MEAA backs journalists’ Hamas pledge

Close to 300 media personalities and journalists have now signed an anti-Israel campaign orchestrated by the MEAA, with the union at loggerheads with Nine management.

Nine management and the journalists’ union are at loggerheads over a warning to staff after an anti-Israel letter distributed industry-wide on Friday called for media outlets to treat Israel like Hamas when it comes to reporting on the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

“Any pressure or intimidation from managers to prevent workers from doing this, including removing them from relevant stories, is an overreach and an attack on both journalists’ rights and the public’s right to know,” says a union letter addressed to members in Nine newsrooms and titled “MEAA supports your right to stand for ethical reporting”.

It pledges support for those who signed, citing its code of ethics and Nine’s Charter of Editorial ­Independence.

The union has also written to Nine management, but no details were available.

Other media groups such as Schwartz Media and the Guardian Australia have yet to indicate whether they will emulate The Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields, The Age’s Patrick Elliget, executive editor Tory Maguire and national editor David King in banning staff from covering the conflict if they sign the letter.

Prominent writers and freelancers for The Saturday Paper and The Monthly – publications owned by Schwartz Media and led by publisher Morry Schwartz, whose Jewish parents survived the Holocaust – have been outspoken in their support for the petition.Nine, the ABC, Network Ten, Schwartz Media, Guardian Australia, and the Walkley Foundation were asked for comment.

The Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields and his leadership colleagues at Nine have said staff who sign the MEAA petition will no longer be able to cover the war in Gaza. Picture: Alex Ellinghausen.

Prominent writers and freelancers for The Saturday Paper and The Monthly – publications owned by Schwartz Media and led by publisher Morry Schwartz, whose Jewish parents survived the Holocaust – have been outspoken in their support for the petition.

While the ABC and Guardian Australia house committees signed the letter, The Australian understands the vote to support the petition failed at both the house committee levels inside The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald last week.

It was then passed at a meeting of the MEAA national media section committee after being tabled by two journalists from the ABC and The Age on Thursday.

The directive caused disquiet on newsroom floors as a number of senior Nine newspaper staff were among the first to support the petition, which calls for outlets in Australia to treat unverified information from the democratically elected government of Israel and terror group Hamas with the same “professional scepticism”, while declaring the current conflict “did not start on October 7”.

Sources from Nine confirmed to The Australian the MEAA had written a “cranky” letter to the organisation, however, the division it is causing internally is concerning for the publications’ leaders.

“The MEAA, who are supposed to be the champions of things like the Walkleys, disrupted everything by releasing this note just after the awards, where we started the day celebrating our colleagues for their achievements and ended in tension and simmering anger on the floor,” one senior Herald ­staffer said.

Morry Schwartz.

Another source said the management’s plan was to adopt a “wait and see” approach: if more senior staff signed the letter that could become a concern. “There’s no staff on that list we’re really concerned about,” the source said.

“It’s more telling who hasn’t signed it, really,” another source said.

Since the petition was circulated on Friday, more than 270 journalists, writers and media personalities have backed its eight tenets to improve coverage, including giving “adequate coverage to credible allegations of war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, and don’t avoid using the term ‘Palestine’ where appropriate”.

Award-winning Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, The Australian Financial Review illustrator David Rowe, health reporter Angus Thomson, The Age’s economics editor Noel Towell, features editor Maher Mughrabi and acting health editor Laura Banks are among the hundreds who support the motion.

waiting [e-mail]/LTj7b9tnXr

— david rowe (@roweafr) November 22, 2023

Senior reporter Rick Morton, from Schwartz Media’s The Saturday Paper, tweeted in support: “The letter is asking journalists to be actual journalists.”

Many of The Guardian Australia senior staff are in support, including its social media reporter Matilda Boseley and investigations editor Marni Cordell.

Over the weekend, as Israeli hostages were being released, the outlet dedicated its homepage to coverage of Palestine prison releases and pro-Palestinian protests in Newcastle and London.

Network Ten and SBS host Narelda Jacobs published a video online to her 42,000 followers on social media at the weekend explaining her support. SBS refused to confirm if the public broadcaster would ban reporters from future coverage.

The letter is asking journalists to be actual journalists https://t.co/jU36SxgBAK

— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) November 24, 2023

Former staff-elected ABC board member Ramona Koval, asked how far the Nine mastheads would be prepared to go with the prohibition on reporters. “But does this include reporting on the ‘war’ here, where intimidating rallies are held in suburbs where Jews live, ‘gas the Jews’ is chanted at the Sydney Opera House and Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi posts a photo (now deleted from her Insta account) of herself with a school student holding a sign urging the making of a cleaner world by removing dirty Jewish ­refuse?”

Nine, The ABC, Network Ten, Guardian Australia, Schwartz Media and the Walkley Foundation were asked for comment.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that representatives from Schwartz Media had not received our various inquiries at the time of first publication.