Claims made by a former Channel Seven producer in a federal court defamation case this week that the network reimbursed Bruce Lehrmann for illicit drugs and sex workers are “astonishing” and “sleazy” if true, journalists and media ethics experts say.
TV producer Taylor Auerbach has alleged that other expenses incurred while trying to secure an interview with Lehrmann for Spotlight included a giant steak, Thai massages, accommodation and a round of golf – on top of an estimated $104,000 in rent.
Outside court, Seven has denied that it condoned or authorised the alleged payments to Lehrmann referred to in Auerbach’s affidavit before he gave evidence on Thursday. It has previously acknowledged that it paid his rent for a year.
After Auerbach’s testimony, Seven released a statement, referred to in court on Friday, saying: “Seven did not reimburse Bruce Lehrmann for expenditure that has allegedly been used to pay for illegal drugs or prostitutes, and has never done so. Seven notes the matter remains before the courts … As previously stated, Seven did not condone or authorise the alleged payments to Mr Lehrmann referred to in the affidavits recently made public. The person involved admitted to the misuse of a Seven corporate card and all unauthorised expenses were immediately reimbursed. Seven has acted appropriately at all times.”
The television episode that eventuated, Trial and Error, had attracted 600,000 viewers and was shortlisted for a Walkley award – the entry criteria include declaring any payments, benefits or gifts given in exchange for access (the nomination was eventually revoked).
Some outlets have used chequebook journalism for decades, but the allegations made by Auerbach have astounded journalists and the public.
Andrew Dodd, the director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism, said using rent and gifts instead of cash was an “adaptation” of chequebook journalism.
“It looks and feels sleazy … the [alleged] behaviour is gobsmacking.”
If the allegations were true, Seven needed to turn the spotlight on itself, Dodd said.
Denis Muller, a senior research fellow at the centre, speaking generally, said media organisations needed to ask themselves what the motive was in cases where they considered paying, and what the motive of the recipient was.
“Does the fact that money’s changed hands affect the credibility of the material?” he said. “Do you disclose to your audience that you’ve received the information you’re giving them as a result of payment?”
Muller said it was “astonishing” that the types of transactions alleged by Auerbach “could play any part at all in a relationship between a media organisation and a source”.
Both Muller and Dodd said the allegations could further erode public trust in journalism.
The veteran ABC journalist Quentin Dempster said that although chequebook journalism had been around for years, it was “highly problematic”.
“The ethical point to be made is that any arrangement for exclusivity in return for any money should be clearly, transparently disclosed to the audience so that they can make an assessment of the credibility of the information they’re about to receive,” he said.
Biased facts?
Amid concerns about surging misinformation and disinformation online, the Institute of Public Affairs has once again gone to war with fact-checking units.
On 1 April, the IPA released a report into AAP FactCheck, RMIT FactLab and RMIT ABC Fact Check, claiming they were guilty of left-wing bias.
The IPA claimed that 94% of checks related to the pandemic targeted critics of the official Covid response; that 81% of checks related to climate change and energy policy “targeted critics” of those policies; and that 65% of checks of political figures were “favourable to left-of-centre politicians” – by which it meant Labor, the Greens, the teals and other “progressive independents”.
The report found that “the only rational explanation” for those figures was “ideological bias”, but did not interrogate whether the checks themselves were accurate.
The report, which was embraced by Sky News and the Murdoch press, used those statistics to argue against the government’s planned misinformation laws.
Andrea Carson, a political communication professor at La Trobe University, wrote in the Conversation in March that “the politicisation of fact-checking – a longstanding feature of the sector in the US” – had reached Australia. And the new ABC News Verify – which will replace the RMIT ABC Fact Check in June – was likely to be targeted, she said.
“Our study’s findings suggest that accusations of left-wing bias levelled at the ABC, particularly by right-wing partisans, may intersect with its fact-checking role with RMIT, and foreshadows criticisms that its new unit might encounter,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, AAP is set to partner with Google on a new fact-checking body to tackle misinformation and disinformation. Weekly Beast confidently predicts it will get its turn in an IPA report.
Dick’s dreary prank
Blame the public holiday perhaps, but April Fools’ Day pranks barely got a foothold in the media this year.
Not like on 1 April 1978, when fledgling billionaire entrepreneur Dick Smith towed a barge covered in a sheet and shaving cream into Sydney Harbour and duped people into thinking he’d towed it there from Antarctica. He would carve up the “Dickenberg One” into “Dicksicles” to go into drinks, he said, before the rain melted the hoax away.
His trick this year was a bit more dreary: he called into Ben Fordham Live with an unbelievable “scoop”. ABC chair Kim Williams asked him to be the unpaid director of news and current affairs for a day, he said. The backstory is that the ABC had to correct a fact-check on Smith’s renewable energy claims. How droll.
These days it’s the “prankvertising” by corporations that is the main source of hoaxes on April Fools’ Day. Think Subway launching a fairy bread sub, Who Gives A Crap saying they’re sending toilet paper to Uranus, and Spring Gully announcing sweet mustard pickle lamingtons.
Singo sings praises of BRS
On to another rich Australian injecting himself into the news. The ad man John Singleton raised eyebrows when he took out a full-page ad in The Australian to pay tribute to Ben Roberts-Smith. That’s Roberts-Smith, who is currently appealing his failed defamation action over media reports he claims labelled him a war criminal and that was bankrolled by Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes.
Under a headline that read “An apology to Ben Roberts-Smith. From a Coward”, Singleton wrote that he dodged the Vietnam draft. He went on to accuse the media of “gossip” and to thank Roberts-Smith for the killing of Afghan soldiers.
“He killed as soldiers do, but is now guilty of doing his job whilst risking his life for us,” he wrote.
Industry leaders – according to the advertising, marketing and media company B&T – said it was an “awful stain” on the industry, reflective of a “boys’ club” culture, and that his use of the phrase “yellow peril” had racist undertones.
The ad stated: “Now it’s yellow peril time again. Bring in China. We follow blindly against China. We buy anything from them and they don’t buy anything from us. Did it hurt them? No.
“But us? Cost us plenty. It killed our biggest export earners: iron ore, gas, wine, agriculture. Madness.”
The Weekly Beast has approached Singleton for comment.
Mind the gap
A report in The Australian on “provocative” research from a “leading Indigenous organisation” claimed universities were “fast-tracking” Aboriginal academics.
The research warns that well-intentioned diversity and inclusion targets “can come at a cost’’, education reporter Natasha Bita wrote.
That leading organisation is Close the Gap Research, which started in November last year, and which the former Labor MP Gary Johns said was formed “out of the original group that fought the [voice] referendum”.
Remember Johns?
Johns was secretary of Recognise a Better Way, the no campaign group set up by Warren Mundine.
Last year the Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney, called for the no campaign to sack Johns after he proposed a “very, very heavy cultural intervention” for Aboriginal children, and said “if you don’t get a kid away from those communities early, they will have a shocking life”.
Johns has previously suggested First Nations people take blood tests in order to access welfare payments, and has said some people in remote communities live in a “stupor” and that they should “learn English”.
The Weekly Beast asked Bita if she was aware of the these previous comments from Johns, the chair of the organisation, but hadn’t heard back by the time of publication.
China’s advice for Australian journos
In yet another shock accusation about media tactics, China has accused the Australian press of trying to spread western democratic values.
Communist party mouthpiece the Global Times says the media is stirring up trouble and threatening regional peace by emphasising democracy and freedom.
Prompted by a 60 Minutes report on China’s aggression in Fiji, the Global Times published a piece referring to various anonymous sources attacking the Australian media for relying on information from anonymous sources.
“Efforts by some Australian media sources to ‘spread’ Western democratic values and increase their external propaganda in Fiji are increasing, the Global Times learned from some sources in Fiji, who are direct witnesses to the Australian media’s sneaky manoeuvres to sow discord between Fiji and China,” the Times reported, adding that analysts were warning media outlets “to return to the right track of playing a more positive role in promoting cooperation and regional peace than stirring up trouble”.
Australian media “emphasising the shared values of ‘democracy and freedom’” was “aimed at creating doubts about or distancing from China’s political system and ideology”.
