What happens to ABC journalists found to have performed unprofessionally?
In August 2006, a Four Corners program on forestry in Tasmania was found by the The Australian Communications and Media Authority to be bias and inaccurate. This program attacked the management of Tasmania’s forests and timber industry. Lords of the Forest was found by the independent adjudicators to fail almost every test of professional journalism; it did not even meet the ABC’s own Code of Practice on impartiality and accuracy in current affairs reporting.
Subsequent to the ACMA findings, I have been asked by several people: “What will now happen to the journalist in question Tikki Fullerton?”
Well might they ask. If history is any guide, she will probably go on to stardom.
Sixteen years ago, Four Corners made an equally clumsy foray into Western Australian forest management. This was The Wood for the Trees, broadcast by ABC TV on June 18th, 1990. I was then a forester working for the WA Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM), also a senior officer of the department.
CALM had recently published management plans which provided for the full balance of forest uses from “locked away” nature reserves, to National Parks, to State forests where timber cutting and regeneration were permitted. We also had significant programs of plantation development and wildlife management, and we provided extensively for forest visitors and recreationists. Our forestry work in those days was fully endorsed by State and Federal governments and by the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority. This will surely resonate with Tasmanian foresters in 2006.
In spite of all this, CALM was deeply unpopular with extreme environmentalists. Four Corners were sooled onto us by Perth green activists, who saw this as a way to discredit us nationally, and tip the political balance against the timber industry and the forestry profession. One of WA’s most rabid environmentalists admitted subsequently in a radio interview that she had mapped out the Four Corners interview schedule for their program. It became obvious later that the activists not only suggested the interviewees, but also the lines of questioning and field stops. Four Corners worked in WA with them for some weeks before even contacting anyone in CALM. When eventually they did meet up with us it was clear that their position had been rigidly determined. They were out to get us.
The resulting program was diabolical, even worse than Lords of the Forest. All the most reprehensible traits of agenda-driven journalism emerged: the presentation of unsupported and incorrect statements by environmentalists as if they were indisputable facts; failure to check statements by our critics, or to show our refutation of them; uncritical acceptance of the most palpably absurd assertions made by political activists; and failure to interview anyone (including CALM scientists) who might have provided an alternative view to some of the most outrageous claims. One of the guest interviewees was the owner of a small art gallery. Another interviewee given plenty of air-time was a small-time disgruntled sawmiller, who (surprise, surprise) was uncomplimentary about CALM’s allocation of logs, just possibly because of our failure to allocate a large number of really good ones to him. Two Canberra CSIRO botanists were also interviewed, and the journalist cleverly made out that they were critical of CALM’s system for protecting rare and endangered plants, although what they actually said was totally innocuous. I later met these two botanists and they were disgusted at the way the journalist had manipulated them.
I was present in the room when the Four Corners journalist interviewed CALM’s Executive Director, Dr Syd Shea. The interview lasted nearly four hours without a break. In the broadcast this was reduced to a few minutes of carefully selected snippets. The journalist was aggressive and unrelenting throughout.
It was the first time I had watched a current affairs journalist at work. The first thing that struck me was that he had already made up his mind. The second was that the purpose of the interview did not appear to be to gather information or seek understanding, but to attack a person and an organisation. He would ask the same question over and over, but every time he would phrase it in a slightly different way. And he would keep coming back to issues already discussed to probe them yet again, searching for a weakness or something he could later portray as a damning admission.
It would be too much to hope that Tasmania’s forestry people had time to marshal media resources, but we were fortunate – we managed to make our own video of the interview. This allowed us later to compare the actual questions and Dr Shea’s answers with the massively edited version eventually shown by Four Corners. All the journalist’s and editor’s stratagems were thus dramatically exposed. Anything said by Dr Shea which did not fit the journalist’s predetermined position was edited out, while any slight slip or ambiguity was highlighted. Later, the journalist ridiculed Dr Shea as a ‘baby-kissing politician’, while showing a shot of Shea kissing a baby. The journalist neglected to mention that the baby shown was Dr Shea’s daughter.
Dr Shea was not a man to take this sort of personal insult lying down, any more than he would accept the unjust assault on his agency. With the full support of Premier and Minister, he strongly counter-attacked the ABC. A wide range of State and Federal politicians were briefed and their support obtained. An official complaint was written up and published in a substantial document. This included the transcripts of both films – ours and the one shown by Four Corners – of the same interview. A total of 44 separate instances of factual error, misrepresentation, bias and selective editing were described. The document also set out the secretive comings and goings of the Four Corners team in the field, where they had the gall to behave as if CALM was some sort of dangerous terrorist organisation.
Tasmanians who are still fighting the ABC over Lords of the Forest will be pleased to hear that in the end Syd Shea had a win. ABC management was repentant. Four Corners presenter Andrew Olle broadcast an apology in which the litany of false assertions and incorrect statements in The Wood for the Trees was admitted.
But Tasmanians may not like to know the following. Despite the apology, the Four Corners journalist who anchored the program, Mark Colvin, was subsequently given a series of plum overseas assignments. Today he is one of Australia’s most prominent journalists, the host of the ABC’s flagship current affairs radio program PM.
Tikki Fullerton, the journalist from Lords of the Forest, has re-appeared many times as a front-line journalist for the ABC since Lords caused such a storm of anger. As far as I can determine (from letters to the ABC’s Managing Director) she has not even been reprimanded. Nor, to my knowledge, has the ABC ever apologized over the Fullerton program. There is clearly a culture within the ABC, or at least among its journalists, that they are above criticism.
Unfortunately, any apology and adverse finding will always be too late. As the extreme environmentalists know who cook up these programs in the first place, what matters is the initial impression. What they count upon is the gullibility of television viewers, especially those who watch the ABC, live in the leafy suburbs and don’t know anything about forestry, but like to indulge in trendy arms-length environmentalism. Thus, cruel damage is done – irreparably in WA, as it turned out.
Sixteen years after The Wood for the Trees program I am still unable to watch Four Corners; indeed I have not been able to watch any television current affairs programs since then without a feeling of betrayal. I have seen how the journalists work, experienced first-hand the editorial trickery, the deep bias, the loaded questions, the uncritical acceptance of absurd nonsense from people with the ‘right’ ideology, and the selective interviewing.
For me, the Four Corners attack on forestry in WA was the moment when ABC current affairs journalism lost its credibility. I realised then that a ‘crusading’ journalist was one who closes one eye in order to see better with the other. From this perspective, even though it hurts to admit it, Lords of the Forest was simply déjà vu.
Roger Underwood
Perth, Western Australia
PS Within a few days of ACMA’s findings on Lords of the Forest and its advice to the ABC to review its procedures for preparing current affairs television programs to ensure impartiality and accuracy, the Stateline program in Western Austraslia broadcast a program which tried to demonstrate that logging in the jarrah forest would destroy quokkas. I won’t go into the details, other than to say that I have lodged an official complaint which describes 11 separate instances in the program of bias, misrepresentation, selective interviewing, factual error and failure to undertake basic research. What this tells me is that unprofessional journalism and the penetration of environmentalist influence within ABC current affairs is systemic and probably inoperable. The disease is even yet to be diagnosed within the Corporation, let alone addressed. “
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Roger Underwood is a former General Manager of CALM in Western Australia, a regional and district manager, a research manager and bushfire specialist. Roger currently directs a consultancy practice with a focus on bushfire management. He lives in Perth, Western Australia.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
To have a look at Mark’s career since the Four Corners apology see http://abc.net.au/pm/mark_colvin.htm
My understanding is that these people are public servants employed under some sort of Public Service Act or Public Sector Management Act. And this sort of behaviour would certainly constitute a serious breach of discipline.
Have the Tasmanians merely lodged a complaint about the program? They should also consider a formal complaint in respect of the breach of discipline so it goes on her employment record.
There is no likelihood that this is just an innocent mistake. The ABC’s appologies are the defense mechanisms of the pickpocket, of course they’re sorry, they’re sorry they got caught.
How are these so-called journalists getting away with this behaviour and avoiding criminal charges or at least, the sack. Those implicit in this behaviour should be exposed and appropriately dealt with by the law.
This spin by such people as 4 corners, has the effect of not drawing the publics attention, on a sustainable basis, to people such as Roger, who have vital perspectives to give regarding the threat of feral wildfire and the need to promote science/protocols that invites sound management towards it.
I think this spin is well organized and drivinga hidden agenda. Little bits of factitious spin every where which is glued together over time to create ‘journalistic’ fact.
How far will they go?
A quick story. Jennifer please wipe this post if you think I am stretching it or gone silly. No problem at this end.
I had the unfortunate experience of being in some of the bad stuff in Ash Wednesday. The Dandenongs. Belgrave Heights to Gembrook.
On the second or third day a group of us were standing around observing some destruction that had just taken place shaking our heads in disbelief .
A thing you heard often at the time, was people referring to, for want of a better word, “fireballing”. We know it today as “crowning”.
This fire was jumping over our heads, through the tops of the trees and for all intensive purposes fireballing seemed like a good description.
While standing in this group, outside Cockatoo general store, somebody exclaimed that the fire was “fireballing” through the trees. One said, (a CFA captain in the area) how the fire came over a high ridge behind his house and exploded down the hillside, jumped him and his house and hit the property across the road (which burnt down).
I had a similar experience at my house but it came up the hill and over us.
Others voiced similar experiences.
Anyhow, when a couple of comments had been made referring to fireballs, a voice came from behind us which said something along the lines of “No, there is no such thing as fireballing.” Everybody looked around in astonishment to see a person in uniform, a park ranger looking person, who went on to say something to the effect of “People are emotionally over awed, confused by the fire and are imaging things”. We just stared at the bloke for a moment in disbeleif, restated what lots of people were saying and left it at that. I remember him to be official but nervous.
I have since come to understand a little about the environment and politics, including a greater awareness of wildfire management, legislation and methodology.
While you had to be there, I think now that I know a little more, this ranger parked himself outside the general store, knowing, especially on that day and at that time, people were going to drift towards the general store area as a meeting place, where he, if necessary would deliver spin.
I’m sure I’m not stretching a long bow here.
The crowning was so overwhelming and scary, so powerful an image, that this was a major aspect that perhaps needed pre-media control. Best we talk about tragedy, loss, heroes and donations.
Are the lunatics running the asylum?!?!
I got off the post here a bit but I have to wonder how deep and ruthless is the spin, after all, so many people are saying, there seems to be a hidden political agenda amongst some ‘environmentalists’.
I’ll leave it to my over-imagination for now.
Keep up your good work Roger and hope you get a fair go soon.
The ABC is a disgrace, not all but a significant part of it is just that. Disgraceful. Traitors.
They are inadvertently promoting environmental catastrophy.
The duty of the ABC’s Board is to ensure that the functions of the Corporation are performed efficiently with maximum benefit to the people of Australia and to maintain the independence and integrity of the Corporation. The Board is also responsible for ensuring that the gathering and presentation of news and information is accurate and impartial, according to recognised standards of journalism, and that the ABC complies with legislative and legal requirements.
Reading Rogers post on the WA forest story and comparing that to the reaction of the ABC to its Award winning “Lords of the Forests” perhaps the Austalian public, the “Shareholders” should ask their Board to ensure that all future Forest news and current affairs is accurate and impartial. A good way to do this is by setting the example and apologizing for mistakes found by its own independent complaints review panel, and by the ACMA after perhaps the longest complaints investigation in Australia’s Television history.
Gatecrash the next Aus Museum presentation of the Eureka Prize. They’re the ones who actually rewarded the spin. Take a dozen eggs ($2), mix with prime time, celebrities, pollies and a well organised, publicly funded media event, and turn it into a REAL NEWS STORY. A bucket of urine over the glad rags should give it the appropriate stench.
Now that, folks, is real value adding.
I was interested in story about the denial of fireballing, or crown fires, and quote below from my 2003 book Tree Climber:
“I remember being down in the Shannon [State Forest] one day with Ron Kitson, checking on a timber cutting operation, when we received notification of a fire on the Deeside Road. We were the nearest foresters and were dispatched to investigate. When we got there we found quite a fire. It had “crowned” (started to burn through the tops of the karri trees) just before we got there, and I will never forget he sight of whole tree tops, 60 metres above the ground, exploding into fire balls which then rolled through the forest like a breaking wave….Luckily this fire did not become famous. After it crossed the Deeside Road it ran into an area where we had done an aerial prescribed burn two years previously and the fire rapidly dropped away and was easily controlled.”
I observed three crown fires in eucalypt forest and one in a pine plantation during my career in forestry, and I can assure the denial-merchants that they were not a figment of my imagination. On every occasion they were associated with two factors: extreme conditions superimposed upon heavy, dry, long-unburnt fuels.
Roger Underwood
Tiki Fullerton and 4 Corners have indeed been rapped over the knuckles about the Lords program. However, they are yet to make any sort of public apology. The ABC and Tiki have certainly not offered to return the Banksia Prize which they were awarded for this show. It just demonstrates their total lack of ethics.
In Tasmania we are lucky to have a retired forester (in fact an octogenarian) who is on the case. Believe me, when he rings the Chairman of the ABC Board, the ABA or other organisations, they know who he is. Let’s hope he gets some satisfaction before he turns 100.
The editing of interviews with the Forestry Tasmania CEO, Evan Rolley, was done in the same manner as Roger describes for Syd Shea. So in over 10 years, the standard of journalistic ethics has not moved, in fact, shoddy performance is rewarded.
In Tasmania we also suffer the same standard of biased and unprofessional journalism in the print media. In particular a News Ltd paper based in Hobart has spent the past 10 years provoking a fight with anything to do with forestry. Native forest logging, plantations, water, browsing animal control, trucks in Hobart streets, Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease, fish deaths etc. etc. – anything that can be vaguely related to forestry activities is immediately denigrated, blamed, accused etc. Every positive story always carries a rider – usually a totally uninformed quote from a green politician or activist. The greens are viewed as the font of all knowledge, none of what they put up is ever questioned. Statements from eminent forest scientists are dismissed in favour of opinions from unqualified green activists.
Recent examples include the bleating of the environmental movement about the pulp mill. At the moment we are getting a weekly display of things that are wrong with the mill in the media. Recently we had a report about effluent in Bass Strait trotted out with great fanfare about the person who did this so-called scientific report. It later transpired this person did not even have a basic science degree, let alone any qualifications in chemistry, oceanography or any other discipline relevant to his report.
Whether the reports are good or bad is irrelevant. The agenda is to use the media to put pressure on the Resource Planning and Development Commission to refuse the permit to build the mill. THE GULLIBLE MEDIA FALL RIGHT INTO THE TRAP. They never question the credibility of what is being fed to them.
Journalists wouldn’t know what investigative reporting is about if it hit them squarely in the face.
I too have stopped watching 4 Corners, because knowing how much the Lords program distorted the truth, I wonder how believable any other story is.
Although Stewie is of the topic, the question of fireballs is an interesting one never the less.
We have separation in gaseous combustion and vortex phenomena in bizarre events. I say it all depends on the winds, the rate of light fuel conversion and the magnitude of total combustion on the wild fire fronts in a given area. I see comparisons in liquid or gas fires.
In regards to crowning, all fires move fastest in less dense fuel on a bad day. The swiftest of all are wind driven ripened crop fires. Tree stock growing evenly in plantations is another likely candidate. Pine forests in drought conditions are just whipped away.
I stood around watching fire in the Dandenong Ranges on numerous occasions. In the 60’s we had absolute chaos when all local water supplies ran out. Cement mixers and milk tankers joined the rake and beater brigades. Exhausted crews pissed their last at what ever glow was in reach and walked out after the knapsacks were emptied on dried out clothes. I write a lot to the authorities today about the panic we saw on the way in.
That steep country east of Melbourne and Mt Macedon burns like most of Tasmania. The experts may argue about progression but the 1967 Hobart fires went right on to the sea rolling over villages and flat paddocks in all directions. Folks were dazed for days by what they saw.
Roger is spot on when he describes similar examples of the ABC bias in the print media, particularly the Mercury. We call it “The Wilderness Society Newsletter” or “The Daily Liar”. I have had several conversations with it’s editor Gary Baily over a letter which I wrote highlighting the misinformation that they printed in an article by their Chief reporter Sue Neales. Gary Baily consistantly says that errors by Sue Neales have been corrected and he refuses to print my letter, surprise, surprise! I can tell you the errors / lies have not been corrected by the Mercury and are never likely to be. It is interesting how the media are so precious when they are criticised but don’t think twice about their unrelenting criticisim of forest industry. A copy of my letter to the “Muckury” follows.
Mercury must apologise!
To be printed in full.
25 January 2006
On 19th January the Mercury ran a story by Sue Neales, Chief Reporter, on the Vernons’ property at Recherche Bay.
The story is riddled with inaccuracies and perpetuates a number of myths being created about this issue.
The Mercury was invited to and attended a media conference, conducted by David and Robert Vernon, the morning following the certification of the Forest Practices Plan, for the property in question. At that media conference the Vernon brothers went to great lengths to describe what the plans where for their property, in order to clarify much of the misinformation being regurgitated by extreme environmentalists who are anti everything.
The Vernon brothers made it clear that selective harvesting of 103 ha was proposed, not clear fall. Sue Neales reports that 400 ha will be clearfelled.
No doubt Bob Brown, Peg Putt and co. would love the issue to escalate into the National environmental protest Brown has alluded to. In order to raise the concerns of the public to try and incite such over the top emotion, they have distorted the truth and perpetuated incorrect statements about the intentions of the landowners and the Mercury are assisting them in their efforts by publishing known incorrect information.
The Mercury was briefed at the Vernons’ media conference on 1st April 2005. The Mercury reporter’s attendance was recorded on videotape, so that fact can be clearly demonstrated. Since then there have been several letters to the Mercury, correcting the misleading accusations about the type of harvesting proposed and attempting to correct the misleading information relating to the area proposed for harvest.
The Mercury seems to provide unlimited space to those opposed to the Vernons’ plans, but does not appear to provide the same courtesy to those supporting the Vernons’. Often a photograph has been provided of scenes from the Recherche Bay area along with letters opposing the Vernons’ plans, which is no doubt trying to induce a picture of this beauty being destroyed, which could not be further from the truth.
When a photograph was provided of an example of what the harvested forest might look like along with an explanation to the Mercury, this was ignored. Why? Because clearly it does not appear to be in the interests of some individuals who have a philosophical indifference to anything to do with forestry and in particular the Vernons’ fundamental legal right to manage their private property in the manner they have planned.
Once again I ask, what gives Brown, Putt, the Wilderness Society, etc, the right to assume they are the only ones who care about the environment? Who appointed these spoilers as custodians of the environment?
How much can this misleading campaign, be attributed to Dick Smith’s motivation to offer assistance to purchase the Vernon’s property?
I am personally aware that the Vernon brothers have being working for more than fifteen years on a plan to sensibly and sensitively manage this property. None of the values of special interest, historical, flora, fauna etc, will be adversely impacted by this operation.
There has been an enormous amount of work, go into the planning of this operation over many years and there will be ongoing work to ensure that none of the values of importance will be adversely impacted.
Sue Neales should be ashamed of her 19th January report and the Mercury should apologise to the Vernons’ for printing those demonstrably incorrect statements. The Mercury should also run a full page factual report, approved by the Vernon brothers, detailing the facts of the situation.
As a young bloke, back in the 50’s, I found you had to be very sure of your facts, before challenging anything stated on the ABC. Their homework was exemplary, & they reported on the facts.
As an old bloke, although still a bit naive, I now know a great deal about a couple of things.
When ever these things came up, on the ABC, I found they are talking such B S, that I found it hard to believe even they could get it so wrong.
I don’t like conspiracy theory bunk, but I have to wonder if they are just fellow travelers with the activists, or are recieving some consideration for these false reports. The fact that ABC presenters often complain, on air, about their income level, only adds to the thought.
What ever they are paid, one would have to say that they are much overpaid.
Whatever the case, I must agree with Tas Forester. When they get the things I know about so wrong, I find it very difficult to place any credence in anything reported on the network.
After having to buy a can of penetrating oil, to free up the dials, to get my radio, & TV off the ABC, I find I rarely go there these days.
Roger Underwood reminds us of the ABC’s 16-year old scandalous portrayal of forest management in W.A. , in the first “Four Corners” foray into forestry, entitled “The Wood & the Trees”. He goes on to make the link with the equally scandalous “Four Corners” programme “Lords of the Forest”, which concerned the alleged deficiencies of Tasmanian forestry and trumpeted the green clarion call which led Mark Latham and Bob Brown into battle in the context of Tasmania, in the months leading up to the forthcoming Federal Election,
Now Roger has given us a trifecta, by focussing on a recent afternoon ABC programme which accused the WA forest management organization of cruel and irresponsible environmental planning which has brought the population of that lovable little marsupial the Quokka to a point near extinction, throughout mainland WA.
Roger has served on the ABC and its audit authority a lengthy official complaint at the full monty of its sins of commission and omission , having breached its own guidelines to the nth degree. We await with bated breath the response, but are not expecting miracles.
As Ian Mogg said in his Blog on September 14, the ABC is a disgrace ,at least selectively in certain segments of its operation. But in those segments, it is a serial abuser of truth, accuracy, fair play and impartiality. And the organization per se, and also some of its key journalists, apparently have no shame.
Geoff, I just had to double check the Mercury Article, surely the Mercury would be keen to be accurate, keen to have well reseached articles and be balanced when it came to the timber industry. After all it was Mr Murdoch Senior and Davies Bros (the publishers of the Mercury) that established Australian Newsprint Mills in 1941, baed on logging the pristine and old growth forests of the Styx and Florentine Valley’s. Surely the Mercury would know that newsprint comes from the sustainable harvesting of trees. So I double checked and here are a few snippets:
“Battle set over logging access
The Mercury (19 January 2006)
The battle for Recherche Bay is poised to explode with the bulldozing of a logging road to the critical north-eastern peninsula likely to start next week. Australian Greens leader Bob Brown predicts the battle to stop logging in one of Tasmania’s most beautiful and historically important locations will turn into a national environmental protest…
But it will cross the Southport Lagoon Conservation Area, public land where conservationists are determined to make a stand to prevent the road’s construction. Recherche Bay is regarded as of critical cultural and historical importance to Tasmania as the location of the first extended contact between Tasmanian Aborigines and a French scientific party led by naval explorer Bruni D’Entrecasteaux in 1792 and 1793.
Joint landowner David Vernon confirmed this week that plans were in place for the access road to be built and ”harvesting operations” to begin immediately. Mr Vernon also said that, contrary to popular belief, he and his brother had hired independent contractors to build the access road rather than having it put in by Gunns, the timber harvester that will clearfell the 400ha approved for logging by the Forest Practices Board. ”
Yes there it is clearfell the 400ha.
Also of interest is that according to Bob Brown’s own book the Aboriginies and the French had extended meetings on the Southport Lagoon Conservation Area and not the Vernon’s land. Now that should have been the story as the Government already owned the historic site.
It should also be remembered that the Vernon’s later sold their property under blatant duress. At the time, I expressed the hope that the creator might smite this ill-gotten forest with fire and pestilence. As a third generation forest owner, I saw this as appropriate karma for the unlawful and highly unethical manner in which it was acquired at less than it’s true value.
This was wrongly percieved as an inducement to commit some sort of unlawful act by our esteemed blog mistress and censored. But such an inducement is hardly necessary given the appalling record of forest custodianship that has been demonstrated by the “ecosanostra” to date.
It is already a statistical certainty that this, now accursed, piece of forest will be destroyed through the negligence of its new owners.
And when it goes up I will salute the Vernons for their brave and honourable struggle against the forces of ignorance and deception, and cheer the revenge of the gods.
Rodger, your focus on such a small section of our media is a bit of a worry. Our focus here on the fate of the timber industry in recent years is also a bit of a worry.
Although 4 corners may take us off the beaten track on a few occasions and its journalism may have a life of its own within Aunty, I find the ABC very easy to work with on a daily basis. In fact all our media is pretty accessible for those most interested including our politicians.
For that I am most thankful because it gives me greater faith in our democracy.
Back to forestry; although manufacturing was my first industry I was never far from depending on our forest products. As a contributor to manufacturing in other primary industries I wish to say those charged with minding any public resource should manage their bit with an eye on a wider public perception all the time.
I see a run of sob stories here that has no equal. To put that in perspective I campaign privately in retirement on a range of issues starting with our current skills shortages in many old disciplines like engineering.
I my experience centralist type policies have steam rolled many individuals. It could be education, energy production, mining or transport that tramples on our personal values. The ABC and the press in my area are flat out giving individuals their say on issues across the board. That’s great but it slows our governments in all their endeavours.
My screen saver just picked up a flying shot taken over Melbourne. What a sprawling mass. Humanity at it’s worst or best? Places like that control the agenda on everything.
The Weekend Australian had a supplement on “Power”. In my note to our captains this week I claimed it read like a junk mail glossy for each generating sector. Most expect major growth soon. That can’t go on unabated, can it?
It’s our media all over; people write (policy and news) what others want to see including the ABC.
Getting Government policy back to allowing many in land management to have a fire stick culture again as the major enhancement tool will take some time.
We only watch the ABC for its rebroadcasting of BBC programs; the rest you can dismiss as irrelevant.
Here’s another story on fireballing for you Roger.
I met a man by the name of Fred Ward in 1989. Fred, I was soon to learn, was president of a group calling themselves the Bushfire Taskforce. He grew up in Omeo, was a highly experienced prospector, bushman and naturalist. He new, among other areas, the Mt. Hotham region like the back of his hand. He helped build and care for the roads going up there and took some of the first skiers into the area, acted as their guide, transporting them there in his Ford Blitz.
I myself at this point had accumulated a considerable amount of time in the mountains and I had been in the Ash Wednesday fires. We had mutual experiences. We both liked thinking. We both felt a strong bond to the mountains. We got on well.
Fred grew up in Omeo, where he experienced the 1939 wildfires. Fred told me a number of stories and descriptions of the event but one of them was this:
On the day that the fire was approaching Omeo it had already built up a massive fire front and was moving with frightening speed, from Mt. Hotham down onto Omeo.
As the threat of fire was imminent, the local policeman asked Fred to hop on his Harley and ride up to a property, on the eastern edge of town and warn the occupants that it was recommended they leave their farm, as all reports indicated that the fire was an out of control monster, of huge proportions and that their position was to dangerous to stay.
While Fred was climbing a hill, adjacent to the town centre (approx. half a k) his attention was drawn to a “twinkle” of fire on the side of Mt Mesley. (Mt Mesley lies on the western flank of Omeo and runs down into the town).
Fred noted at this time that the main fire front had not yet reached Omeo or came over Mt Mesley.
Also at this time when a match was struck the flame took on a green glow. Headlights on vehicles also showed a green glow.
The twinkle of fire on the hill, Fred suggested, was a spot fire from a fallen ember that had started a small fire. At this time, Fred described how, if you looked up into the sky, there was a mass of embers streaking through the sky. Like rain. They had a horizontal trajectory and were high in the sky.
The next thing that Fred witnessed was astonishing. Moments later, the entire Livingstone Valley “exploded” for a length of 4-5km.
This was verified by a farmer, 5km down the valley, who witnessed the same explosion, at exactly the same time where he was. Both described it as an almighty whoosh.
The fire exploded into Omeo, where buildings, all at a particular level, were destroyed or seriously damaged, simultaneously . Everything below this level was untouched.
Fred explained to me, that he was convinced, that what had happened, was the massive radiant heat load from the fire, on approaching Omeo from Hotham had pushed an immense mass of eucalyptus gas in front of it. This cloud of gas then dropped down into the Livingstone Valley on the lea side of Mt Mesley.
The fire or an ember storm went on to ignite this mass of gas. Whoosh.
The laws of physics were stretched beyond normal.
Fred conveyed to me and showed evidence of other ‘un-natural’, phenomenal incidences that had occurred during this wildfire, which leaves you unable to, at first, fully comprehend the force of the 1939 wildfire.
On the whole, the authorities did not seem too interested in what Fred had to tell them, especially those in the media and sections of the flora and fauna ‘management’ departments.
The End.
So Gavin, “Our focus here on the fate of the timber industry in recent years is also a bit of a worry”, is it?
Well we’re very sorry that it disturbs your Prozac holiday, old friend. But thats what the original post was all about. The post was made by an eye witness to a past abuse who has recently observed a repetition of that sort of abuse.
Does he have a right to record the facts or has that now been suborned to the vacuous whimsies of the bland?
Your reduction of the whole suite of journalistic ethics and standards to nothing more than, “people write (policy and news) what others want to see including the ABC” is downright offensive. You have essentially justified the delivery of untruth, masquerading as information on the grounds that there is a market for it.
So where does that lead us? Does that give me the right to plant a bomb at the ABC because “others want to see it”? Hardly.
You need to take a good long look for your castrated ethics, sunshine.
If there’s a central point that you are making Gavin, it’s not all that clear. However, like Ian, I too object to the observation that the media is only giving us what we want and this is therefore okay. Or perhaps you are just being worldly and cynical.
This deceit is not okay, nor is cynically accepting it particularly clever. Four Corners presenters, while masquerading as the journalistic elite with the most discerning of intellects, are in fact merely propagandists for people they personally approve of, and they do this while hiding behind the protection of the ABC management. Truth is secondary to being ideologically sound for the ABC, and it is apparent to all but themselves and their obsequious groupies. At least 60 Minutes and the like are just openly sensationalist.
Some ABC journalists and presenters are also blatant snobs, demonstrated by, for example, the occasional Radio National presenter referring to their audience as being well educated and well informed. By pretending to flatter their audience, they are merely flattering themselves.
I think perhaps because of the ability to combine images with sound, television journalism is able to really plumb the depths of deceit if it chooses to do so. For example, when a journalist wants to promote his/her opinion, the images put before the viewer during the journalist’s voice-over makes a huge difference to the viewer’s response. If an eminent botanist is shown speaking (image only, no sound), the journalist can put his own interpretation of the issue across as a voice-over, and most viewers will unconsciously give the journalist’s opinion the credibility of the eminent botanist. Or when a green campaigner speaks, there are images of a clear-felled forest coupe to look at, but when an industry representative speaks, you look at his face, not a stand of healthy regrowth forest. Or a news item which infers there has been some police brutality will have an image of a policeman swinging a baton, never an image of a teenage shop assistant with loaded gun stuck in their face. It’s a very effective technique, I think because sight is our primary sense and images can over-whelm our ability to think critically about the journalist’s words being presented simultaneously. Even if you look for this deceit, it is hard to detect until you watch a programme that discusses a topic you already know something about.
I prefer journalists who are openly commentators. People who write or speak an opinion piece are fundamentally honest in their approach. I don’t agree with either Phillip Adams or Christopher Pearson about much, but I can read their columns.
Journalists who grind axes while pretending to convey the truth should be attacked with vigour. You may dismiss other people’s concerns as sob stories Gavin, but you are missing the point because you don’t recognise the problem being discussed is journalistic deceit.
OK – so Motty has convinced you to dispense with the said journalists by ritual stoning and/or making them crawl over broken glass and burning sulphur to be finished by reading 20 property rights magazines and the full set of IPCC reports before beheading.
Meanwhile the great uninformed at home know little of this debate really – so where’s the engagement with any network/documentary crew to make a realistic look at vegetation management in contemporary Australia – fire regimes in forests, rangeland thickening, conservation, less runoff in catchments, hypocrisy of importing rainforest timber from illegal logging in Asia etc.
So you can sit here and bay at the moon or change the opinion ! AEF Film Corporation ?? Ian Mott stars in “Tree Hugger – Tales from the Wood”.
Extractus digitus carpe diem.
Some thing hard n flaky just fluttered out of the last dust storm and it wasn’t an ABC journo. Looking for more stenches is not my business though. Enough said.
Cinders found the word propagandist and I say yes, but it can be applied to all media including untempered blogs. But remaining cynical is not the way either. Let’s move on.
Recall; it never was a perfect world.
There is a great battle going on now for all resources, so lets not get stuck in a groove. Manipulating the media is an art, mostly subtle though. Some on here could learn a bit instead of squabbling with the ABC or any other part of our media.
Stewie; on fireballs, any fuel laden oxygen rich gas stream will explode on compression. Furnaces chambers must be maintained at slightly negative pressure to avoid a fire box blow out. Explosions can occur at just 1” WG positive pressure, much less than your average fart.
Atmospheric pressure anomalies around bushfires are not well enough documented or analysed yet for fire fighters to understand the risks of sudden wind impacts on large volumes of partially burnt gaseous mixes. Clues lie in continuous observation of smoke, including collapsing columns during changes of weather.
Foresters and land owners must clean up their light dry fuels regularly. This gentle touch is more important than knocking out higher density fuel loads on the floor as we go forward in droughts.
Luke raises a vexed issue “rangeland thickening”. To me after a long association with timber, “thickening” is an odd word. Getting land beyond scrubby regrowth to good wood is another art form.
Nobody is talking about the presence of wattles in the recovery cycle after bad fires and other forms of soil abuse. Perhaps it one for our ABC. After all somebody has their ear.
Gavin.
It just happens, Phluke, that I have recently completed a short documentary comparing the governments policies on riparian zones on farms with the urban community’s actual record of building motorways, high rise buildings etc on river banks.
It has some great shots from Southbank taking in the motorway on stilts above a completely denuded riverbank with token native vegetation. The best bit shows the site where a multistorey building has been not only approved, but actively promoted by our “can do” dear leader, with half the foundations actually in the river itself with the other half on the bank, occupying the airspace above the aforesaid freeway.
What would be a 100m no-go zone for a farmer, (justified as their so-called environmental duty of care) was the urban public’s hideous, flesh crawling hypocrisy. And all of it watched over by, wait for it, the Executive Building, the greatest concentration of shonks and spivs this side of Phat Pong Road.
Hypocritical hey Ian; I thought you were a true tree dweller, at least a bit beyond the fringe. Now it seems your just another Brisbaneite sucking up the environment like the rest of them.
I hear the cows down stream every other day. I see the blue ranges as I write and the blow flies round the window.
Who is really pulling the wool over our eyes about where this country stuff on the ABC is leading us? In the end we all join the armchair club telling others down the river what to do. Percy the bull could do a better job.
So when do we see it?
I hope you acknowledge that the freeway would have been built by a tree clearing National Party regime with an experienced scrub puller as Premier. Probably thought he did a good job. Whoops isn’t history inconvenient.
and “urban public’s hideous, flesh crawling hypocrisy” .. cripes who’s a bit touchy then. I wondered what that rash was. It’s flesh-crawling hypocrisy – get a priest – get a vicar. Did Iany-weeny not get his Coco Pops this morning.
Luke. “Don’t blame us the other mob would have done it anyway” is an age old trick of showing your party colours without really showing them.
Muckadilla – but the problem is that the “other mob” did do it.