When Kristina Keneally appeared in front of estimates committee this month, she said:
I am going to bell this cat … All this smoke is no evidence of fire. It is evidence only of a dry ice machine operated by a media outlet
Well, when you bell the cat you expect to cop a swipe. And she got one. Two days later, the SMH in its lead editorial responded. Ironically, it claimed that her criticism of their coverage showed that she was not made of stern enough stuff. Given the editorial and the op ed piece they have devoted to reacting shrilly to her single comment in an estimates committee hearing, I think it is really the SMH that has the glass jaw.
In any case, the editorial went on to say of their coverage:
we are … printing stories we believe are true, and in the public interest. …We believe.. that the McGurk case raises serious questions, as it offers evidence of a network of … relationships, which is unhealthy for the future of democracy in this state. We believe that the case hints at a web of influence-peddling and deal-making between developers, lobbyists and government which relies upon the decisions of public officials, but which is conducted largely out of the public gaze, and to the public’s general detriment. … Labor has lost interest in serving the public and is interested only, as the McGurk case is showing, in serving itself.
These are strong and serious allegations. And they are deeply revealing. Because they lay out what it is that the Herald truly believes –the beliefs that have shaped the Herald’s coverage – rather than having been derived from their reporting. The Herald claims to believe that the McGurk case “offers evidence.” But it does no such thing, and despite their editorial claims, the SMH has not adduced any evidence of any government “relationships” with Mr McGurk, of any “influence peddling” involving the government, of any “deal making”, or of any self serving behaviour by the ALP in this case. Indeed these beliefs can only be sustained if you deliberately close your mind and your ears to alternative evidence – and indeed this is exactly what has happened in this case.
Rather than sticking with assertions as the Herald seems content to do, let’s look at the claims the Herald has made over the last month. It all started with the screaming, full page headline on September 4:
Dead man’s tape ‘could bring down NSW government’
The article stated:
Developer and loan shark Michael McGurk may have been killed because he was in possession of a tape that had potential to bring down the NSW Government. The audio tape is understood to contain revelations about the bribing of senior government figures. The controversial Sydney businessman Jim Byrnes told the Sydney Morning Herald the tape recording contained ”really, really dangerous information”. … ”It could bring down the State Government,” Mr Byrnes said. ”I wouldn’t want that information because I know the pain it brings with it. Mr Byrnes said that for the person on the tape, its contents ”could strip you of everything you owned and could see you wearing orange overalls for the rest of your life”.
To deliver this front page headline the Herald had to deliberately ignore that the reporters had not heard the tape, that Jim Byrnes had not heard the tape, and that Jim Byrnes is a convicted heroin trafficker. But that was OK – because this claimed tape that no-one had heard “offered evidence” of something they so deeply wanted to believe was true.
A few days later the Herald was back at it, again leading with a screaming headline:
How a quiet bush block turned into a goldmine
This article stated:
THE developer Ron Medich stands to gain millions from a western Sydney site he bought 13 years ago for a pittance from the CSIRO, confidential documents obtained by the Herald show…
Mr Medich, who used to employ Mr McGurk before they fell out over a $10 million debt, and his brother, Roy, bought a 344-hectare parcel of land at Badgerys Creek in 1996. They paid $3.5 million, half the amount similar blocks were fetching at the time. The land was zoned for rural use. However, its value is set to skyrocket now it has been earmarked for commercial use…
The Herald has been told that when the proposal was floated two years ago, the Medich rural landholding was outside the Government’s proposed development area. The document does not reveal why this changed. The project was to be announced in March, but cabinet put the decision on hold.
Of course this article was full of holes too. And this time there was no qualification in the headline. The reality was that the land in question had not been rezoned. Applications for part 3A treatment had been rejected. It was no goldmine. And the Herald cannot wriggle out of the matter by saying the land may yet be rezoned. The land has for many years been earmarked for potential rezoning for employment land associated with the proposed Badgery’s Creek airport, going way back to the 1990s under the previous government. All of this could have been checked – with the Department of Planning or on-line – But the Herald did not do so. Again, they appear to have deliberately closed their mind to alternative evidence so that they could maintain a belief in the thing they dearly wished was true.
A week later, the Herald was back at it again – saying boldly and without qualification:
Revealed: Labor ministers on new McGurk tapes
In this article, the Herald stated
MICHAEL McGURK illegally recorded conversations he had with five state Labor MPs and one former federal minister, a long-term colleague of the murdered standover man has told the Herald. The associate, who transcribed the tapes for Mr McGurk, provided the Police Integrity Commission with two written statements regarding this and other allegations about the loan shark’s corrupt relations with senior police, crime figures and politicians, last Wednesday. He said the recordings were not only related to property developments but involved the offers of bribes to have serious criminal charges dropped….
A fortnight before his death, two firebombing and three assault charges against the murdered bagman were dropped.
What was “revealed”? Again, the Herald had not actually heard the tape. This time they relied on the word of a man they would not name and who could have any number of motivations for making such a claim. The Herald did not offer the 70 men and women they accuse of corruption – the ALP members of parliament – the opportunity to respond to the allegation. The Australian showed a few days later that this can be done simply and quickly using email, but the Herald appears again to have been unwilling to even attempt to collect alternative evidence. Again – it appears they so wanted this claim to be true that they failed to balance the story with any investigation of any sort
I could go on and on about the practices of the Herald in this matter. We could discuss the publication of a front page photo of Craig Knowles and claims he had been dragged into the matter – based on no direct contact between Knowles and McGurk, but simply based on mutual contact with a soccer club. But this piece is long enough.
Over the last week the Hearld seems to have stopped showing an interest in ALP connections to Mr McGurk. I guess this shows that while the cat may scratch and hiss when you put a bell on it, there’s no better way to respond to media bias than to stand up and call them on it as Keneally did.
