National security an excuse to hide truth

Ben Bradlee, the legendary executive editor of The Washington Post who published the stories of the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency in the 1970s, said: “It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.’’

Using the veil of national security to avoid the truth is something I experienced first-hand as editor of The Australian in 2007, when my faith in authority was tested by the case of Mohamed Haneef.

Haneef is the Indian doctor falsely accused of aiding terrorism who had the unfortunate distinction of serving the longest time in police detention without charge in Australia’s history.

When The Australian’s dual Gold Walkley award-winning investigative reporter Hedley Thomas obtained the full transcript of the secret Australian Federal Police record of interview it became clear the government line on Haneef, in what was a highly charged election year, was as heavy-handed as it was misleading.

It simply didn’t hold up to journalistic scrutiny.

Hedley had written a number of exclusive stories on the case before a confidential source leaked him the police interview. Haneef’s lawyer Stephen Keim SC would later out himself as the source who risked his career as a barrister to bring the truth to light. It is disturbing to think that if Hedley hadn’t obtained that document and The Australian hadn’t run that piece challenging the official position, Dr Haneef may have spent much more time behind bars.

Indeed, he might not have been the only one.

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Taking the decision to publish was one of the most solemn and risky of my career. We were right on deadline and the paper’s lawyers and external counsel both warned of the danger of publishing, saying it could breach national security laws.

I walked into the office of the then editor-in-chief of The Australian Chris Mitchell and he asked me what the law said.

I told him: “It says the editor can go to jail for up to five years.”

He said: “I’m fine with that, mate.”

I was surprised for a moment that he was so sanguine.

“Really?” I said.

“Yep,” he replied. “After all, I’m just the editor-in-chief. You’re the editor.”

Chris’s dark humour lightened a tense situation, but he backed the story to the hilt and in the end I packed up my toothbrush and we made the call to publish.

The public interest was overwhelming and a man’s freedom was at stake. If this wasn’t what newspapers were made to do, then nothing was.

And so once more it fell to the media to deliver justice and scrutiny where the normal apparatus of government failed to do so — or indeed was delivering the very opposite.

Paul Whittaker is CEO of Sky News. He is a former editor-in-chief of The Australian and editor of The Daily Telegraph and the winner of three Walkley Awards. In 1995, he risked jail after refusing to answer more than 400 questions at a commission of inquiry in order to protect his sources.