27 November 2008

How to stay on the drip - Canberra Times Style.

| johnboy
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CityNew’s Ian Meikle has been kind enough to copy us in on his recent correspondence with Andrew Barr’s media adviser Paul Kinderman.

For reasons at this time unknown Mr Kinderman forwarded an example of how the Canberra Times’ John Thistleton makes sure he gets the quotes he’s after:

    From: John Thistleton [mailto: [Address redacted]]
    Sent: Wednesday, 26 November 2008 2:23 PM
    To: Kindermann, Paul
    Subject: Prof Cox article

    Paul –
    – following is a draft article – it will be cut down a bit. I would like to make room from a comment from Andrew Barr or Neil Savery.
    As you said there are excellent examples of intensifying the city centre – any other planning developments would be welcome for the article.

    If I can get a response by 2.30pm tomorrow that would be appreciated.

    Regards
    John

    [Draft article follows]

Ian’s reply to this went as follows:

    from: Ian Meikle [Address redacted]
    to: “Kindermann, Paul” [Address redacted]
    date: Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 10:59 AM
    subject: Re: Prof Cox article

    Dear Paul,

    I acknowledge your desire to keep correspndence between yourself and a “Canberra Times” journalist as private as you can. More than that, on reading it, I can see precisely why you want to keep it private.

    But you have done our profession a great service by letting the local media family see this this chummy email.

    I’m sure any journalist exposed as cheerfully submitting his/her work before publication to a Government pr flak would be extremely embarrassed, especially coming from the city’s senior media outlet. And it would seem at odds with professional, impartial journalistic practice from a newspaper that has built the integrity of its masthead and trust of its readership on those very qualities. So why has he done it?

    Mr Thistleton’s article reads extremely well and I do hope it meets your approval – and you are able to embroider your Minister’s comments into the story to meet the author’s deadline; though I am perplexed why the writer wasn’t moved to seek comment directly from the Minister and Mr Savery than burden you with the chore.

    However, the email does the raise the question about journalistic ethics in Canberra and I was wondering if you would be gracious enough to clarify if this is the new Government’s method of media manipulation (no quotes unless we see the story)? Or better still, share the names of other journalists voluntarily or otherwise submitting material prior to publication for your comment with our now-inner group?

    Best regards,

    Ian Meikle
    Editor
    CityNews

Thoughts dear readers?

UPDATED: It seems even within the Canberra Times this is not an approved procedure. The following went out last night:

    From: Peter Fray
    To: [redacted – all CT journalists]
    Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 7:03:41 PM
    Subject: reporters please

    Don’t send your stories to sources to be checked.

    Sure, check facts with them over the phone or in person.

    But do not give them the story.

    This gives them the chance to edit the story, often to make it ‘softer’ or more to their point of view.

    This flies in the face of your job — and the essence of journalism.

    Regards,

    Peter Fray

    Editor

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PreciousLilywhite9:39 am 28 Nov 08

“I agree. Advertising revenues are falling, staff are cut and thus journalists are under a lot more pressure. However, this does not mean that you should throw your professional ethics out the window. If somebody is telling you what to write, you are not a journalist.”

I agree too. If someone is telling you what to write or helping to promote a planned event, you are in advertising, not journalism. Journalism requires honesty and integrity towards ones work, respect for yourself and most importantly, respect for your readers.
A lot of journalists in this town (not all) seem only interested in their ‘honour amongst gentlemen’ read: cro-nee-ism and who’s paying for lunch?

imhotep said :

We found out about this little exchange by accident. If that is the kind of relationship our ‘media flagship’ has with the government, what other (more important) stories have been manipulated in the past?

probably most of them

imhotep said :

Thank God for the ABC. Although their bias occasionally irritates me I’m pretty confident that they wouldn’t stoop so low as to have their stories vetted by the ALP.

yeah right. Probably smart enough not to put it in writing, though.

tylersmayhem8:42 am 28 Nov 08

@Dexi: Maybe you should go the the RA Job man. You’re well on your way looking at post #45 🙂

There’s a distance too short for cycling now?

Gungahlin Al8:00 am 28 Nov 08

On the satellite city sidetrack – the article didn’t appear in CT today…

On the Satellite city sidetrack, this means many people travelling every which way.
I live in Aranda, work in Woden – perfect cycling distance. If I have to change jobs, Belconnen & Civic are too close, Tuggernong is too far, Gungahlin would be OK but noway as pretty.

I-filed said :

(I-filed) “In defence of journalists – their workload has pretty much tripled and the newspaper shareholders, proprietors and managers simply don’t give them enough paid time to do their job properly. Something had to give.”

I agree. Advertising revenues are falling, staff are cut and thus journalists are under a lot more pressure. However, this does not mean that you should throw your professional ethics out the window. If somebody is telling you what to write, you are not a journalist.

We found out about this little exchange by accident. If that is the kind of relationship our ‘media flagship’ has with the government, what other (more important) stories have been manipulated in the past?

Thank God for the ABC. Although their bias occasionally irritates me I’m pretty confident that they wouldn’t stoop so low as to have their stories vetted by the ALP.

.

The Chronicle was completely taken over by the Canberra Times (in terms of becoming an ALP apologist) sometime last year. Its community focus and the little independence it had has long gone. Very sad – it was the best way to get community news out there once.

In defence of journalists – their workload has pretty much tripled and the newspaper shareholders, proprietors and managers simply don’t give them enough paid time to do their job properly. Something had to give.

This is outrageous. “I always felt the CT resembled an ALP press release.” Exactly my sentiments. Contextualises all those ACTEW ads, too.

Chronicle is run by the CT isn’t it?

And ABC news is more interested in world events than anything local.

Canberra media is very thin on the ground. Investigative media – stateline once in a while.

Gungahlin Al5:03 pm 27 Nov 08

While Gungahlin Al has -a- point, its not aligned with what Johnboy is seeing as happening here, as far as I can tell…

Skid – it was related to the content of the actual article in question. But I guess I’ll repost tomorrow after the CT article on Cox’s actual comments come out.

“What your experiencing here, in the internets, on Riot-act, is the way of the future. Not your out-of-date before they’re printed, cash for comment style rags you call the CT or City news”

You too can play the media game. It has a set formula. Press releases are one combined with an event. Its not rocket science. You make your own media and get the journalist to print it. If your lucky you can get in the media pocket. Philip Cox should get a good run with this one.

Pity about the occasionally godawful headlines of the Chronicle front page, though. 😛

How are we to get accountable government in this town when the main media outlet is in the pocket of government?

Oh, well, I suppose there is always WIN News…..er sorry, forgot about that small incident before the last election.

What a disgrace. The Chronicle has more integrity. At least they’re upfront.

Is it this Philip Cox. Whats his interest in Canberra.

http://erithwood.com/philipcox.asp

Indeed, which makes it all the more sweeter when you catch ’em out.

Nice work!

AngryHenry said :

I think this kind of stuff happens more than we’d like to know.

We suspect much. But we don’t normally get evidence.

I think this kind of stuff happens more than we’d like to know.

PreciousLilywhite3:40 pm 27 Nov 08

Nice to have confirmation of where the Perez Hilton’s of ACT journalism stand in relation to concepts like ‘honour amongst gentlemen’.

Yo, joe dude. You don’t have any honour thus are not gentlemen.
Your game is o-l-d. All I see is a dying outdated media medium and it’s cronnies trying desperatly hard to cling to whatever ‘power’ they perceive they have.
What your experiencing here, in the internets, on Riot-act, is the way of the future. Not your out-of-date before they’re printed, cash for comment style rags you call the CT or City news.
Thank God for Riot-act and God bless Johnboy.

Sack Thistleton.

sepi said :

putting some big offices at gungahlin is such as obvious idea to reduce traffic, parking problems and driving times – why has it not yet happened.

they should have built the new defence bldg out there – most of the military seem to live in gunners already.

Yep, Sepi, spot-on. HQ JOC is a crazy white elephant. It was a vote-buying pork barrel effort to keep Nairn in Eden Monaro. Well, most of Eden Monaro had no idea what it was or that it happened, and htose of us in Eden Monaro who do know about it are furious! It benefits not one single person. Not one.

They’ve plunked this massive facility in a paddock miles form anywhere (and mucked up my 2nd favourite view). There’s no public transport, and Defence have stated there will be no public transport (OH&S liability).

The roads will not cope. I hope they’ll still be doing their boondoggle at Weetalaba when the traffic is trying to zoom to the coast en masse, they have it down to 1 lane with traffic lights and the bank-ups are humungous.

Next year they do a massive roudabout at Captain’s Flat Road, another new intersection at Ridgeway, and re-route the King’s Hwy up through Kingsway Estate.

HQ JOC do not pay one cent in rate to the local (broke) council.

Defence bought most of the new Defence housing for the HQ JOC people in Gunghalin. A few properties in Qbn. None in Bung: there’s no hospital or high school, so they can’t.

What a pointless debacle.

Why on earth did they not build it near the big population growth area of Canberra? or even stick it out the back of Qbn, at Harman or near Googong? it defies belief.

Nambucco Deliria2:58 pm 27 Nov 08

Thistleton wrote a piece on Canberra’s A-League bid last week that appeared to have been written entirely by the bidders themselves, with no leavening comment at all. It’s obviously his modus operandi. At least it saves him having to think stuff up himself.

winning star2:55 pm 27 Nov 08

I always felt the CT resembled an ALP press release.

johnboy said :

May 2007 he was still a media contact for the NCA.

In that case, his views on the further sacrifice of Canberra on the alter of Civic development are very scary. Or is that the reason he left? Or is that the reason the ALP Government and its media outlet were happy to take hime?

poptop said :

Mr Thistleton hasn’t been a ‘proper’ journo for very long though, has he?

Wasn’t he a media flunky with the NCA until about 5 minutes ago?

May 2007 he was still a media contact for the NCA.

Mr Thistleton hasn’t been a ‘proper’ journo for very long though, has he?

Wasn’t he a media flunky with the NCA until about 5 minutes ago?

tylersmayhem1:58 pm 27 Nov 08

At the end of it all, it’s the good and the bad of email. Think VERY carefully about who it’s addresses to before clicking “send”.

The CT and the City News arguing about journalistic ethics … BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

What’s next, the distributor of junk mail pamphlets taking the Belconnen Chronicle to task for not fact-checking the make-a-date entries?

Yep – this is indeed crap. You work out your angle – then get the quotes based on specific questions. These then form the body of the story along with facts (or not in the case of the CT) and perhaps even a dissenting view. This is good journalism.

You do not get the article cleared by the media advisor before publishing. I reckon if this was to happen in a place like the ABC – then that journo would be currently looking for a new job!

sepi: a phone call would be quicker. Any decent journo should know how to pick up a phone and ask a question.

If AB or JS can’t answer their phones, the article can go out without them, with the ‘unavailable for comment’ words.

Indeed Johnboy. The fourth estate often seems more like a toy poodle than a wolf.

Joebananas said :

Nice to have confirmation of where the Perez Hilton’s of ACT journalism stand in relation to concepts like ‘honour amongst gentlemen’.

As if I’m bound by the confidentiality of others.

Paul Kinderman doesn’t get to decide what we publish (yet).

isn’t miekle ex-CT?

and i am less bothered by this than the WIN news sacking during the election.

this could be just a quick way of grabbing a quote and finishing the article in time.

Like poptop, I am amazed at how unamazed I am. I am even amazed at not believing Fray’s disapproval – or maybe the Canberra Times doesn’t need to get approval for articles because it knows in advance what is acceptable, and he is just reinforcing that point. I feel very, very sorry for the CT journos who are worth more than they get paid.

After all, why bite the hand that feeds?

And a scoop that promotes government spin is no real scoop. It’s an effective exercise in government spin (and PR).

While Gungahlin Al has -a- point, its not aligned with what Johnboy is seeing as happening here, as far as I can tell…

Implied wilful self-censorship on the part of CT journos, in order to be in bed with Barr (and by implication the Govenment-du-jour).

While its nice that people are getting excited, why its ShittyNews of all people trying to lead a crusade, I don’t know.

City news are a journalistic disgrace. I have sent them stories in the past and they just run them verbatim, don’t change a single word. Meikle should get off his high horse and recognise his publication is little more that an excuse for advertising space.

And Johnboy, talk about jumping to conclusions! Anyone would think the journo had changed the story at the Minister’s request or something. I see absolutely nothing wrong with this exchange…

EXCEPT, the fact that this part of the email has been curiously left out of this thread:

“About ten minutes ago I erroneously sent an email entitled ‘Prof Cox article’ to my media release email distribution list.

This is private correspondence between myself and a journalist and should be treated as such.

Please ensure that no part of this correspondence is used in any way and please delete the email.

My apologies for any confusion.

Regards

Paul Kindermann
Media Adviser
Office of Andrew Barr MLA”

Nice to have confirmation of where the Perez Hilton’s of ACT journalism stand in relation to concepts like ‘honour amongst gentlemen’.

This is not about Gungahlin, it’s about what you have to do to get information which the public deserves.

And the ALP would never be involved in slippery things in Wollongong.

Oh wait. . .

plausibly_deniable said :

Ian Miekle’s fabricated umbrage is just that: Thistleton wasn’t looking for editing or approval, he was providing context for Barr/Savery to provide comments (that is, quotes to be included) for the article. This not-at-all-inappropriate practice would certainly be outside Miekle’s experience, as the City News’ approach, if I recall from the last time I picked it up, is just to run their advertiser’s “editorial” verbatim. Or is it true that depilation, cosmetic surgery and yet another paid Women in Business section is important news for Canberrans?

It’s completely innapropriate! What’s more it’s from a bloke who’s been breaking a string of big stories, generally ones that the Government wants to break.

Now we discover he’s writing as a sock puppet.

The message from this is that if you want the juicy stories from the ACT Government you have to let them see what it is you’re going to say about it. That’s a very slippery slope, leads to Wollongong as the Chief Minister is fond to say when the boot is on the other foot.

putting some big offices at gungahlin is such as obvious idea to reduce traffic, parking problems and driving times – why has it not yet happened.

they should have built the new defence bldg out there – most of the military seem to live in gunners already.

plausibly_deniable1:16 pm 27 Nov 08

Ian Miekle’s fabricated umbrage is just that: Thistleton wasn’t looking for editing or approval, he was providing context for Barr/Savery to provide comments (that is, quotes to be included) for the article. This not-at-all-inappropriate practice would certainly be outside Miekle’s experience, as the City News’ approach, if I recall from the last time I picked it up, is just to run their advertiser’s “editorial” verbatim. Or is it true that depilation, cosmetic surgery and yet another paid Women in Business section is important news for Canberrans?

Gungahlin Al12:58 pm 27 Nov 08

And only achievable if Monash Drive was built…
Which I’m sure no-one wants.

Cheers Ant.

Good sensible comments, Gunghalin Al! I’m glad someone is saying it. Stop packing Civic with more and more stuff. Get centres of retail, services, admin and employment out in to the satellite areas of Canberra. We have shocking problems with vast swarms of cars crossing the city every day. People from Tuggeranong working in inner north/belconnen, people in Gunghalin heading south, people from eastern NSW heading everywhere…

it’s crazy.

Gungahlin Al12:22 pm 27 Nov 08

Paul made a mistake of sending his reply to his media release list. He attempted a recall, but that only works if you use Outlook. We don’t.

Of more concern to me was the content of the draft article, citing some bizarre ideas from Professor Philip Cox (not to be confused with Dr Kevin Cox of GCC) encouraging the ACT Government to ignore democracy and to wind back consultation – as if Cox failed to pick up any messages from the recent ACT election…

As it’s all become public now, I guess it can’t hurt further to share my response to Canberra Times on Prof Cox’s ideas:

Hello John

No doubt you are aware of the error where the draft article went all around from Minister Barr’s office.

I have to say that I am quite concerned about what Prof Cox is proposing, and his views on the merits of consultation are woeful and ill-informed.

We don’t live in a dictatorship and if he prefers the “we know best” approach of government, then he should go live in one himself. Some good things can come of proper consultation from the foundation stages, and there are some substantial examples of this in the work that GCC has been doing with ACTPLA – which you could confirm with Neil Savery. Where consultation goes off the rails is where it starts too late in a process and all players see the outcomes as forgone conclusions – perhaps this is the style of consultation Prof Cox is more familiar with??

What’s the old saying? “No matter what the problems of democracy are, the solution is always more democracy.”

It is also a concern that he is promoting the idea of further intensification of Civic’s role, to the detriment of Canberra’s satellite cities – it clearly shows that he has utterly failed to grasp the intent of WBG’s plan for Canberra, and the unique benefits for traffic and road infrastructure that such a concept can deliver if properly implemented.

He also seems to not get it when it comes to the realities of greenhouse impacts from commuting and the benefits of being able to work locally.
On sprawl – endless sprawl is certainly not good. But the satellite cities overcome that by creating multiple nodes of concentration. If there’s sprawl, it’s because the very previous government agencies Prof Cox crows about have neglected to follow the plan properly. And what exactly is the space problem in Canberra anyway?? The only limitation I can see is an artificial line on a map called the ACT border.

The ACT Government should pay very little regard to Prof Cox’s views.

I would be happy to comment further on these concerns, and you can reach me on the mobile number below.

To be fair they’re much improved in recent times.

It’s a pretty amusing email from Meikle; it’d be nice to see a bit more of this attitude in the City News, which tends to be frothy advertorial.

Gak! Too many ellipses too few ns – *journalistic

Resisting . . . jibe . . . about . . . jouralistic . . . ethics.

Resisting . . .

poptop said :

I imagine the e-mail denying approval of content would be the published article.

Probably not, if I’d agreed to back and forth it then I’d keep negotiations discrete.

I imagine the e-mail denying approval of content would be the published article.

What, so the Minster’s adviser forwarded on a copy of his correspondence with the Canberra Times to the City News? Bizarre. My guess is that the adviser forgot to delete the messages below the email he was sending to the CityNews. Either than or he mis-sent it. A big mistake I am sure all of us have done at least once. But it never cost me my reputation or job, just a few ‘do’hs. tutututut. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the shite storm bound to follow.

Okay, what are the circumstances surrounding, and how did Ian get a copy of John Thistleon’s email?

CityNews in reference to the Crimes:
…a newspaper that has built the integrity of its masthead…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/21/2397060.htm?site=canberra

Pot to kettle, be advised that you may be dark.
http://www.acl.org.au/act/browse.stw?article_id=24395&printer=1&from=printer

Sure, just have to send in our copy for prior approval….

In other roles I have sent in advance copy, but AFTER I’ve got the quotes…, and when the person getting the copy was the subject of the article.

Now you know the drill Johnboy, we will expect great things on RiotACT.

It would, surely, be deeply inequitable and WRONG for the ACT Ministers and ACT Government to offer this service to only one media outlet.

I’d been wondering for a while how Thistleton got his fantastic scoops time and time again.

Leaving aside the obvious oxymoronic opportunities, I am surprised at how unsurprised I am.

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