Former 60 minutes star says news reporters are just B-grade actors

By Tim Chapman.

Jeff McMullen, the longest serving reporter to have worked on the Australian edition of 60 Minutes.

In an address to the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism's (ACIJ) annual conference this October (2001), the former ABC correspondent said: "Most of what passes as news today is trivia... there is good reason for the public to question whether network journalists are fulfilling their responsibility to the public right to know."

McMullen also questioned the effect of marketplace pressures on commercial journalism, and claimed that many current affairs reporters were nothing more than B-grade actors presenting B-grade dramas. "A lot of journalists are in the wrong union; they should be in Actor's Equity."

McMullen, who has just released a memoir entitled Life of Extremes, was joined by his former editor and producer at the ABC, Peter Manning, for a presentation dubbed Living in the Matrix.

Manning attacked the lack of coverage of the Middle East before September 11, saying that it was very hard for the public to fully understand the main issues in Afghanistan given this gap: "The lack of reporting on Arab countries is coming back to haunt us. It is unfortunate that Arab culture is suddenly (being) discovered in the context of these events."

Manning was upset that all that seems to be specifically presented about the Australian Arab community are stories about gang rapes, boat people and drug dealing. He said that some of the blame rested with the high levels of formal education expected of aspiring young journalists.

He said working class people are less likely to be able to afford this education, and are therefore less likely to have the opportunity to bring their perspectives to professional journalism: "Class distinctions perpetuate these stereotypes in the way things are reported."

It was the idea of perspective that both McMullen and Manning were particularly addressing. McMullen gave a thought-provoking speech on the effects of what he termed “the various matrixes that we all live in.”

He was critical of the lack of knowledge that many foreign correspondents seem to have about the issues that they are covering, saying: "To really understand the people in Afghanistan, or New York, or Washington for that matter, we need to break the bubble.

“You have to report more than the story: a journalist must understand the history and context of an event in order to get real meaning out of the facts. To get them (the viewer) to see what is really happening is the journalist’s job...(but) the media is making reality into a movie."

McMullen continued this argument and claimed, as did Manning, that despite advances in technology: "We know not much more than our parents or grandparents did when they huddled around the radio at the start of the great wars."

Manning furthered this point, saying: "The arrival of satellite technology has given a lot of power to the home news editor, and taken the power from the foreign correspondent. This phenomenon has corrupted the independence of the foreign correspondent to send news home. Instead, the news editor can say 'this is what is happening and this is what I would like you to report on'."

Manning was frustrated by the way that The Daily Telegraph has covered the Afghanistan crisis, and said that the reports that it has published have furthered the view that Arab communities cannot be trusted. "The Daily Telegraph has undoubtedly given the impression that the Arab community is questionable.”

Both speakers praised the ABC's coverage of the Middle East crisis, but they stopped short of calling for further regulation of privately-owned media, despite their attacks on it.