Of course it's trial by media

by Marcus Browning

Politics is driving the campaign against Aboriginal and Torres Strait 
Islander Commission (ATSIC) Chairman Geoff Clark in the mass media. To 
believe otherwise is to ignore the nature of the powerful media monopoly 
machine and its influence over Australia's political life. It is determined 
to "get" Clark and other progressive leaders in the community.

The job being done on Geoff Clark, sparked most recently by the Fairfax Age 
newspaper, is aimed at undermining ATSIC's credibility and to bring into 
disrepute all Aboriginal politics, in the minds of the public. It aims to 
create divisions, and widen those which already exist, between Indigenous 
organisations and individuals.

The media feeding frenzy began with a June 14 article by Age journalist 
Andrew Rule, featured under the banner front page headline "Geoff Clark: 
power and rape". Inside there were two more pages of text detailing Clark's 
background, including his family history since the beginning of last 
century.

Rule contrives to construct his piece for dramatic effect, in the style of 
journalist as novelist. So we get a description of Geoff Clark's father, 
Ginger Macintosh, a painter and docker with a criminal record: "A big, 
ruddy-faced man with strawberry blond hair inherited by his son"

Or this: "The once-feared gunman Billy `The Texan' Longley, recalled 
Clark's father as `a quiet bloke who minded his own business'". And so on. 
The description of Clark's mean-streets background is loaded with allusions 
and unsubstantiated claims, ("Whether Macintosh played any part in this 
racket is hard to know ..."), and is presented in a flourish of turgid 
melodrama.

This style has the no-doubt unintended effect of cheapening the detailed 
descriptions of rape given him by the women making the claims against 
Clark. Rule describes one of them thus: "Carol Stingel is a tall, loose-
limbed woman with dark eyes and the lithe grace of a catwalk model."

In a way the sheer weight of the coverage — issue upon issue, page after 
page — substitutes for hard facts, or "balanced reporting".

The headlines speak volumes — "Clark insists he's innocent", "The bitter, 
murky feud of Clark versus Clarke", "ATSIC backs defiant Clark", "The ten 
troubled years of ATSIC", etc.

Rule insists he merely set out to write a profile of Clark and that it 
turned into "a million phone calls, a million people, phone books, phone 
calls, electoral roles, the whole bloody drama." Well, he could have saved 
himself the trouble and just checked out a story in The Australian 
newspaper from last November. That was when the court found that Clark had 
no charge to answer on the very same issue Rule has inflated into a red hot 
scoop for himself.

Headed "Clark has his day in court", Murdoch's broadsheet had a style, and 
line, remarkably similar to Rule's, eg, "As he realised he would not stand 
trial for rape, Geoff Clark started to rock like a prize fighter — which 
he once was — who has been sitting in his corner and has heard the bell 
ring for the next round."

And Rule's description of Clark's legal representative, QC Robert Richter, 
sales close to a copyright infringement on the Australian's feature which 
ran, "Clark, whose eyes had twitched nervously for much of the day, sat 
stock still then shook hands with Richter, whose argument had been 
masterful." Rule's spin goes: "In a masterful closing address, of a kind 
rarely heard by Warrnambool magistrates, Richter spent more than an hour 
weaving an argument supporting his contention ..."

Denial by The Age that this is not trial by media is obviously, 
ludicrously, untrue. Why have the country's two newspaper monopolies 
singled out an individual in a concerted campaign of character 
assassination? Because they are devoted to the public's right to know? 
Because they deeply believe in the Aboriginal cause?

In that context, the final words should be Geoff Clark's, from a statement 
issued last week. "The newspaper [The Age] has gone much further than 
simply reporting unsubstantiated allegations. On this occasion they do not 
call for investigation. Rather, they say they believe the allegations to be 
true.

"They have surpassed the bounds of reporting and have constituted 
themselves as judge, jury and executioner. Why?

"They have clearly crossed the bounds of journalism and entered the arena 
of scalp-hunting for whatever motive. By publishing this way, The Age has 
ensured that if the proper authorities were ever minded to charge me, I 
could not receive a fair trial.

"The Age grudgingly says that I am presumed innocent. I am innocent. 
Presumption of innocence belongs to people who are facing charges. I am not 
charged with anything.

"I will lodge an immediate complaint with the Press Council despite serious 
reservations about its powers to deal with such matters."