Magistrate puts journalists on trial and condemns

by Anne Tran

When Melbourne's The Age newspaper published allegations that Geoff Clark, the Chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, had raped four women in the 1970s and 1980s, there were cries of protest. But The Age probably did not expect that many - if not most - of those cries would be directed against the newspaper itself. Nearly three months later, on 5 September 2001, the acrimony and accusations were still flying, as key players in the drama gathered at the fourth and final George Munster Forum of 2001.

"Honourable", "decent", "vomitous" and "anti-democratic" were just a few of the contrasting adjectives used to describe the media at the final George Munster Forum, titled Race, Sex and Violence, and held at The University of Technology, Sydney last September.

The forum moved from the effects of the media’s allegations that Geoff Clark raped four women in the 1970s and 1980s to a showdown between NSW magistrate, Pat O’Shane, and Michael Gawenda, the editor of Melbourne’s The Age newspaper.

Under the spotlight of press coverage, in the line of fire from O’Shane and before an audience of mainly journalism students, Gawenda attempted to defend the media and the journalism profession.

Gawenda claimed the Geoff Clark story was a risky one for his paper to run, and denied that it increased sales or readership. He regarded journalism as fundamentally honourable and decent.

"To suppress a story like that, to say that we would not publish would be to actually betray what journalism is about and what the mission of journalism ought to be, and that is to be fearless in the publication of stories that are difficult…but that are important to publish in the public interest," he said.

O’Shane was hardly impressed, making it clear that she believed The Age had no right to imply Clark was guilty. "The Age took it upon itself to not only repeat the allegations, but to publish them in a way that could only be inferred was calculated to maximise the level of sensationalism and do the greatest damage to Clark," she said.

A fiery O’Shane went further, and accused The Age of using and abusing the women who claimed to be raped by Clark. "If they had hoped to have justice done to them, then they were let down badly. They were duped, they were tricked," she said.

In his defence, Gawenda held firmly to his argument that the women’s stories were not fabricated and were reported truthfully. "If newspapers like The Age, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald don’t do [difficult] journalism like the Clark story…journalism in Australia would be much the poorer," he said.

Trial by media, a prominent issue throughout the forum, was attacked by O’Shane. "They [the media] are ideologically driven, so that they are certainly not interested in any objective truth…nor in informing the public about matters of importance…for these reasons trial by media is intolerable," she said.

Gawenda appeared uncomfortable as he attempted to bite back. He did little but offer journalists in the audience reassurance that journalism was respectable: "You will find that you can pursue journalism in a decent and honourable way in the Australian media…don’t lose faith, don’t lose heart you can make an enormous contribution to society," he said

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O’Shane, on the other hand, hardly held back criticisms of journalism. "The media are not selected representatives of the people, yet they set themselves up as being representative of the community and articulating what the community wants and does not want," she said.

However, when the forum was open for questions, O’Shane undermined her earlier attacks on journalism: "I didn’t say anything about journalists not being honourable and decent, there is a scope out there for budding journalists to do an honourable, decent, responsible job," she said.

While admitting that the story may have been damaging to the process of reconciliation, which The Age actively promotes, Gawenda continued to defend his decision to publish it: "We believe that often you’ve got to confront readers with things even when they don’t necessarily want to know about [public figures].
"If I had my time again, I would publish that story again because I think it was an important story to publish."

O’Shane, however, refused to be persuaded. She accused The Age of publishing the story for commercial reasons only, and argued that the media’s lack of accountability was due to their private background. "There is no accountability other than in terms of their profit margins and their dividends," she said. "Michael Gawenda’s attempt here to cover himself… is vomitous."