becomes essential for their survival that media reflect the concerns of their audiences. Yet turn on any ABC radio hourly news broadcast, any Saturday or Sunday, and try to analyse what has put a particular story on the program’s news agenda.

Overwhelmingly, on a quiet news day the broadcast will be dominated by reporting of the claims of activist groups that have flooded Saturday morning inboxes with press releases. Stories about the environment, gay marriage, drug law reform, asylum-seeker claims, animal welfare, anti-coal seam gas protests and the like will receive long and uncritical runs. Who staffs radio newsrooms at weekends? Young reporters and producers.

Even Four Corners has allowed its judgements to be affected by activism. Animals Australia CEO Lyn White has provided secretly and probably sometimes illegally obtained footage of animal cruelty to live Australian exported cattle in Indonesia, sheep in the Middle East and greyhounds being trained with live baits. Now I am an animal lover, but I question the practice of allowing lobby groups to use footage that is most likely taken secretly and air it untested on the nation’s No 1 free-to-air current affairs program.

Beyond that, these stories did great harm to many people. The ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia had the unintended consequence of allowing perhaps a million head of cattle to starve to death in northern Australian drought conditions. It also harmed many farmers who had nothing to do with slaughter practices in foreign countries.

It also probably ensured that animals raised in countries with less humane farming conditions than those practised in Australia simply filled quotas that would have been met by Australian farmers. Similarly, legitimate greyhound trainers and breeders are facing a full-scale campaign by the ABC and Fairfax to ban greyhound racing. This is an industry in which many Australians make a living, but we have seen little journalism reflecting the legitimate concerns of people whose livelihoods have been affected. And what of the ABC’s wider audience and charter responsibilities? It is likely that many rural viewers, who are generally intense users of ABC services, would be averse to this kind of activist journalism.

Whether in the reporting on alleged Aboriginal sacred sites (Hindmarsh Island and Coronation Hill), environmentalists’ predictions of 6m-high sea-level rises by the end of the century or claims by asylum-seekers (untested allegations being aired without checking), we are seeing a profession allowing single-issue activists to take control of its ethics and traditional methodology. Why is it right to subject the self-interested claims of the fossil fuel industry to scrutiny but not right to apply the same level of scrutiny to opponents of the industry?

There can be only one correct answer. The journalist shares the view of the activist opponent of the fossil fuel industry. Yet right across Australia ordinary voters and consumers make hundreds of daily decisions that amount to a vote of confidence in the fossil fuel community.

Chris Mitchell was editor-in-chief of The Australian from 2002 to 2015. These are edited extracts from his book Making Headlines, to be published by MUP on Thursday.