Those who follow the media will have seen that I am the subject of an attack in The Media section of The Australian today.
I have just returned from a long weekend away out of email and telephone contact (which can certainly help put things in perspective after a torrid week), so did not receive calls from the author of the piece, Geoff Elliott, in which he sought my comment. That’s a shame, because what he writes is wrong in key respects. His email to me with my reply, sent moments ago, is below.
The background to this attack is my reporting, first on the so-called Ozleaks case (see here and here) and more recently my long piece for the Crikey email on Thursday about The Australian’s reporting concerning Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland. Since I wrote that piece, The Age and Sunday Age have chimed in.
In the meantime, I arrived back to my email and mobile phone to find the following correspondence from the author of the piece in The Media section of The Australian. Here it is, with my reply. The episode of The World Today that is referred can be found here.
Margaret, I’m writing an article for tomorrow’s newspaper in which the following is stated:
From Simons’ reporting it is clear there has been selective and often inaccurate leaks from the OPI and Victoria Police designed to discredit Cameron Stewart and the newspaper. Not that this was done with any discretion. On one remarkable occasion on April 15, in the course of the federal court hearing, the OPI media officer Paul Conroy approached Misha Ketchell of Media Watch and Margaret Simons, greeted them warmly, joined them at the rear of the court immediately behind the legal team for The Australian and some distance from his director, and whispered intently throughout the proceedings.
Would you like to comment on that? Do you dispute its accuracy?
Also, you made some comments to the ABC’s World at Noon last week (transcript below) which appears to contain information not on the public record (see bold). Did that information come from the OPI or its proxies?
Best
Geoff Elliott
Dear Geoff, I have just returned from a long weekend away, during which I was out of phone and email range. I have now caught up with your messages and with what you wrote for this morning’s newspaper.
I appreciate that you tried to get hold of me. However what you wrote is inaccurate.
- I have never been the recipient of leaks from the OPI or Victoria Police. I wish.
- Regarding the court hearing on 15 April, I arrived early. Ketchell arrived shortly afterwards, and we sat and talked. Conroy arrived with the OPI Director just before the hearing got underway. He certainly greeted us. We were not sitting at the rear of the court, but in the middle. I barely spoke to him during the hearing, largely because I was live-Tweeting, as the Twitter record will attest. It is true I spoke to him after the hearing. But so what? Of course I have spoken to Conroy during my reporting of these events. I have also spoken or been in touch with Whittaker and half a dozen others in The Australian news room.
- Your piece today alleges that I have been “on the drip” from the OPI, and offers as evidence the World Today interview, in which you say I “cited certain characteristics of the investigation that were not public”. The bit you have bolded from the transcript indicates that these items are that Stewart’s alleged source had been named by him before in an article, and that action has resulted, that the key piece of evidence against the alleged source would be a record of interview between Stewart and the OPI, and that there was also an email trail involved.
The information that the transcript of interview with Stewart was a key piece of evidence was not the product a leak, and it IS public. It was said by the OPI lawyers in open court at the same hearing you refer to elsewhere in your report. I Tweeted this live at the time, and reported it more fully for Crikey later.
The other two pieces of information have not been made public before. I can assure you that my sources for this information do not include the OPI, any of its “proxies” or the Victorian Police.
I will publish this correspondence on my blog this afternoon, and of course will write more for Crikey.
Yours Margaret Simons
14 Comments
“Attack” seems rather florid. I would have said ‘spat’ or ‘spray’ was more like it.
Its really not very good when the meeja is writing about the meeja and then they start trading blows. In other domains, we call this ‘being a bit too precious’ or ‘like Robert Manne’
Blows seems rather florid. I should have set ‘pats’
The most amusing part of this is that the Oz has devoted a huge amount of newsprint to coverage of its own coverage, quoting its editor as if to confirm his good judgement and generally slagging off anyone that quibbled etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaQv7EQgZAo
RawVeteranNews – BEHIND THE NEWS of Cameron Stewart and News Ltd
From: rawveterannews | June 13, 2010 | 29 views
The policemen and Federal agents who were photographed doing their job were some of the country’s elite operatives YET the News Ltd editors and other news editors at sister newsdesks saw nothing foul nor disturbing in placing the faces of elite operatives on the world wide web thus jeopardising all those elite men’s own personal security and privacy. I hope Cameron Stewart is asked to name his “reliable SOURCES” other than the one already caught. That’s ‘sources’ plural as there will be others who leaked information that backed up the first leak. Australian Law Enforcement agencies have a Lawful task to do and Mr Stewart is not beyond the reach of our Laws just because he works for News Ltd.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/attempt-to-damage-pa...
The Aus loves to talk about itself. I see it like some horribly over-perfumed French fop at Versaille meandering through a roomful of guests, interupting conversations with pompous and ill-informed remarks, then sweeping on to the next group, imagining himself to be the unerring authority on every subject.
The only thing about the OZ is that occassionally it still actually publishes worthwhile news stories like the one today about the horrid housing scheme Vanstone and Howard started in Afghanistan, brown boxes with no water which shows the contempt they have for the people of Afghanistan.
‘Doing a Robert Manne’ LOL!
More boring news from Victoria. Good response Margaret. Shame you had to go through it.
I don’t suppose anything they wrote would constitute defamation, would it?
It’s about time someone got The Australian for defamation.
Margaret,
I happened to come across this old Private Eye front cover (April 1970).
Call it a Goldenballs Oldie.
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php?showme=218
The Eye has always had a way with words
In my house it is called the right wing daily.I responded to one of their missives calling it this but they must have been plotting their next story and did not have time to respond,:-))).
I think your reporting on this case was a very important public reflection which helped to draw public attention to the issues raised by the case about the accountability of OPI and the Victorian police to the public. I think this is a vital area of journalism where the more informed comment the better to ensure greater openness and accountability in government. These comments from the Australian appear to reflect a desire to prevent you from doing this.
Margaret we are here to support you!
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