The Australian Press Council, long derided as the publishers’ poodle, and certainly to date one of Australia’s lowest-profile industry self-regulation bodies, has begun to pluck and talk up the fruits of its reform process with the release today of a new standard on the reporting of suicide.
It is the first of a few new standards . Next cab off the rank will be a standard dealing with how reporters should represent themselves when trying to gain access to hospitals and nursing homes.
As reported in Crikey previously, the council took a big hit in 2009 when newspaper publishers cut its funding, apparently in the belief that their shiny new lobby group, the Right to Know Coalition, could do everything the council aspired to do, other than the adjudication of complaints from the public.
But that crisis seemed to put steel in the backbone of the public members of the council, who voted in social activist and academic Julian Disney as the new chair. He began a softly, softly process of reform, successfully negotiating a restoration of the funding. He has been working behind the scenes to improve council processes, before seeking to raise its profile.
The council was thrust into the spotlight a couple of weeks ago when News Limited CEO John Hartigan, seeking to distance local newspapers from the stench from the United Kingdom News of the World crisis, appealed to the Press Council to help him set up the independent oversight process for News Limited’s internal audit of editorial expenses.
Former Australian Press Council chair Ken McKinnon must have felt vindicated by the way the industry suddenly dusted off the Press Council’s role . He predicted in his departing spray against the industry in his 2009 annual report that an industry lobby group such as the Right to Know coalition would never cut it when what was needed was some guarantee of independent safeguarding of the public interest. He was right.
In recent weeks the Press Council has appointed a new director of standards, Derek Wilding, and renovated its clunky old website. Meanwhile, the Standards Project, a three-year process that includes community and industry consultation leading to revision and writing of new standards, is under way with the suicide standard the first to be released.
The new suicide standard will lead to some changes in standard newsroom practice, where for years the general rule has been that suicides are not reported at all. In my experience, this leads to problems. Local newspaper reporters, for example, might want to report on the lack of safety measures at local suicide spots, but feel unable to do so.
Or when the trains are all held up because someone has thrown themselves on to the tracks, the reporting of the cause of delays can become very difficult indeed. Euphemisms such as “no suspicious circumstances” abound in the reporting of sudden death. Reporters know what that means. I doubt the public does, and the result is an under-reporting of a significant social issue.
But on the other hand, the public are entitled to be cynical about such reporter constraint when the suicide is of someone prominent — a pop star or a celebrity — when all the rules tend to get thrown out.
The new Press Council standard gives more guidance on how to think these things through. It seeks to balance public interest reporting of a significant social issue with the impact on vulnerable individuals.
It seems broadly in accord with the opinions of mental health professionals and others, as reported on Croakey last March, including a strong cautionary notes from Barbara Hocking, director of SANE Australia in which she concludes “We all want the same outcome — more attention to this major public health concern so that vulnerable people are encouraged to seek help and that when they do, the services are there for them. Reporting suicide in the media is a balancing act … [but] simplistic suggestions to ‘talk more about suicide’ may inadvertently cause harm to people we are trying the hardest to protect”.
Disney told Crikey this morning that later this month the council will begin a by-invitation consultation process in four states — South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales — to scope what action is needed on standards. What standards do people want? What are the hot-button issues?
The challenge, Disney acknowledged, will be to get the standards known within newsrooms and readily understood by reporters. Meanwhile, the Press Council has, in its submission to the Convergence Review, called for a cross-media self-regulation body.
So, all good stuff, and a significant come back for the Press Council, which has been treated with, and sometimes deserved, contempt in the past. But there are limits. Or so far, in any case. In his departing spray, former chair Ken McKinnon called for a review of the accountability of newspaper editors.
Will that idea be picked up by the Press Council? In the current climate, it would be the ultimate hot potato.
Surely the “”ultimate hot potato”” would be the disgraceful fact that 70% of Oz media is owned by an American citizen, that in the state of Victoria alone there is one only tabloid paper which is, of course, owned by this same American who uses it to disseminate his political opinions in the full knowledge that the people buying it are the least educated in our society, and therefore the most likely to believe his crap. This same person already owns the Australian airwaves and is in the position of controlling all the airwaves in the PacRim sphere, as soon as our spineless governments give him the all clear.
Another point which should be discussed at government level is why are all the people who protest most vociferously that the press be free, are the very people who abuse the concept of freedom? Anyone viewing Q&A last night would have noticed the megalomaniacal English/Irish (?) journalist who would give Torquemada a run for his money, will know exactly what I am talking about.
Yes, newspaper editors should be accountable, even more so, should newspaper owners be accountable.
A generally positive article that managed to be critical and informative all at the same time. Nearly fell out of my chair. Well done! More please.
Good article, certainly the commercial media are the last people I would like to see reporting anything vaguely contentious such as this. Perhaps suicide reports for publication should be prepared by nominated health professionals themselves. It is certainly quite ridiculous that the public arecurrently denied access to the fact that there is indeed a problem. Perhaps once the public are made aware of the size and scope of the problem they may agitate for action on the causes.
As a supporter of SANE I thoroughly encourage high profile public discourse of this epidemic yet taboo subject. It is nothing to be ashamed of and if people at risk felt they would be helped rather than shamed treatment would be more effective, especially for males who are “better” at suicide. I applaud this initiative by the APC.
This looks like a very positive development to me.
However, I hope as part of their invitation only consultations – which according to the APC’s website will involve “mental health experts and senior media representatives” – will also involve some people who have gone through suicide attempts and people close to people who have committed suicide. I don’t for a second dispute the value of the professional experts, but I think a direct contribution from some who wrestle with the suicide option would bring some extra value.
As for the call for a review of the accountability of newspaper editors – this also sounds fine to me up to a point, but it would need to be tightly defined. Ultimately editors are accountable to their employer, their readers, the law and (ideally) a clear code of ethics and/or practice. I think this last one is the area where some work could be done – a nice simple one would be accountability for correcting clear errors and for right of reply. One of the best features of Crikey (which is far from perfect itself of course) is that it publishes unedited, and with similar prominence, corrections/complaints from people who believe they have been misrepresented/misquoted, etc – and even more laudably, usually doesn’t use this as a chance to then take an extra shot at the person or issue in question. A standard accepted practice in this area would be a wonderful reform, although one would need to be careful in how far to go in making it enforceable.