Today Tonight: refugees from journalistic decency

On Monday, Media Watch included a critical analysis of a report aired on October 10 on Seven's Today Tonight. For a full transcript.

I've spent four years in the Media Watch chair - and in all that time I have never seen a more mendacious, deceptive and inflammatory piece of 'journalism'.

I would urge you to watch the whole Today Tonight item before proceeding further. But, with unaccustomed good sense, someone at Seven has taken it down from the program's website. So let me summarise the more sensational aspects of the piece.

The introduction, read by Kylie Gillies, standing in for regular host Matt White, went like this:

First tonight our investigation into how the Government is putting out the welcome mat for refugees. We've gone inside the so-called 'refugee resort' where there's no wire fencing, there's no bars, and the inmates live in four-star luxury...

There was no 'refugee resort'. The program showed some old footage of the Virginia Palms Hotel in Brisbane, which was used as a temporary detention centre for families with children, and unaccompanied minors. The footage was first shown in July 2010.

The motel hasn't been used to detain asylum seekers since June this year. But no hint of that was given to Today Tonight's viewers. Instead, after reporting that it was a "four-star" facility, that inmates had "access to a gym and a pool", reporter David Ecclestone went on:

The Australian Government don't want you to know the locations of their makeshift detention centres. Manned by 24-hour security, they're in permanent lockdown.

Person with face concealed:  I didn't tell you but they're those refugees... Boat people.

David Ecclestone: But we spoke to them...

This was breathtaking. The concealed informant ("I didn't tell you…") was again extracted from TT's 2010 report about Virginia Palms. But the people to whom Today Tonight spoke this time around were not in a "makeshift detention centre", at that hotel or anywhere else. They were both people who had spent months in detention on Christmas Island and elsewhere, whose claims to asylum had been assessed and approved, who had been granted refugee visas, and who were living in a hostel arranged for them by one of the NGOs that assist newly-arrived refugees.

Using a concealed camera and audio recorder, a producer approached two of them, without revealing that he was a journalist. One conversation, in the building's lift, went like this:

TT producer: How do you afford to live here? You're so lucky!

Refugee:I was in detention for 17 months.

What a lucky guy! Today Tonight did not tell its viewers that he can afford to live there because he's paying $140 a week in rent for a single room, with a shared bathroom, shared toilets, shared kitchen facilities. That's almost half his income, which consists of $230 per week in Newstart allowance and an additional $58 per week rental allowance. Both normal Centrelink benefits available to any Australian resident.

The second conversation included this:

TT producer: How much do you get?

Refugee: Same as all the people. About $400.

At the head of the program, Today Tonight had shown a graphic of a 'welcome mat' with the words '$400 a week' on it. But the refugee told Media Watch that what he meant was that he was getting "about $400 a fortnight" from Centrelink.

Well, he was getting a bit more than that - but nothing like the $800 a fortnight that, according to pensioner Margaret Thomas, Today Tonight told her refugees were getting. That's more than the age pension she's getting. Thus primed, she declared furiously...

Pensioners would be disgusted if they knew. I'm sure they don't know what's going on with all these boat people and what this Government's giving them…. they're giving them more money than we get.

It's impossible to believe that Today Tonight didn't know how inflammatory such stuff is. It's almost (though not quite) impossible to believe that they were so sloppy, so bad at their jobs, so utterly clueless, that they didn't know they were purveying misinformation; that they didn't check whether the hostel where they filmed was a "makeshift detention centre"; that they didn't check what benefits people approved as refugees are entitled to (answer: the same as everyone else, no more, no less).

The reason it's not quite inconceivable is that we know from EP Craig McPherson's reply to Media Watch that the program is being fed information by "contacts within the immigration department". It stands to reason that there are people working for that department who are every bit as hostile to boat people, and every bit as ill-informed, as large numbers of people outside it.

If Today Tonight had simply accepted a tip-off from a 'source' that at such-and-such an address there's a 'secret detention centre', and proceeded secretly to 'interview' people living there, while making no attempt to discover their true status, it could perhaps claim that it sincerely believed what it originally broadcast.

That would still make the program-makers, in journalistic terms and in my view, contemptibly incompetent.

The problem is, of course, that the sanctions against such behaviour are so slim. An impecunious refugee, with no knowledge of our legal system and a terror of publicity, is hardly going to sue, and Today Tonight knows it. On the other hand, reinforcing the conviction of many of its viewers that asylum seekers and refugees are treated far too well, and far better than ordinary Australians, is a sure-fire ratings winner.

Recently, the Prime Minister urged journalists: "Don't write crap, it can't be that hard." And many of our viewers feel that publishing crap like this ought to be against the law.

One viewer tweeted:

Should you be allowed to secretly film immigrants, not protect their identity, and broadcast them on TV?

Well the answer to that is, it's against the law to secretly film a private conversation with anyone and then broadcast it on TV without consent, although there are exceptions in some circumstances. And conversations in public places may not be considered private conversations at all. But in any event there may be consequences beyond the simply legal. One refugee complained to Media Watch that he is frightened for the safety of his family back in Iran now that he's been shown on TV.

Other viewers felt that this was precisely the sort of thing that the new inquiry into media regulation, to be chaired by Ray Finkelstein QC, should be looking at. As one wrote on Media Watch's website:

Share your feeling re this story and others via submitting your thoughts … to the Australian Media enquiry. Add your voice: There's a real chance this Inquiry just becomes a platform for major media outlets to say 'all is well', and there is no need for reform.

Another added:

The Press Council has always been a toothless tiger. It would be good to see strong regulations on the media (which will naturally be opposed as restricting 'press freedom')

Both these viewers, understandably, are mistaken. Mr Finkelstein's inquiry is looking at the print and related online media, at whether self-regulation via the Australian Press Council is adequate, whether it should be strengthened, or whether its functions should be taken over by a statutory regulator. (I've made plain in previous columns that in my view that's a very bad idea.)

But Mr Finkelstein is NOT looking at the broadcast media, at radio and television, precisely because its news and current affairs programs are already regulated, in theory at least, by a statutory authority, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

Among the ACMA's many functions, it has the job of adjudicating on complaints that broadcasters have contravened their codes of practice - in the case of Today Tonight, the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice, clause 4.3 of which states that...

4.3 In broadcasting news and current affairs programs, licensees:

4.3.1 must broadcast factual material accurately and represent viewpoints fairly, having regard to the circumstances at the time of preparing and broadcasting the Program

However, read on until you get to the get-out clause:

4.3.11 … A failure to comply with the requirement in clause 4.3.1 to broadcast factual material accurately will not be taken to be a breach of the Code if a correction, which is adequate and appropriate in all the circumstances, is made within 30 days of the licensee receiving a complaint or a complaint being referred to the ACMA (whichever is later).

That's presumably why, during Tuesday's edition of Today Tonight, Matt White made an announcement that's so unusual it's worth quoting in full:

Now recently we aired a story looking at Federal Government handouts to asylum seekers, and a few things need to be cleared up. The story included vision of detainees staying at a four-star hotel, it was shot last year and was current at that time but that situation was suspended in June this year. Also shown was vision of refugees the report stated were in a community-based detention centre. We've since learned it was government-subsidised accommodation and some of the occupants were refugees who have been granted visas. And it needs to be clarified that asylum seekers in detention get no cash benefits, once they're granted a visa they receive Centrelink benefits of $462 a fortnight.

Not a word of apology or regret, you'll notice. Not a word about the concealed filming, the identification of innocent people without their consent in circumstances that might endanger their families; and the clarification itself needs considerable clarification.

The hostel where the refugees are staying is run by a not-for-profit organisation and rooms are rented out to men in need. Some are recently-arrived refugees. Others are not.  But none are asylum-seekers whose claims are still being processed. And recently-arrived refugees only get $462 a fortnight from Centrelink if they are single and unemployed – because that is the single person’s Newstart Allowance.

Today Tonight still managed to make it sound as though they were getting special treatment because they are refugees, instead of making it clear that they get only what's available to any Australian resident.

For all its inadequacies, however, Matt White's 'clarification' might well be enough to head off any ACMA inquiry, thanks to clause 4.3.11 of the code.

What this goes to show, to my mind, is not that media regulation should be tougher - although that's the conclusion many of our viewers will inevitably come to. Frankly, I don't think that asking the state to enforce rules on journalists is healthy for democracy, or likely to be successful. 

On the contrary, to my mind this episode shows that the attempt to regulate such matters is essentially fruitless.

Journalists have to be shamed, by Media Watch, by their readers and viewers, by their colleagues, and above all by their bosses, to behave professionally. There is no other way.

I hope that anyone who had anything to do with Today Tonight's tawdry effort feels ashamed of themselves. They should. That includes, of course, the reporter and producers involved. In my view it also includes executive producer Craig McPherson; his boss, the director of news Peter Meakin; his boss, Seven CEO David Leckie; all the way up to the chairman, Kerry Stokes. They are the ones who tolerate and excuse a culture that treats this sort of 'journalism' as acceptable.(abc.net.au)