Talking Point: How terrorism hysteria turns police reports into propaganda

GREG BARNS: the media falls short in its coverage of terrorism-related stories in Australia.

ON THE eve of Christmas, police and politicians told us a terrorist attack in Melbourne had been thwarted. The media uncritically reported the spin and hype and foolishly allowed the demagogue Pauline Hanson a platform to spew out her racist bile about Muslim Australians.

When it comes to the reporting of allegations of terrorist activity there is, it seems, no presumption of innocence for the accused persons. No critical analysis of what is said to be the truth. The media simply reprints whatever outlandish or plain wrong statement police and their political masters care to divulge.

One might have thought the media would have learnt to be more critical or sceptical when it comes to reporting allegations of terrorist activity. History suggests it should be so.

This columnist was counsel for an accused person, one of several accused, in a 2008 trial in Melbourne involving terrorism charges. Whenever the media writes about that case it asserts that the accused individuals had plotted to blow up the MCG.

To put not too fine a point on it, this assertion is a lie. There was a reference to the MCG in a conversation between two of the accused. The conversation’s context makes it abundantly clear there was no plot to blow up the MCG. The case against the accused did not include any charges relating to the MCG and it was never put by the prosecution that such a plot existed.

The media has been told by this columnist and others numerous times that the assertion is wrong. But it gets repeated even today

One well known Canberra journalist defended herself, when this columnist pointed out she should not publish the assertion, by replying that an ASIO agent thought the allegation was true!

When the accused in that 2008 trial were arrested three years earlier, politicians and police chiefs told the media a terrorist plot had been thwarted. This, too, was a lie. The evidence in the case was specifically that there was no actual plot or plans devised by this group.

And remember the media reporting of Mohammed Haneef — a doctor falsely accused in 2007 of links to a UK terrorism plot and even more outrageously accused of wanting to blow up a Gold Coast high rise, simply because there were family photos of him outside such a building? Politicians, media and police again worked hand in glove to mislead and lie to the public. Only because of the bravery of Haneef’s lawyers and Hedley Thomas, a journalist with The Australian, was the truth outed.

In 2015, politicians police and media told us that a small group of young people in Melbourne were planning an Anzac Day attack. Only four months later, charges were dropped. The so called evidence was thin. But the dropping of the charges didn’t get the same star billing.

When it comes to terrorism allegations, there is little but spin, lies and propaganda. It serves the interests of police to hype their case.

That way they can pollute the atmosphere to ensure any potential jury is tainted by bias. And police have no respect for the presumption of innocence. Their hype also means they have government on the hook for more funds every budget to chase down alleged terrorists.

Politicians are, it seems, pathologically incapable of telling the truth about some issues these days and when it comes to terrorism allegations they will say anything in order to make people think they are keeping us all safe. And the media loves sensation and, in some cases, fostering social division in the community.

Let’s focus a little further on why the media is so wilfully gullible when police and politicians hold breathless media conferences to announce they have foiled a bomb going off somewhere or another.

The media relies on police and politicians for leaks about terrorism issues. Many journalists become propagandists for whatever they are told by their sources. In return for such a corruption of their ethics as reporters of facts rather than spin, they and the media organisations for which they work get tipped off when there are raids to arrest suspects.

The unholy alliance that exists on reporting of terrorism allegations leads to cynical figures like Ms Hanson and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton fuelling contempt and hatred of Muslim Australians. Muslims are subjected daily to harassment and abuse because politicians and some media give it the green light. After all, aren’t Muslims terrorists?

Next time there is splashed across the media talk of terrorism plots remember this: you are not being told the truth or at the very least the so-called facts are trumped up scraps of information.

Greg Barns was an adviser to NSW Liberal premier Nick Greiner and the Howard government. Disendorsed as the party’s candidate for Denison in 2002, he joined the Democrats. In 2013, he was WikiLeaks Party adviser.