This is surely one of the great trench coat images – Bogey in Deadline USA, being the romantic hero all editors secretly dream of.

The truth, of course, is a lot more mundane. Here are two current media stories which touch on the tangles of reporting environmental matters, the perils of a crusading editor, and the dangers of thuggery to solve an image problem. The old fashioned models don’t work any more.

Fairfax Media is having trouble in Melbourne with The Age. The staff are at loggerheads with the editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan, who is allegedly enraging all possible parties by a) defending the paper against cuts and b) pushing sponsored editorial of a pro-Green nature in the news section.

The Age has been campaigning against dredging in Port Phillip Bay, and the government et al argue they are not being fairly represented. The Earth Hour switchoff was all over the paper, which was clearly in favour of it. Crikey has been knee deep in this story, to the ire of The Age management. The Australian hit the nitty gritty here:

The irony of The Age journalists, depicted by critics as chardonnay-swilling leftists, protesting against the paper’s reporting being too pro-environment was not lost on reporters.

But, for them, it was the embarrassment of being publicly exposed as being manipulated by public relations operatives that hurt. “The thing that really infuriated them was their whole profession was humiliated effectively by Earth Hour,” one source said.

“You had a PR operative issuing instructions to the editor-in-chief which were then referred to journalists. They were humiliated publicly and thought enough is enough,” said asource.

Recent events confirm some journalists’ misgivings about Jaspan and they hope it will be the catalyst for his departure.

For others, however, the fight is less about Jaspan – who declined to be interviewed for this article – and more about a genuine concern that editorial and commercial lines are being blurred. Despite Jaspan being depicted by his critics as Mr Walker’s puppet, some Age sources insist he has, in fact, fought hard behind the scenes against the board’s so-called cost-cutting culture. That said, many staff say last week’s events effectively represent a de facto vote of no confidence in him.”

The largest shareholder in Fairfax Media is John B. Fairfax, who was responsible for Rural Press, which owned The Canberra Times and a lot of regional mastheads. He did very well with it, and considers himself to be an old-fashioned anti-money-machine proprietor with a lifetime of experience which started as a cadet journalist. But this 2006 line from The Age encapsulates the tension:

“Despite his lineage and his strong views on the role of a media proprietor, both John B. Fairfax and Rural Press’ chief executive, Brian McCarthy, found themselves on the defensive this week about their record of fostering quality journalism at Rural Press.

While Rural Press has been an investors’ darling for its continual focus on shareholder value, the flipside has been a reputation as a cost-cutting employer. Claims that this has had a marked effect on the quality of journalism centre on Rural Press’ foray into metropolitan media, and the acquisition of The Canberra Times for $160 million in August 1998 from interests associated with Kerry Stokes.”

Meanwhile, a New Zealand weekly called The Listener is in trouble for exactly the opposite reasons. From here on, I am indebted to Tim Lambert at Deltoid, who has covered this in more detail.

Dave Hansford, the environmental writer, wrote an article on March 22nd (still on the site, here) mentioning the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, a climate denialist group which gets surprising traction in new Zealand.

“In November, three members of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition – Bryan Leyland, Owen McShane and Vincent Gray – spoke at UN climate talks in Denpasar in support of a US-based conservative group, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). They told delegates “climate change is a non-problem” and that they should “have the courage to do nothing”.”

Hansford went on to say that CFAT and Heartland, which paid some of the bill for this appearance, take money from ExxonMobil.

The weekly responded with an article by Bryan Leyland and Chris de Freitas which claimed that

“Sadly, some of Dave Hansford’s recent Ecologic columns seem intended to suppress debate and ridicule and denigrate sceptics of catastrophic global warming. The science is most uncertain; therefore, objective, unimpassioned debate is needed.”

In the same edition, The Listener also carried an article by Professor Dave Kelly, an ecologist at the University of Canterbury.

“I’m an academic. Climate change isn’t central to my work, but I follow the literature because it affects rare species. I read Dave Hansford’s column (Ecologic, March 22), and thought: spot on.

I became convinced about 10 years ago that climate change was happening, and the evidence has been piling up since. It must be one of the most actively researched topics now: thousands of scientific papers; lots of different angles explored, all more and more convincing. I don’t know any colleagues who doubt it.

You can’t argue with climate-change deniers, though, who mostly just create confusion. …”

Exemplary, passionate and convincing. The magazine is doing well. Unfortunately, there is one small event between these two bursts of climate change discussion which leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Joseph L Bast, the President of the Heartland Institute in Chicago, wrote a letter to the editor, which was published. Fair enough – that is free debate. But then, Dave Hansford, the original writer, was removed.

The situation was explained and exposed by Hot Topic, a New Zealand blog, which was then threatened by these lawyers, hired by The Listener, so he took the post down.

Hansford wrote a comment to that missing post, which I will reproduce:

“Pamela Stirling’s statement in John Drinnan’s column this morning is correct. I took on Ecologic back in November when the incumbent columnist, Francesca Price, took leave to work on another project.

As such, it was indeed a temporary arrangement. But it was not terminated on the due date, and continued to run as Francesca’s leave extended. The fact that Francesca did not, in the end, return to reclaim her column did not automatically mean it was mine in perpetuity.

But if my time was simply “up,” it’s baffling that I wasn’t simply told that. I was told instead that negotiations over Francesca’s return were under way. They were not.

Francesca had already made it clear she was not returning. I was then told that I had been “rationalised” in a response to a shrinking contributors’ budget. That the column would be brought in-house because the magazine could no longer afford a freelancer to write it.

I accepted that explanation, but it soon transpired that The Listener had, in fact, approached another freelancer to take the column over (They declined, and the column will now indeed be written in-house), placing a question mark over the claim of an ailing contributor’s budget.

At no time was any suggestion raised that I had made any errors in the climate deniers column, or left the magazine legally exposed.

I cannot prove that I was rolled because of legal posturing by the Climate Science Coalition, and I have never stated that as fact.

What I have stated repeatedly is;

That I was dropped from the Listener column, Ecologic.

That it came less than a fortnight after my column of March 22 about the Climate Science coalition’s financial and ideological links to the Heartland Institute and, by extension, Exxon Mobil.

That it came in the wake of a published call for my dismissal by the President of the Heartland Institute.

That it came in the wake of a threatened complaint to the Press Council and alleged threats of legal action by the Climate Science Coalition.

That The Listener agreed on a settlement with the Climate Change Coalition that gave the CSC the right of reply published this week.

That the Listener did not inform me of the bringing of the Press Council complaint.

That I was not informed of the letter from The Heartland Institute calling for my removal, nor given a right of reply.

That I was not informed of the Listener’s decision to give the CSC right of reply on behalf of my own column.

That both reasons I was given for my axing proved to be unsubstantiated.

That my subsequent request for the truth of the matter was never replied to.

That I was told that “We stand behind our columnists.”

Given this concert of circumstances, and the artifice surrounding my axing, it is valid to ask questions of the Listener and of the Climate Science Coalition about the nature and terms of their negotiations.

The implications for the independence of the media, and for the public interest, are too great not to.

Perhaps these events were entirely unrelated. But if they were not, they mark a black day for the freedom of the media.”

As the editorial staff of The Listener are now doubt ruefully aware at the moment, even the impression of surrender to reactionary pressure is dangerous, and “he said; she said” journalism doesn’t work when science meets political power. And I guess Andrew Jaspan is wondering why his return to the crusading impulses of the traditional activist editor has wrecked his relationship with his own staff.

I can draw only one conclusion, which is both mundane and important. Environmental issues now sit at the centre of our politics and future, and they need to be properly covered. That means a staff of experts, kept in house, and with enough of them to test stories with robust internal debate. One marginalised geek is not enough.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 11:14 pm and is filed under journalism, terror laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.