Truth, Lies and Media

Journalist Gary Tippet has seen a lot of tragedy but when he was assigned to cover the Port Arthur massacre and stopped at a beautiful old tree where two little girls and their mother were murdered something broke in him and he could not stop the tears.

How do journalists carry the trauma of the stories they report .. and how do they protect the survivors from secondary trauma when they approach them for an interview on what is often the worst day of their life?

This is a fascinating and revealing first hand insight into news gathering by one of the Australian media’s most experienced and respected Walkley Award winning journalists. 

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A photo of a skeletal child cradled in its mothers arms finally brings home the horror of mass starvation in Gaza and the tide of media opinion turns against Israel.

Denis Muller says journalists are discarding an old taboo and using the word "genocide" to describe the mass starvation Israel denies is happening.

Plus the big global news organisations sign a joint statement warning the journalists and photographers telling this story of man made famine and brutality will themselves soon die from starvation if aid doesn't come quickly.  

And first there was Fox News .. now the United States looks like getting another Trump mouthpiece news network as presidential ally and the world's second richest man Larry Ellison buys Paramount, parent company of CBS. 

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Reporting on a massacre - Israel mows down dozens of starving Palestinians trying to get food at aid hubs. Dr. Denis Muller says only running IDF talking points while covering these atrocities is not journalism, and sets out the principles reporters should be keeping in mind.  

Plus the growing calls for anti semitism envoy Jillian Segal to be sacked after it was revealed her husband donated $50,000 to a hate group called Advance which runs anti Palestinian narratives ..

And two tribes go to war .. An enraged Donald Trump sues the media mogul who helped get him into the White House. Rupert Murdoch's being accused of libel 

after his paper The Wall Street Journal reported details of a lewd birthday greeting Trump allegedly wrote to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.  

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Trauma and journalism live side-by-side.

Journalists often find themselves having to interview people who have been through a traumatic experience because traumatizing events are often matters of serious public interest.

That’s because they raise questions of public safety and, sometimes, questions about causation and about the adequacy of the official response.

The people who lived through these experiences are important witnesses because they can give first-hand accounts of what happened.

How media crews treat these people can affect the traumatized person’s psychological welfare.

But exposure to traumatized people and to the events that caused their trauma can also have a psychological effect on the journalists, camera crew and photographers who cover these stories.

So there are two sides to this issue:

How media crews treat the traumatized people they cover, and how covering these events affects the media crews.

Dr Cait McMahon, OAM, is a psychologist who was the founding managing director of the Dart Center for Trauma and Journalism, Asia-Pacific, from its inception in 2003 until her retirement in 2021.

In 2016 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her work with journalists and trauma.

This special episode is the first of a new series of Deep-Dive conversations, released alongside the weekly Truth, Lies and Media Podcast episodes. Join us each Wednesday for chats with Nicole and Denis, and keep an eye on this RSS feed for future deep dive episodes.

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Anti-semitism envoy or propagandist?

Jillian Segal puts those favourite whipping boys the ABC, SBS, universities and the arts straight into the firing line by suggesting they be stripped of funding if they fail to address anti semitism - but cannot identify any smoking gun failings to would justify such draconian action.

Denis Muller has condemned the sweeping review as an authoritarian overreach which should be pulped immediately.

Plus .. the Image Consultants go to town in the remaking of Sussan Ley. 

Are this weeks media characterisations of her as a plucky gun-toting bushgirl who warded off an attacker in her youth, or the Womens Weekly soft lens treatment, really going to cut through to the Liberals intractable "women problem?"

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A Leongatha mother of two Erin Patterson is declared a triple murderer who killed her in laws with a lunch of beef wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms, and newsrooms in Australia and around the world go into overdrive.

It's the biggest international story to come out of Australia since Cardinal George Pell was convicted according to Denis Muller, and it's not over yet.

Plus ex ABC broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf tells why she fought on through the courts after being illegally sacked, despite anonymous death threats and potential financial ruin. 

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The Federal Court has found that the ABC breached the Fair Work Act when it sacked casual broadcaster Antoinette Latouf, ordering it to pay her $70,000.

Senior ABC managers fell into “a state of panic” after an orchestrated campaign by pro Israel lobbyists to have Latouf taken off air, and pressure form The Australian newspaper.

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Ancient enemies Iran and the United States lock horns as Donald Trump unleashes his GBU57 bunker buster bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles on Iranian nuclear sites which he claims were "obliterated", and then paints himself as a great world peacemaker.

If truth is the first casualty of war how can consumers of media drill down into what is true amid blizzards of disinformation?

And, he was a respected foreign correspondent, a war correspondent, a political reporter and an ABC star. But after a storied 40 year career in the media Stan Grant tells "Compass" why he walked away from a profession he now describes as "poison".

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Israel hits an Iranian television station - the missile attack is broadcast live to air as the presenter runs for cover and the studio fills with choking smoke and debris.

Denis Muller unpacks why the media are regarded as high value targets in war zones.

Plus a US Sheriff brazenly tells reporters his police will execute protesters and contact family to find out where the remains should be sent, if those protesters throw a brick or brandish a weapon. How does hold-the-powerful-to-account journalism function under this emerging fascist regime?

And in Australia it's the end of the road for the ABC's once firebrand panel debate show Q&A.

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Updated audio - National Guard soldiers have been ordered into LA to quell violent riots with a Channel 9 journalist hit by a rubber bullet fired by a police officer while she was reporting live to air. Footage appears to show one police officer deliberately moving his aim in her direction.

When billionaire gorillas - one in the White House - start hurling excrement at each other it's a train wreck the global media can't look away from. We'll take a look at the unfolding coverage of the Trump-Musk feud that's breaking the internet.

And after 16 years, "doing news differently" is coming to an end for Channel 10's The Project.  Denis Muller was an advisor to The Project team when it started out .. and warns a replacement news-current affairs show on Network 10 will face an uphill battle.  

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