Caroline Overington ponders the arrest of an ABC news crew at the scene of the Black Saturday bushfires.
There are reports that an ABC Lateline reporter, thought to be Raphael Epstein, was arrested last night while at Kinglake, the site of Black Saturday bushfires.
Police say it’s a breach of the Coroner’s Act, because Kinglake is a crime scene.
I don’t know Epstein, but I do know this: a) when it comes to covering major events, he’s among the best; and b) when it comes to covering major events, we in the media must err on the side of the public’s right to know.
Access to Kinglake has been too restrictive.
I would’ve thought that when it comes to covering anything the media should err on the side of not breaking the law. Or does Caroline think that journalists are above the law? One of her commenters certainly makes a good point.
I would have thought that the right of the fire victims to have any alleged crime properly investigated trumps any “right” the rest of us have to know. If anyone, journo or not, buggers up a crime scene that would obviously compromise the work of the police and the coroner in trying to determine what happened. Anyway, the public’s right to know is more likely to be met, eventually, by the coroner than by a journo, even a good one, stumbling around a crime scene.
– Huonian
8 Comments
How do house owners who want to get back to their properties feel when they have no access while the media can tramp around?
The first bit of construction in Kinglake will be a new ‘Sunrise’ set.
I’d have thought, in addition to just avoiding the breaking of the law, that possible (unintentional) interference with evidence / influence of jury would fall into the “making the news” category of stuff ups.
A news reporter with the experience of Epstein should know better. Especially when similar incidents have occured with Channel 9.
Overington should balance her ponderings with respecting the Coroners Law and abaility to do their job without having to deal with reporters breaking those laws.
Instersting in the same set of ponderings she reports on Ben Fordham being charged.
Ben Fordham charged? For what? Just for being Ben Fordham, I hope.
It was reported that the ABC crew went into Kinglake to do interviews with residents which had been pre-arranged with them. It wasn’t wasn’t so much intruding on the lives of victims, but simply being where they weren’t meant to be.
It’s a bit to different to some of the stunts channel 9 pulled in the first week as shown on Media Watch, like and rocking up to properties unnanounced and filming inside windows of houses as though the owner’s life was a freak show. There were other reports that a commericial netowrk film crew stole magnetic RSPCA signs to put on their cars to get access to closed off areas.
If those rumours are true, Wah, then that’s just really disgusting — although I’m hardly surprised, esp for commercial stations.
No, I think the string of responses here with all due respect to those closest to the tragedy are being too innocent and potentially naive of government self interest.
Traumatised victims have a right to space, no question. And the public have a right to know within civilised limits. So that’s a balancing act the professional media can and do achieve very often. Rafael Epstein is easily up to the mark and the ABC can be trusted on that as a standard bearer for quality media.
But here is why there is a problem and Overington is right. The government, meaning state and federal, have very big questions to answer as to their competence and performance. So they have a very big vested interest. There is also a very big legal question in my mind how a whole township can be a crime scene. All the roadways? Any undamaged buildings?
I doubt it would stand up in court, but no one is willing to test it in the short term. My (legal) guess is that it only applies to locations of evidentiary significance: Say where the fire started. Say where victims died. Where buildings were destroyed. Perhaps avenues of entry and escape.
And we are in the real fire season still both in Victoria and rest of Australia. What if there is information about unsafe construction that is not being reported? To save some politician’s job, and I mean the broadest sense including public servants?
A guided access for professional media represenatives just like the press room at ICAC or similar by a police liaison would be an obvious compromise.
As difficult as it is to contemplate with so many killed, the government have a very real vested interest in how this is reported and the kind of information that is released to the public and over what time period. The reason for this default approach is that it’s an unprecedented tragedy out of the authorities experience and their control. The implications are just huge and that scares govt. They don’t really trust people with the truth. We know this is their preferred approach. It’s not a democratic one really.
The dictatorial tendency of govt and their agents in the police force/service is to shut down any transparency. In other words the public right to know. Too much in too short a period could cause serious political damage and they know it, and fear it.
At least until the authorities can come up with a narrative or story that they think will work to satisfy a public that want to know how the hell this could happen with a competent government. I don’t generally quote Andrew Bolt – but you can’t have 200 plus people killed without serious mistakes being made. And that means more light not less.
If enough of the public knew just how out of control and devastating this megafire was then – you know – governments would fall. People would lose their jobs. Whole systems of land use would have to change.
For myself in this respect I suggest logging of wet forest/rain forest conversion to dry sclerophyll this last century would be banned outright as far as the south coast of Tasmania to the northern border of NSW.
That in itself would scare the Establishment. And then there is the failure in reality of the emergency system to get those people out of harms way. There are too many potential reasons to not let the public eyes and ears into ‘crime scenes’. This is exactly when we do need our fourth estate. Just like Hiroshima.