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Spring 2004 cover

National Observer Home > No. 62 - Spring 2004 > Article

The Media and Public Relations

Max Teichmann

Some years ago - in 1998 in fact - Paul Sheehan produced a best seller, Among the Barbarians. It was politically incorrect, and this, I think, contributed to its well deserved success. It was a book that somehow or other got under the wire, while the cultural police were dozing. Sheehan attacked a number of the fictions which encase issues such as multiculturalism, aborigines, immigration, and many other things besides. And he substantiated his critiques.

These critiques were directed at things that have been advanced as matters of fact, purportedly the fruits of much impartial consideration, but in fact running counter to the verdicts of the reasonable, the well-informed and the well-educated among us. It appeared that the cognoscenti had been dealing in factual errors and value judgments that were eminently challengeable and had been advancing sectional interests, via special pleading and wishful thinking, together with a liberal deployment of arguments ad hominem and ignoratio elenchi, and common or garden non sequiturs. It has been a dreary interlude.

Sheehan's first book came at a time when we were still digesting John Howard's announcement of the revival of free speech, the return of openness of discussion, and an end to the censoring or marginalising of critics and of cultural whistle-blowers, along with the penalties and intimidations which they had been enduring. Some of us felt then that a new era of tolerance had dawned. But, such has not been the case. Instead, a long period of damage control, face-saving and covert rather than overt discrimination, by the Emperors without Clothes, has followed. Sheehan was perhaps lucky to be so successful with his first book.

His second book, The Electronic Whorehouse, has largely been given arm's length treatment by those who have discussed it in the public domain. Repressive tolerance was the solution in some quarters. After all, Sheehan is still a columnist and senior writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, where he has been day editor, chief of staff and Washington correspondent. He has been published in leading American newspapers and journals, been included in some Best Essay Collections, and has a good academic curriculum vitae. So it would be difficult to dismiss him as a closet Hansonite, a racist reactionary and so on. Hence the pack just turned their faces to the wall until the train passed.

Here, Sheehan takes on a group of whom he is a member - the media. The emphasis is on whistle-blowing, so a number of chapters are devoted to the media's treatment of the Tampa and children overboard; detention centres; Bringing Them Home and the Wilson Report; stolen children and the film Rabbit-Proof Fence; and the extremely nasty and well co-ordinated campaign to destroy the reputation and, if possible, the professional livelihood of a conservative columnist, Janet Albrechsten; and the actual destruction of the career of Admiral Chris Barrie, by the pack behaviour of the Canberra Gallery. And of course there is Keith Windschuttle. Then there is a strange story of the Sydney Institute, Rodney Adler, the Hendersons - Gerard and Ann - and a discussion of continuous press attempts to destroy extremely successful broadcasters John Laws, Alan Jones and the radio station 2UE. For light relief Sheehan gives us what comes over as an interminable spat between two hollow men, Mike Carlton and Phillip Adams, which he entitles "The longest tantrum". It is about jostling egos - and nothing else.

There are other general chapters of more lasting intellectual significance which, all put together, give a quite dismaying picture of an industry in decline, containing more and more journalists who are intellectually one-dimensional, biased beyond redemption, professionally incompetent and slaves to the pack mentality of their fellows, yet more than happy to tear any colleague to pieces if the pogrom starts. Frank Sinatra said it all, soon after he made their acquaintance.

Sheehan points out something which most of us have been observing for some time. The public is slowly deserting the media for the Internet, or just about anything which spares them compulsive propagandising and the non-reporting of important events, the cash for commentary, the never-ending intrusions into people's private lives and the tarting up of public relations handouts from lobby groups and political favourites, so as to create what appears to be news or judicious commentary.

More and more news available on the Internet appears several days later on the local news channels as the latest information, in some cases virtually word for word of the original. Insights from intelligent, well-written articles appearing overseas, reappear here in a bowdlerised or derivative form in one or other of our self-proclaimed "quality" papers. One is forced to the conclusion that most of our journalists are now incapable of conducting original research.

In an important chapter, which he entitles "Influence", Sheehan ironically doffs his hat to the Public Relations, Lobbying and Political Advertising Industries, without whom most Australian newspapers would be carrying great empty spaces.

Straight from the Horse's Mouth - but Which Horse?

Paul Sheehan estimates that between 60 and 80 per cent of stories run by the media originate from the public relations sector. And he should know. If one then factors in the news items generated by professional news-makers, notably politicians and social activists, then the proportion is even higher. Politicians can make splendid speeches: other politicians favoured by a newspaper can put on an abysmal performance, and be criticised in parliament for such - yet the good speech is commonly suppressed, while the latter sows' ears are turned into things resembling a silk purse, by the process of creative journalism.

Being close to the Democrats in the early days - when they were an energetic group seeking political change and highly critical of the duopoly - Labor and conservative - I used to read their press releases, sent to all members of parliament and staff and to all papers, Canberra journalists and the networks. They were excellent productions, far superior to those of the main parties. They rarely made the news.

As Sheehan points out, it is one thing for people to speak in parliament, or for ministers' offices, (or even the ministers themselves) to issue statements on matters of policy, often of high import - but quite another thing for the statements to the electorate to actually get through to them. When they do, they may have been tampered with in one or a hundred ways. Even the Prime Minister cannot guarantee that he can communicate freely and openly to the electorate through a report of his stewardship via the media, especially the A.B.C./S.B.S. This freedom to communicate effectively, of a Prime Minister and Ministers, is a sine qua non of representative democracy. But press gate-keepers decide what we are to know.

So it was quite piquant to see John Howard escaping from this "truth detention centre" by having his own talk back programme via Southern Cross Radio. Competitors - doubtless to their chagrin - have to carry at least some of these statements and interviews. The Canberra Gallery, if the Liberals stayed on for several more years, could find themselves housed in the Canberra Museum. Their prestige has already plummeted, for they are no longer the middle-men, the horse-whisperers, so what is there for them to do?

The usual dirty tricks campaign is, of course, resorted to with endless opinion polls, day in and day out, propaganda from the public broadcasters and Packer, as well as obstructionism amounting to attempts to paralyse the federal structure, by the Labor states. There were quite serious attempts to drive out Alan Jones and John Laws, since their independence was resented. The more powerful media interests believe that 2UE and Southern Cross radio must be turned off the air, or tamed, for then John Howard would lose his talk show, lose his contact with ordinary Australians, and thenceforth be slandered and misrepresented at will. Naturally A.B.C. characters have been devoting much public money to this heroic task.

Making News

When one realises that the public relations people and lobbyists are usually speaking for unions, "charities", and the feel-good industries - such as Aborigines, Multiculturalists, Mass-immigration, Refugees and People-smuggling supporters, Environmentalists, Educationists and Universities, the many purported "caring" groups, besides Big Business, Big Corporations, and Finance, and so on - one knows whence the media obtain their "news", and the politicians their opinions. (Or is it their orders?) Neither of these wings of public life - the media or the political class - has nowadays much to do with representative democracy, the common good, the national interest or the will of the people, however one defines these terms. Any connections would be fortuitous.

Media owners have always made clear how they see their role: to make as much money as possible for themselves and shareholders, for they are business corporations. H.G. Wells, quipping about Lord Beaverbrook (Max Aitken), said that "if Max believed in God, he'd try to start up a joint stock company with Him".

From my childhood, newspapers tried not to offend powerful influence in the community, in those days the Catholic Church, the Diggers and the R.S.L., the Farmers (for the Country Party was a power in the land), and big advertisers, such as Myers. In some quarters, Keith Murdoch's Herald was described as the Myer supplement. But there was a great deal in that paper that expressed independent views, so there were stories and there was actual news. Overseas news was mainly cable news, eighty-five per cent English-sourced, for there were few Australian correspondents.

But now, with every acre of media space and time staked out in advance for a long list of people and causes who must not be offended, lest they turn off the tap, and another list of people and causes who are kept off the page, out of the news, because they offend the media or its clients, the situation has become far, far worse. But as Sheehan says, there is light at the end of the tunnel, since people are streaming to the exits.

There is much more in this chapter "Influence Inc.", such as how to create one's own pressure group, protest group or demonstration, and how to identify the people pulling the strings. (Thus his anatomy of the pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation lobbies is instructive and amusing. Nothing, but nothing, is as it appears.)

Sheehan started "Influence Inc." from an interview he had with David Cornwell, that is, John le Carré, novelist and ex-spy, in Sydney: "I think we are dealing with an octopus. We have become the creatures of these people. Advertising as news. It's very skilfully done. The methods of seducing the media are far more sophisticated and the money that's going into it, and the ingenuity of the spin, has reached the point, where we, as the general public, have never been lied to by such sophisticated means as now. And, of course, this completely confounds the modern notions of transparency and instant communications; it's instant brain-washing."

At the end of this chapter, having given us the real story of the violent waterfront dispute of 1998 and its non-violent and mutually-beneficial aftermath - with the media devoting less than one per cent of the coverage of the enormous and mutually beneficial conclusion of the struggle that it had to the earlier violence - Sheehan suggests that the ingrained negativity of the media motto that good news is no news "is exactly what fuels the public relations industry, justifies its existence and makes it an accessory".

This is a sad position, and certainly a great number of people and organisations, or almost any group who stand out, or who have done something, or are attempting to do something, may find themselves attacked by any reporter seeking a dollar or a chance to sate his envy, or any editor chasing the owner's approval. Film stars, athletes, members of the Royal Family, judges who try to do their duty and ritual hate objects, such as the police, defence forces, intelligence services, individual priests and nowadays churches who appear almost to invite blame and abuse, and private schools, are all likely to find themselves dragged into the village square, to be abused.

One protection, and Sheehan is right, would be a permanent shield from public relations agents. The alternative is even more expensive - lawyers and a loss of reputation win or lose; or, if one be an ordinary person without adequate financial resources, possible extinction, socially and professionally.

However this is only one form of public relations activity. More generally we see the legions of predators, and the symbiosis between public relations and the media, with the public the intended victim, and the control of the political system the ultimate prize.

Sheehan finishes this chapter with a cameo of a nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays. The American father of public relations said, "Most people are herd-like in their thinking and susceptible to suggestion." Opinion could be organised, if there were provided enough money and skill. Dr Goebbels certainly agreed with this, as do our media magnates. In his book Propaganda 1928 Bernays says "if we understand the mechanism and modem of the group in mind it is possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it".

The key phrase is "without them knowing it". The controllers are like domineering parents or a manipulative or mendacious mother, able to exclude all rival influences for a child, psychologically speaking, without the child even knowing it - until it is too late. There are endless ways whereby human beings steal one another's freedom of thought. As Sheehan concludes, the flood of stealth agendas from spin-doctors and journalists themselves has overwhelmed the thin defensive lines of rigorous detachment. Propaganda is triumphant, opinion is ubiquitous. Hidden agendas are the norm.

So when Sheehan gives us his various case histories, the methodology of the relevant journalists and pressure groups with their falsifications, news management and hidden agendas are easy to detect.

The illegal immigrants and boat people issue, upon which the media almost entirely focussed - and for many months - probably did not win Howard his election, for he was coming back strongly before then, but certainly helped him, inadvertently. Lateline, for example, from August 2001 to 15 May 2002, with two months off for holidays, had 125 days of programming and showed the stories on asylum-seekers 125 times. To what end? The 2001 Electoral Study by the A.B.S., using 1,702 representative respondents, came out three to one in favour of a hard line with boat people. Only one group of ten per cent, designated social professionals, demurred from the great majority. Yet we still find this ten per cent dominating the media and information industries in what is now a never-ending campaign of stale propaganda.

This has done great damage to the Labor Party, in so far as it has been associated with that propaganda and that ten per cent group - for it has pushed out more permanent and structural concerns of traditional Labor and the electorate. Howard's visible comeback before Tampa was due to the growing perception that Labor had no plausible set of policies, rather a collection of Pavlovian reactions to whatever was suggested or whatever was being done.

The Labor Party had not thought anything out; they had not done their homework. All their energies were dissipated on a number of issues, with which voters had been fed to the point of tedium or resentment. Voters wanted the Labor Party to say how they were to be governed over the whole range of social and economic issues. They are still waiting. Meanwhile the pied pipers of the Far Left, and those campaigning for traditional gravy trains, such as mass migration, multiculturalism, anti-private education, anti-private medicine, A.T.S.I.C., and similar causes, are trying to lead the Labor Party away, to their own advantage, once again.

I am sure Mark Latham would have little regard for these people, or for the propagandists or the politically senile pressure groups which still beset the media and thrust their agendas upon the Labor Party and the defenceless public, but whether he could successfully sideline them at the appropriate time is another matter.

In some ways, The Media and Public Relations is a chilling work revealing small town skullduggery, mainly performed by mediocrities, too often possessed of considerable ill-will, and standing in the way of any humane or rational approach to the practice of democratic politics. It should be widely read, as a valuable education.

National Observer No. 62 - Spring 2004