The Racial Hatred Act: Case study 5
- interpretation of complex research findings, surveys, and polls
in news storiesReports:
- 'Federal laws blamed for Sydney's
welfare ghettos', Paul Sheehan, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1
July 96- 'Ethnic ghettos claim 'irresponsible',
Illawarra Mercury, 2 July 96- 'Urban Ghettos', Melbourne
Yarra Leader, 8 July 96Comment:
- The following journalists/editors comment on their coverage of Ernest
Healy's report.- The Sydney Morning Herald's
Paul Sheehan- AAP's Margaret McDonald
- The Illawarra Mercury's Peter
Cullen- The Melbourne Yarra Leader's Bob
Osburn- Ernest Healy, researcher
and author of 'Welfare benefits and residential concentrations amongst
recently arrived migrant communities' on how his report was misinterpreted
by the media.- The Federation of Ethnic Communities
Councils of Australia comments on the harm done to communities
through the use of loaded language and offensive terminology in the media.Please note that none of the reports in the case studies have been the
subject of complaints or queries under the Racial Hatred Act.
Margaret McDonald, Sydney Bureau Chief,
AAP, comments:
The AAP news desk works to the same tight deadlines and under the same
pressure as any other newsroom, although there is the additional competitive
pressure of trying to be the first to break the story, rather than reacting
to stories which have already appeared; and there are also problems of
ownership of a story which we seem to address quite frequently.The Illawarra Mercury ran the report as we put it out on the
wire, without any changes; but the problem AAP regularly experiences is
when the wire story is subbed, or a journalist follows up different leads
and makes additions to it, and the original thrust or meaning of the AAP
story is lost. If there's a by-line on the story that's OK, but if there
isn't and the story causes concern among readers, then the newspapers often
advise the reader to call AAP as the source of the story and we cop the
flak for an article which wasn't the same as the one we put on the wire.
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