There’s a particular kind of media news story in which one outlet reports, with a sense of faint disgust or even dismay, that another outlet has chosen to pay a large amount of money for an interview with a newsworthy non-celebrity.
Thus The Australian report “Outrage as Nine network pays more than $2m for Cleo Smith interview” at the end of last week, which contained the usual characteristics of such stories — the unverified claim that $2 million was involved, speculation that it included a plan to interview four-year-old Cleo Smith, the namechecking of “talent agent Max Markson”, and lamentation from an anonymous “senior executive” that such money could be better used in other journalistic ventures.
It also contained the immortal phrase “staff at Nine are expected to be appalled by news of the Cleo Smith deal”.
While The Australian’s track record of reporting actual events is pretty poor, it’s hard to fault a claim that someone is expected to be appalled — even if the person doing the expecting remains unidentified, a nebulous passive-voice expector, perhaps with a very low threshold for what constitutes a state of being appalled.
But regardless of the identity of this mystery expector, Nine staff might at least be puzzled, if not disgruntled or even annoyed at the decision of Nine management to allegedly devote $2 million to interviewing the family of an abducted and successfully retrieved child, given there’s no way the network could possible recoup such an investment from additional advertising. What fascinating insights will be obtained from Smith’s family — their sickening horror at her abduction, their immense relief at her being found safe — that might spark a revenue surge is also unclear.
Not that the story of the trauma isn’t compelling — it’s a traditional morality fable, a little (white) girl taken from her family by a stranger, but recovered by brilliant detective work, the kind of story we all want to believe in, even without the racial overtones introduced by the Indigenous status of the accused.
The threat of the stranger to children and to women, and protecting against or somehow thwarting that threat, persists as a staple of our media.
That’s why it’s not just our news and current affairs programs, but our drama series, that are littered with dead women and kids, or women and kids imperilled, snatched, held captive, sexually assaulted, murdered, awaiting a brilliant detective to outwit the (invariably genius-like) murderer and provide resolution, if not a breathing body, by the time the credits roll.
The inevitable point this leads to — as recent tragic events in New South Wales have demonstrated yet again — is that strangers are a relatively minimal threat to women and children. They are in far greater danger from their families — their partners, their parents, their step-parents or carers — than any lurking other.
A 2019 study found that between 2000 and 2012, 284 Australian children were murdered by family members. The number of those assaulted or abducted by family members is, of course, dramatically higher. The gender split of filicide offenders during the period was almost even: 52-48 towards men, although male offenders outnumber female offenders most years. The rate of Indigenous offending was significantly higher than non-Indigenous offending, though the tiny number of Indigenous cases makes for great volatility.
The perverse thing about the way we focus differently on different threats is that one is much more within our control than the other. There will always be people who pose a threat to the rest of us, because they’re unwell or just evil, but they represent a random threat, dependent purely on time and circumstance.
We can improve our criminal justice system to keep them locked up when they offend, we can lift conviction rates for sexual assault and other violent crimes, we can have strict gun laws to prevent their access to lethal weapons, we can encourage police to focus on warnings signs, but there will always be bad people free in society capable of assaulting or killing a random person in the wrong circumstances. It’s an inescapable random factor of society.
The comfort of the Cleo Smith narrative is that when such an horrific random fate strikes a normal family, society can somehow intervene and prevent the worst outcome. It’s a comfort against the essentially random nature of life, where a small but real risk of violent death will always exist.
What’s not comforting about the majority of deaths of children is that they are not random but significantly preventable, because they reflect social and economic systems at work. They are the result of education systems, media environments, cultural values, socially imposed roles, economic outcomes and inequality, the consequences of colonialism, the operation of the criminal justice system and institutions like welfare services and the Family Court.
These are all artificial systems that can be adjusted by a community, and to a lesser extent by government. Some of those adjustments may also diminish the threat posed by random stranger threats, particularly sexual assault. But they involve complex policy areas, often coupled with poor research base (we’re still trying to develop a statistically reliable measurement process merely for violence against women and children) and deeply contested policy spaces.
The simple fable of the lost white girl is altogether more appealing than the hard struggle of addressing the real threats to families. There are no talent agents flogging that yarn, few TV executives clamouring for the rights to it, but the many journalists who do understand where we should focus when it comes to violence against women and children indeed have a right to be appalled about where our preferences lies.
So very, very true, and we only need the recent tragedies in NSW and Victoria to remind us of that. I don’t know whether yet another Royal Commission is needed, but I know it hurts many survivors of child sexual and physical abuse that institutional abuse was the subject of a Royal Commission and subsequent compensation schemes, yet there has not been a similar exploration of the abuse which occurs within families.
I think the more compelling story in the Cleo Smith saga is that of the abductor. He seems to have wanted a family. I know it’s probably not a popular opinion, but I feel really sad for him. He is clearly quite ill. I also can’t help feeling that there is a narrative there about the history of white people stealing indigenous children. Clearly he didn’t do it as a ‘now you know how it feels’ (or at least, I presume he didn’t). And yet, there it is. It’s not that long ago that the members of the force which searched so hard and well for Cleo were the ones who stole the children from indigenous families on behalf of the state. Those recent sins resonate down the ages.
Your second paragraph may not receive support but I heartily agree.
As to a Royal Commission into family abuse, there are too many emotional issues which would make this unviable. Some families guard their hidden history & behaviours – abuse & incest would rate among the darkest secrets. A brave soul who called out this behaviour publicly would bear the consequences from other relatives who were still invested in the family unit. It’s completely different from blaming an institution which is an impersonal entity & can remain at arm’s length. And, unlike a church or other institution, who would compensate abused family members?
Oh I agree. It’s just hard for people in that situation to not even have it acknowledged that children are far more likely to be abused in the home than anywhere else.
I was wondering where you were going with this BK, and then late, the article took a great turn.
This is a complex area that needs lots of improvements.
The start is educating people, and this article at least achieves that goal
Gambling causes harm to families. The Royal Commission Report into Crown Casino, as far as I can see, failed to consider the Singapore third-party exclusion procedure which enables affected families the right to intervene where a loved-one is a gambling addict causing harm to the family. In my submission I wrote:
Harm Mitigation
“If any one measure is taken to mitigate the harm caused by gambling addiction, it should be the provision of a third-party exclusion power. This is done in Singapore and might not constitute a departure from the agreement made at the time of the establishment of the casino. The Victorian exclusion procedures should use the intervention order mechanisms involving the police and magistracy. (Although it may or may not be beyond the terms of reference, third party exclusion arrangements should be made in respect of other gambling by Victorians, so the casino is operating on a level playing field.)”
I can, though, find no reference to third party exclusion either in support or rejection of it. The matter, which I consider to be the most important single provision to prevent harm to spouses and children, never even came on the radar. Instead, we had the usual parade of straw men.
From our comfortable homes and our adequate income, it’s easy to miss that for VAST numbers of people our society is not working. I’ve worked with some burned out social workers. The stuff they confront every day would make your and my hair stand on end. The risks they take walking into some homes. The things they see that that they can’t unsee. The despair they feel working without enough time and resources to do the job, KNOWING that kids are falling between the cracks and somehow dragging themselves out of bed in the morning and trying to make a difference where they can. Society is not working – why? The drugs are a predominantly a symptom of trauma and despair, the violence is caused by deep seated rage that has fear way in behind it. Social justice isn’t just a pretty concept. Lack of social justice is not the only cause but is a a big cause of so much of the ills of our society. My generation is allowing our planet to burn and we wonder why the kids are in despair and turn to drugs to blunt it. My generation votes for utter wankers who are unduly influenced by corporate interests in what is corruption whatever way we look at, meaning that the REAL social justice issues are kicked to the curb. Housing that doesn’t mean sleeping in your car because there wasn’t enough casual work this week, confidence in a roof over your head, not having to choose between paying the electricity or eating a nutritious meal that has you feeling well in yourself like ANYBODY who is relying on an old age pension experiences routinely. And god help the chronically unemployed, whose situation is even worse – so many people disabled in body and mind who don’t have the ability to fight centrelink, who are forced onto unemployment benefits unfairly – benefits that are DESIGNED to crucify them. And we wonder why so many people are filled with rage and despair and expressing that as violence? And yeah I know that there’s also violence coming from other causes, but it’s too big to address here.
Your cri de cœur was well worth reading and pondering.
However, please consider that it would help to space & paragraph a bit, to make the reading easier.
The Family Court? Do we still have that? I think that’s a threat that’s been removed by the current government….
Making family violence even more invisible.