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Media Watch (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Media Watch is an Australian media analysis
television program
presented by Jonathan Holmes
for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
.
of the Australian media
, that investigates and exposes media bias
and breaches of journalistic ethics and standards
.
The series initially presented a roughly even mix of amusing gaffes (such as miscaptioned photographs) and more serious criticism. Over the years, the emphasis has shifted towards the latter, although the show often begins or ends with a more humorous piece.
Although most episodes of Media Watch focus on any recent incidents of media misconduct, episodes do occasionally focus on a single issue of particular importance (for instance, media coverage of a recent election).
At the end of the 2004 season, David Marr announced his intention to step down and return to mainstream journalism, and former Four Corners reporter Liz Jackson
became host for 2005; at the end of the 2005 season Jackson returned to Four Corners. Monica Attard
hosted the program in 2006 and 2007,. Jonathan Holmes is the current presenter.
In June 2010, the ABC announced that former host Paul Barry would be returning as Media Watch's temporary host for three months while Holmes took long service leave. Barry's tenure ran from August to November of that year.
Holmes returned when the show did in 2011.
hosts Alan Jones
and John Laws
had been paid to provide favourable on-air comment about companies such as Qantas
, Optus
, Foxtel
and Mirvac, without disclosing these arrangements to listeners. It also persistently criticised the then Australian Broadcasting Authority (superseded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
in 2005) as impotent or unwilling to regulate broadcast media, and to properly scrutinise figures such as Jones and Laws. The revelations won Media Watch staffers Richard Ackland
, Deborah Richards
and Anne Connolly two Walkley Awards
: the Gold Walkley
, and the Walkley for TV Current Affairs Reporting (Less Than 10 Minutes). In 2004, Media Watch played a major part in forcing the resignation of ABA head David Flint
, after it was discovered that Flint had sent Jones admiring and effusive letters at a time when the ABA was investigating Jones concerning further cash for comment allegations. The reports won Media Watch another Walkley, TV Current Affairs Reporting (Less Than 20 Minutes) to staffers David Marr, Peter McEvoy and Sally Virgoe.
was controversially sacked and in 2001, the program itself was axed by Jonathon Shier, the head of the ABC. However, in early 2002, after Shier was himself sacked in equally controversial circumstances, the show returned with Marr as the new host. Whilst Media Watch was off air, Stuart Littlemore returned to the ABC to host Littlemore, a media program that ran for 13 episodes between March and May 2001.
as a 'pompous git'. In 2002, the then-editor of The Daily Telegraph
, Campbell Reid, sent host David Marr
a dead fish; a replica of it is now awarded as the Campbell Reid Perpetual Trophy for the Brazen Recycling of Other People's Work. Known as "The Barra" and bearing the motto Carpe Verbatim, it is awarded annually for bad journalism and particularly plagiarism
(a practice for which Reid was frequently criticised).
No media organisation is entirely safe from Media Watch, and it has criticised its own network, the ABC. When David Marr was host from 2002 to 2004, the show often criticised Marr's employer John Fairfax Holdings. David Salter, a former executive producer of Media Watch, has suggested that it is "unwilling to subject Michael Brissenden, a journalist in the ABC's news and current affairs department, to the same level of ethical scrutiny it applies to others."
Robert Manne
, a supporter of the show, also believes it has historically had a left wing bias.
The Australian
, which is regularly criticised by Media Watch, has been a long term counter-critic of the show. In August 2007 it editorialised that Media Watch "lacks journalistic integrity and conducts its affairs along the lines of an insiders' club that pushes its ideological prejudice at taxpayers' expense".
In June 2007, Media Watch strongly criticised The Daily Telegraph
, among others, for failing to censor racist comments on their website forums, but then failed to censor strongly anti-Semitic comments on its own web forum.
The ABC later launched an internal inquiry into Media Watchs reliance on IslamicSydney, "an Islamic website that peddle[s] anti-Semitic and jihadi messages", for this story.
Content analysis
Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."According to Dr...
television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
presented by Jonathan Holmes
Jonathan Holmes
Jonathan Holmes is a British-born Australian television journalist and producer who has been, since 2008, the presenter of the ABC1 weekly programme Media Watch....
for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
.
Format
Media Watch is viewed by some as a watchdogWatchdog journalism
Watchdog journalism aims to hold accountable public personalities and institutions, whose functions impact social and political life. The term "lapdog journalism", for journalism biased in favour of personalities and institutions, is sometimes used as a conceptual opposite to watchdog...
of the Australian media
Media of Australia
Media in Australia is an important component of the Australian economy. Australian media is widely accessible and caters to a wide variety of audiences...
, that investigates and exposes media bias
Media bias
Media bias refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the...
and breaches of journalistic ethics and standards
Journalism ethics and standards
Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by journalists. Historically and currently, this subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism"...
.
The series initially presented a roughly even mix of amusing gaffes (such as miscaptioned photographs) and more serious criticism. Over the years, the emphasis has shifted towards the latter, although the show often begins or ends with a more humorous piece.
Although most episodes of Media Watch focus on any recent incidents of media misconduct, episodes do occasionally focus on a single issue of particular importance (for instance, media coverage of a recent election).
Episodes and presenters
| Series | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series premiere Season premiere In North America, a season premiere is the first episode of a new season of a given television show. It often airs in September or October, after several months of reruns.-Evaluating the changes:... |
Series final Season finale A season finale is the final episode of a season of a television program... |
|||
At the end of the 2004 season, David Marr announced his intention to step down and return to mainstream journalism, and former Four Corners reporter Liz Jackson
Liz Jackson
Liz Jackson is an Australian journalist and former barrister noted for her work on the Four Corners and Media Watch television programs.Jackson grew up in Melbourne, Australia and commenced work with the Australian Broadcasting Centre in 1986...
became host for 2005; at the end of the 2005 season Jackson returned to Four Corners. Monica Attard
Monica Attard
Monica Ann Attard OAM is an award-winning Australian journalist. She is of Maltese descent.-Education:Attard was educated at Bethlehem College in Sydney. She attended Sydney University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts...
hosted the program in 2006 and 2007,. Jonathan Holmes is the current presenter.
- Stuart LittlemoreStuart LittlemoreStuart Littlemore QC is an Australian barrister and former journalist and television presenter. He is best known for his time as writer and host of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch program, which he presented from its inception in 1989 to 1997...
(1989–97) - Richard AcklandRichard AcklandRichard Ackland is an Australian journalist, publisher and lawyer, who has won many awards for his reporting.Ackland graduated with degrees in Economics and Law in the early 1970s and was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales before going on to pursue a career in...
(1998–99) - Paul BarryPaul BarryPaul Barry is a British-born, Australian-based journalist, who has won many awards for his investigative reporting. He now works as a senior writer for online media outlet The Power Index.-Career:...
(2000),(2010) - David MarrDavid Marr (journalist)David Ewan Marr is an Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. His areas of expertise include the law, Australian politics, censorship, the media and the arts...
(2002–04) - Liz JacksonLiz JacksonLiz Jackson is an Australian journalist and former barrister noted for her work on the Four Corners and Media Watch television programs.Jackson grew up in Melbourne, Australia and commenced work with the Australian Broadcasting Centre in 1986...
(2005) - Monica AttardMonica AttardMonica Ann Attard OAM is an award-winning Australian journalist. She is of Maltese descent.-Education:Attard was educated at Bethlehem College in Sydney. She attended Sydney University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts...
(2006–07) - Jonathan HolmesJonathan HolmesJonathan Holmes is a British-born Australian television journalist and producer who has been, since 2008, the presenter of the ABC1 weekly programme Media Watch....
(since 2008)
In June 2010, the ABC announced that former host Paul Barry would be returning as Media Watch's temporary host for three months while Holmes took long service leave. Barry's tenure ran from August to November of that year.
Holmes returned when the show did in 2011.
"Cash for comment"
In 1999, the program revealed that influential talkback radioTalk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
hosts Alan Jones
Alan Jones (radio broadcaster)
Alan Belford Jones AO is an Australian radio broadcaster, former rugby union and rugby league coach and administrator.Jones hosts Sydney's most popular breakfast radio program, on radio station 2GB...
and John Laws
John Laws
Richard John Sinclair "John" Laws, CBE , an Australian radio presenter, sometimes known as Lawsie, was from the 1970s until his retirement in 2007, the host of a hugely successful morning radio program, which mixed music with interviews, opinion, live advertising readings and listener talkback...
had been paid to provide favourable on-air comment about companies such as Qantas
Qantas
Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia. The name was originally "QANTAS", an initialism for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo", the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport...
, Optus
Optus
SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
, Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
and Mirvac, without disclosing these arrangements to listeners. It also persistently criticised the then Australian Broadcasting Authority (superseded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
Australian Communications and Media Authority
The Australian Communications and Media Authority is an Australian government statutory authority within the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy portfolio...
in 2005) as impotent or unwilling to regulate broadcast media, and to properly scrutinise figures such as Jones and Laws. The revelations won Media Watch staffers Richard Ackland
Richard Ackland
Richard Ackland is an Australian journalist, publisher and lawyer, who has won many awards for his reporting.Ackland graduated with degrees in Economics and Law in the early 1970s and was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales before going on to pursue a career in...
, Deborah Richards
Deborah Richards
Deborah Richards is an award winning Australian journalist, of English descent from the Edwards family. Richards has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Essential Viewing Group, and Special Broadcasting Service.-Life:...
and Anne Connolly two Walkley Awards
Walkley Awards
The annual Walkley Awards, under the administration of the Walkley Foundation for Journalism, are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. Finalists are chosen by an independent board of eminent journalists and photographers. The awards cover all media including...
: the Gold Walkley
Gold Walkley
The Gold Walkley is the most prestigious of the Walkley Awards for Australian journalism. It is chosen by the Walkley Advisory Board from the winners of all the other categories...
, and the Walkley for TV Current Affairs Reporting (Less Than 10 Minutes). In 2004, Media Watch played a major part in forcing the resignation of ABA head David Flint
David Flint
Professor David Flint, AM, LLM , BSc , DSU is an Australian legal academic, known for his leadership of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and for his tenure as head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority.-Background:...
, after it was discovered that Flint had sent Jones admiring and effusive letters at a time when the ABA was investigating Jones concerning further cash for comment allegations. The reports won Media Watch another Walkley, TV Current Affairs Reporting (Less Than 20 Minutes) to staffers David Marr, Peter McEvoy and Sally Virgoe.
60 minutes' 1995 massacre at Srebrenica story
Australia's 60 minutes reporter Richard Carleton sued Media Watch over allegations of plagiarism. The judge found that the allegations were untrue but declined to award any damages. The ABC World Today reported on 18 December 2002: "The veteran reporter was horrified to see Media Watch accuse him of plagiarising a BBC documentary on the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica for his Channel Nine program. But today a judge ruled that even though the program did defame Mr Richard Carleton and two colleagues, it was fair comment and no damages were awarded.""Defusing an explosive story"
Seven Network reporter Mike Duffy was reported to have launched legal action for defamation against Media Watch in September 2010 over claims his report on a lack of security at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India was a "shocking beat-up". This case is understood to still before the courts as of 16 February 2011.Cancellation and return
This ability to generate controversy led to the temporary cancellation of the show. In 2000, host Paul BarryPaul Barry
Paul Barry is a British-born, Australian-based journalist, who has won many awards for his investigative reporting. He now works as a senior writer for online media outlet The Power Index.-Career:...
was controversially sacked and in 2001, the program itself was axed by Jonathon Shier, the head of the ABC. However, in early 2002, after Shier was himself sacked in equally controversial circumstances, the show returned with Marr as the new host. Whilst Media Watch was off air, Stuart Littlemore returned to the ABC to host Littlemore, a media program that ran for 13 episodes between March and May 2001.
Reception
The show's presenters have taken some pride in the vehemence of the criticism it attracts; at one point, the opening credits were made up of a montage of such criticisms, prominently featuring a description of original presenter Stuart LittlemoreStuart Littlemore
Stuart Littlemore QC is an Australian barrister and former journalist and television presenter. He is best known for his time as writer and host of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch program, which he presented from its inception in 1989 to 1997...
as a 'pompous git'. In 2002, the then-editor of The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
, Campbell Reid, sent host David Marr
David Marr (journalist)
David Ewan Marr is an Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. His areas of expertise include the law, Australian politics, censorship, the media and the arts...
a dead fish; a replica of it is now awarded as the Campbell Reid Perpetual Trophy for the Brazen Recycling of Other People's Work. Known as "The Barra" and bearing the motto Carpe Verbatim, it is awarded annually for bad journalism and particularly plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
(a practice for which Reid was frequently criticised).
No media organisation is entirely safe from Media Watch, and it has criticised its own network, the ABC. When David Marr was host from 2002 to 2004, the show often criticised Marr's employer John Fairfax Holdings. David Salter, a former executive producer of Media Watch, has suggested that it is "unwilling to subject Michael Brissenden, a journalist in the ABC's news and current affairs department, to the same level of ethical scrutiny it applies to others."
Robert Manne
Robert Manne
Robert Manne is a professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.Born in Melbourne, Manne's earliest political consciousness was formed by the fact that his parents were Jewish refugees from Europe and his grandparents were victims of the Holocaust...
, a supporter of the show, also believes it has historically had a left wing bias.
The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
, which is regularly criticised by Media Watch, has been a long term counter-critic of the show. In August 2007 it editorialised that Media Watch "lacks journalistic integrity and conducts its affairs along the lines of an insiders' club that pushes its ideological prejudice at taxpayers' expense".
In June 2007, Media Watch strongly criticised The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
, among others, for failing to censor racist comments on their website forums, but then failed to censor strongly anti-Semitic comments on its own web forum.
The ABC later launched an internal inquiry into Media Watchs reliance on IslamicSydney, "an Islamic website that peddle[s] anti-Semitic and jihadi messages", for this story.