GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 54
21 MAY 2010
IN THIS ISSUE
● Q&A – How The Questions Work: A Tony Jones Exclusive (per courtesy of the ABC’s Right-to-Know commitment
● Nancy’s Pick Of The Week – Brian Matthews Wins Biography Gong Despite Not Fact-Checking Manning Clark’s Personal Life
● A Bob Ellis Drum Roll – On Bicycles, Pyjamas and (of course) Israel
● The Drum’s Unprofessional Push-Polling
● Andrew Jaspan Looks Back in Confusion – Or How Germaine Greer and John Pilger Were Exiled From Australia as “Dissenters” – And Defends the Snobbish Ms Deveny: All With the Help of Jon Faine
● Five Paws Awards to Michael Gawenda (Who Told the Truth on Ben Hills’ Biography) and Lara Bingle (Who Simply Told the Truth)
● History Corner: How It Took Nearly Two Years to Correct Stephen Crittenden’s Historical Howler on the Catholic Church, the Labor Split, Mortal Sin and all that.
STOP PRESS
Exclusive – Tony Jones On How Q&A Really Works
Tony Jones invariably introduces Q&A on ABC1 by stating that this is the program where the viewers ask the questions. Well, they ask some questions. However, last Monday Mr Jones presided over a program where he gave the answers – or at least one of them – to a question from the floor.
And so it came to pass on 17 May that a young female audience member suggested to Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner that – in an interview with Ross Greenwood in March – he had said that an increase in the compulsory superannuation payment would have a negative impact on wages. The Tanner/Greenwood interview took place on Radio 2GB on 17 March 2010. Initially, Tanner told Q&A that he had been verballed but then qualified this statement a little. This is understandable since the Finance Minister does many interviews and it is difficult to recall all comments he has made. The questioner, however, was persistent. The issue was resolved when Jones sided with Tanner – as the transcript demonstrates:
Tony Jones: I think we’re going to move along now, because I actually think that is an incorrect –
Lindsay Tanner: I’ll check my transcript.
Tony Jones: I actually think that is an incorrect quote.
When it was subsequently reported by Ray Hadley on 2GB – and by The Australian – that the Tanner quote was accurate, MWD asked Jones how he had been so certain that the audience member’s quote was incorrect.
The following email exchange is published in the public interest – and in the full knowledge that the ABC signed up to, and is a strong supporter of, the Right-to-Know Coalition.
Gerard Henderson to Tony Jones – 20 May 2010, 3.35 pm
Tony
I know how busy you are. However, I want to give you the opportunity to respond to the following question before I comment on the matter.
On Q&A last Monday, you said that one of the audience had cited what you termed an “incorrect quote” concerning a comment which she attributed to Lindsay Tanner.
My question is: How did you come to the conclusion that the audience member’s quote was “incorrect”?
That’s all.
Best wishes
Gerard Henderson
Tony Jones to Gerard Henderson – 20 May 2010, 4 pm
Gerard,
A percentage of the studio audience send us the questions they want to ask by email on the day of the show and we get to see those questions in the afternoon. We encourage this so that we can identify good questions in the lead up to the show and, therefore, provide some structure by putting questions on the same topic roughly together. Typically, not all of them get asked because the question is either covered in the panel’s answers or someone puts up their hand and spontaneously asks a similar question.
The video questions also come to us before the show, usually on the day of the show. Emailed questions from other states usually reach us prior to the show. Sms questions and twitter comments and questions are generated live. Additionally, some studio audience members write questions down and present them to us as they wait in the foyer. When people simply put their hands up in the audience we have no way of knowing what they are going to ask or say. On that occasion the questioner had emailed her question to us and, because it contained surprising direct quotes from Lindsay Tanner, we emailed her back to ask for the source of her quote. She did not reply. We then set about to research the source of the quote. I was told by one of our senior journalists, who found the original comments, that Tanner was being misquoted in the question. As a result we did not put her question on the list chosen prior to the show but, as you saw, she put up her hand and asked it spontaneously.
I hope that complicated response answers your question.
Regards,
Tony Jones
Gerard Henderson to Tony Jones – 20 May 2010 – 4.19 pm
Tony
Thanks for that. I don’t know who the “senior journalist” was but it seems a rush to judgement. The whole exchange took place within less than a minute.
I understand that the questioner emailed the question earlier without giving the source. However, she provided the source on Q&A – i.e. a Ross Greenwood/Lindsay Tanner interview in March 2010. It is not clear whether the “senior journalist” had checked this specific reference before you told the Q&A audience that the quote was “incorrect”.
On a separate issue, does Q&A intend to correct the (inaccurate) impression given by you that the audience member was verballing Lindsay Tanner?
Cheers
Gerard
At the time of pressing the MWD button, there had been no further response from Tony Jones or the Q&A executive director Peter McEvoy, who is responsible to information supplied to Tony Jones. Nancy will be watching next Monday to see if the sheila in last Monday’s audience – who was incorrectly castigated on-air by the Q&A presenter – receives an on-air apology.
NANCY’S PICK OF THE WEEK
BRIAN MATTHEWS – AND MANNING CLARK’S (ALLEGED) AFFAIR TO FORGET
It is just 18 months or so since the publication of Brian Matthews’ Manning Clark: A Life (Allen & Unwin). Last week it was announced that this tome had won the National Biography Award.
The you-beaut scoop of this biography was the author’s revelation that Manning had an affair with Lyndall Ryan and some others. See, for example, Canberra Times, 15 November 2008. How frightfully interesting. Except that Dr Ryan declared that she never had an affair with Professor Clark – and that the author and his publisher had not bothered to check this matter with her before Manning Clark: A Life was published.
As Lyndall Ryan told the Canberra Times on 22 November 2008:
Let me set the record straight. I did not have an affair with Manning Clark. If I had, I am not sure that I would have left my letters to Manning in his papers in the National Library, let alone made available his correspondence to me…Matthews, however, has never contacted me about this matter.
Fancy that. But why let a bit of unchecked gossip deprive a writer of a prestigious literary gong?
THE DRUM ON THE DRUM
Bob Ellis Bounces Back
According to ABC managing director Mark Scott, the taxpayer funded public broadcaster should be the preferred conduit agent for Australia’s soft diplomacy to the world. The Whole Wide World. Really (see Issue 50). In which case, it’s worth wondering precisely what the world – the Whole Wide World – is making of the ABC’s relatively new website termed The Drum, including The Drum Unleashed.
Last Wednesday The Drum’s editor – the fashionable leftie Jonathan Green (formerly of The Age and Crikey) – unleashed Bob Ellis, who contributed a piece titled “Sustaining fantasy”. Mr Ellis’ essay contained a number of deep and meaningful thoughts including his revelations that “adultery has been frequent since the intervention of the bicycle” and that “the wife-swapping parties of the 1950s and ’60s seem wiser now than they did then”. Your man Ellis did not canvass the wisdom of husband-swapping parties. [Is the Australian taxpayer really funding such crap? – Ed.]
In dismissing the fantasies of others, the (False) Prophet regurgitated his own particular line in fantasies. You see, Mr Ellis believes that mobile phones give us brain cancer and that, in Israel, “Opposition politicians are assassinated”. Needless to say, no evidence was cited for either claim. There was more in this genre – including predictable rages against believers, but only of the Christian and Jewish faiths and his (alleged) Jewish relatives. MWD looks forward to Ellis writing in The Drum about the “fantasy” of Wahhabism. In which case the False Prophet would likely have his throat cut before he could, er, get on his bike.
For its part, MWD has its own sustaining fantasy. Namely that Bob Ellis will pay the remaining half of the failed $1000 bet which he took with Gerard Henderson around a decade ago. See Issues 8 and 9. The Failed Prophet’s minder did forward two cheques for $250 each last year. However, both bounced. Since Bob Ellis told viewers of The Drum that the end of the world is nigh – due to global warming and all that – he may as well pay up now since there probably won’t be time for him to spend his money on, say, bicycles – or pyjamas.
The Drum’s Push (Or Is It Shove?) Polling
While on the topic of The Drum, here’s a sample of the polling which is still on the program’s website – all funded by the taxpayer of course.
Question 542
Has “Phoney Tony” damaged the Liberal Party’s chances at the election?
| Yes | 66% |  |
| No | 34% |  |
Here The Drum put the Labor Party’s put-down nickname for Tony Abbott in its so-called “fair and balanced” question. Clever, eh?
Question 537
Is the Federal Government right to tax the mining sector?
| Yes | 70% |  |
| No | 30% |  |
Here The Drum seems unaware that the mining industry has been taxed since Adam was a boy.
Question 479
Is Mary MacKillop a saint?
| Yes | 19% |  |
| No | 65% |  |
| Don’t know | 16% |  |
Here The Drum seems unaware that the Catholic Church designates who are its saints – not secular ABC types.
Question 431
Should human occupation be banned in areas of coastline threatened by rising sea levels?
| Yes | 68% |  |
| No | 32% |  |
Here The Drum seems to be sending a message to Mr Mungo MacCallum, circa Byron Bay, to pack up and leave.
Question 419
With Rupert Murdoch lashing out at “content kleptomaniacs”, would you be willing to pay for online news content?
| Yes | 3% |  |
| No | 88% |  |
| Maybe | 9% |  |
No surprise here. The Drum types clearly believe that information should come for “free” – courtesy of the taxpayer.
Question 214
Would you ever consider voting for the Australian Sex Party?
| Yes | 42% |  |
| No | 58% |  |
When it last contested a Federal seat, the Australia Sex Party polled less than 5 per cent – which gives some idea of just how representative Drum readers really are. [Perhaps it’s a good time to invest in bicycle and pyjama futures. – Ed.]
GREAT MEDIA U TURNS OF OUR TIME (CONTINUED) – ANDREW JASPAN LOOKS BACK IN CONFUSION ABOUT HIS TIME AS EDITOR OF “THE GUARDIAN-ON-THE-YARRA: FEATURING JON FAINE, CATHERINE DEVENY, JOHN PILGER AND GERMAINE GREER.
Let’s go to the audio tape for the Jon Faine program on ABC Radio 774 for 12 May 2010. Thanks to one of Nancy’s Melbourne mates for providing this.
Jon Faine: Catherine Deveny…you [Andrew Jaspan] were the [Age] editor, I think, who hired her. Correct?
Andrew Jaspan: Not quite, Jon. She was doing a TV column on the back of A2. And I was very amused by what she had to say. I think she’s a very sparky writer. I think she has different insights into a lot of issues. And I asked her if she would be interested in doing more of a social commentary – a weekly social commentary…
In what was a 40 minute interview devoted mostly to the recently sacked Age columnist, Andrew Jaspan initially said that it was “not quite” correct to say that he had hired Deveny. However, as the interview progressed, Mr Jaspan changed his line – as the following quotes demonstrate:
Andrew Jaspan: When I brought her [Deveny] into the paper to have a regular column…
Andrew Jaspan: It seems to me, um, that she’s going to be sadly missed. But, you know, I don’t run that paper any more, John. You know, I brought her in…
Andrew Jaspan: One of the things about Catherine when I hired her…
Andrew Jaspan: I ran the paper in a different way – and that was my business. And, of course, I had a lot of criticism about a range of things – including also hiring Catherine at the time. What amuses me, here, is that when I took her on, you know, a lot of people didn’t like her. And now I just see screen after screen here at the [774] studio saying “Bring her back” and so on and so forth.
So there you have it – and so on and so forth. It’s “not quite” correct to say that Andrew Jaspan hired Catherine Deveny. But it is quite correct to say that he (i) brought her into the paper, (ii) hired her, and (iii) took her on. That’s all.
Needless to say, the Jon Faine/Andrew Jaspan interview was very much an intellectual love-in, with each agreeing with the other. So much so that Faine even remained mute in response to Jaspan’s assertions which is unusual for the highly opinionated Mr Faine.
MWD was particularly interested in Jaspan’s claim that “you need to wake the readers up occasionally” and his implication that when he became editor of The Age in 2004 it had a “monocultural view of the world”. In fact, when Mr Jaspan was sacked by management in 2008 the newspaper did not have one conservative weekly columnist. Not one. Talk about a monocultured view of the world. However, it had leftists aplenty – including Catherine Deveny, Ken Davidson, Michael Leunig and many, many more.
MWD was also interested in Andrew Jaspan’s claim on 774 that Australia needs “to protect dissenting voices”. Likewise his assertion that there are “a number of voices in Australia that have been drummed out because people just just haven’t liked them”. He further claimed that “some of those people have fled and moved abroad” and “found a perch, you know, in the UK”. Asked who he had in mind, Jaspan replied: “Oh, I’ve got in mind people like, eh, John Pilger, Germaine Greer, there’re a couple of others.”
What a load of tosh. Greer and Pilger left Australia because they wanted to and settled in Britain – from where they regularly return to lecture Australians. The idea that Greer and Pilger were somehow “drummed out” of Australia on account of their “dissenting views” is complete tripe – and shows abysmal lack of knowledge of contemporary Australia.
Andrew Jaspan was born in Britain and was appointed as editor of The Age by Mark Scott. [Is this the same Mark Scott who is now ABC managing director? – Ed.] Prior to taking up his position at The Age, Jaspan had edited an insignificant Sunday paper in Scotland. He never understood Australia and was a hopeless editor – re which see Crikey 3 September 2008.
By the way, in their defence of Catherine Deveny neither Jaspan nor Faine mentioned precisely why the columnist had been sacked – namely because she had said she hoped 11 year old Bindi Irwin “gets laid”. It was a case of, let’s not talk about the statutory rape advocacy.
The Jaspan/Faine duopoly referred to a self-indulgent piece which Catherine Deveny wrote on The Drum on 11 May 2009. This is the article which MWD was too touched to cover last week.
The truth is that MWD went into emote-overdrive when Ms Deveny referred to her “three little boys”, described herself as a “girl from the wrong side of the tracks” and “a good mum”, declared that she was “heartbroken”, described how she had to cancel a planned trip to Wet‘n’Wild which she had “promised the kids”, proclaimed that she only wrote columns to make her “soul grow” and insisted: “I won’t be explaining myself”. [That’s enough. – Ed.]
What Andrew Jaspan and Jon Faine did not get around to discussing is Jason Wilson’s article in New Matilda titled “An Embarrassment to the Latte Belt” on 6 May 2010. Wilson criticised Deveny’s infantilism from a left-wing perspective and was critical of her contempt for lower socio-economic groups who live outside the inner city so beloved by Age readers and ABC listeners. As Jason Wilson wrote:
She used those columns in part to expound on her contempt for everyone whose lives are led outside the few square miles of inner-city Melbourne where she apparently feels comfortable. More often than not, the contempt was directed down the social scale, toward those who live in the outer suburbs that this self-proclaimed “Reservoir Girl” has left behind. Her pieces on suburban and outer-suburban life never seemed to involve her laughing with her targets. Rather, she was always furiously distancing herself from suburban lifestyles and popular culture, marking out the distinction of her and her friends, licensing the snobbery of suburban emigrants and bluebloods alike.
Quite so.
MAURICE NEWMAN SEGMENT
MWD continues its special segment devoted to analysing ABC Maurice Newman’s claim that there is group-think within the public broadcaster – and Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes’ refutation of any such charge.
Last week a jury in New South Wales brought down a majority (11 to 1) verdict in the murder trial of Des Campbell – who was convicted of murdering his wife Janet by throwing her over a cliff. Campbell is an unsavoury character and the circumstantial evidence against him was overwhelming. He declined to give evidence at his trial.
To listeners of the “Mornings with Deborah Cameron” program on ABC Radio 702 it was evident that Ms Cameron was not happy with majority verdicts in murder trials. She invited two guests to the program to discuss the issue. First up there was Jane Goodman-Delahunty, a research professor at Charles Sturt University. She was against majority verdicts. Then on came lawyer Phillip Gibson. He, too, was against majority verdicts. No other view was heard as Cameron agreed with Goodman-Delahunty who just happened to agree with Cameron who also agreed with Gibson. How very ABC, in a group-think kind of way.
NANCY’S FIVE PAWS AWARD
This week’s gong is shared by the not-so-gorgeous Michael Gawenda and the gorgeous Lara Bingle.
– Michael Gawenda Nails Ben Hills
Michael Gawenda, who was editor and editor-in-chief of The Age from 1997 to 2004, reviewed Ben Hills’ Breaking News: The Golden Age of Graham Perkin (Scribe, 2010) in The Weekend Australian last Saturday. Perkin edited The Age from 1966 until his untimely death in 1975 and, as Gawenda puts it, Hills was a Perkin acolyte. Gawenda regards this biography as mere “hagiography” which dismisses the significance of such Age editors as Michael Davie as well as such competitors of The Age as The Sun and The Herald. Gawenda concluded his piece as follows:
Perkin would have been better served by an “outside” biographer and frankly, by a better writer than Hills.
Quite so. Five Paws. [By the way, has Ben Hills or his publisher Henry Rosenbloom got back to Nancy’s co-owner yet concerning the historical howler about him in Hills’ biography? – Ed. See Issue 52.]
Lara Bingle’s Lesson For Journalists
MWD was so impressed by model Lara Bingle’s recent interview with Grazia magazine – and in particular her admission that she made a mistake in selling a copy story about herself to a magazine. Spoke Ms Bingle:
I made a mistake. I can’t blame anyone for it. It was my decision and I thought it would settle things but it just got worse. I’ll never do it again. I know I need to build up people’s respect and I’m going to start at the bottom and work up, but that’s what I’ll do.
Five Paws.
HISTORY CORNER
STEPHEN CRITTENDEN’S HISTORIAL HOWLER ON CATHOLICISM, MORTAL SIN AND THE LABOR SPLIT – AND THE LONG ROAD TO A CORRECTION BY THE ABC
Last week’s “History Corner” documented just how difficult it was to get SBS World News Australia to correct a false assertion made in 2009 about Pope Pius XII’s (alleged) anti-semitism. The case study demonstrated the poor quality of what passes for historical research within public broadcasters. Eventually, the error was corrected on-line. But only after the invention of SBS managing director, and editor-in-chief, Shaun Brown – and only after much resistance.
This week’s “History Corner” documents just how difficult it was to get ABC Radio National to correct an error made by Stephen Crittenden on the (then) Religion Report in 2008. Once again, the error was only corrected after the intervention of ABC managing director, and editor-in-chief, Mark Scott – who cut through the organisation’s culture of denial.
The following case study demonstrates how difficult it is to reform the long established ABC culture to dismiss criticism – however considered. The following correspondence also demonstrates the poor quality of what passes for historical scholarship within the ABC. But first some background:
Stephen Crittenden, Radio National and Historical Fudge
On 13 June 2007 the ABC Radio National Religion Report program ran a report on church/state relations in Australia. This followed a comment by Cardinal George Pell, the most senior member of the Catholic hierarchy in Australia, to the effect that if Catholic parliamentarians in New South Wales voted for legislation supporting therapeutic stem cell research there would be “consequences for their place in the life of the Church”.
When Stephen Crittenden was the presenter of the (now defunct) Religion Report program he invariably ran his own agenda. Crittenden is a cultural Catholic who happens to disagree with much of the Church’s teachings on moral issues. On 13 June 2007 Crittenden assembled a panel of three to discuss Cardinal Pell’s comments on stem cell research – all of whom disagreed with George Pell. Panel members were:
▪ John Challis – a former Dominican priest and one-time head of the ABC Science Unit.
▪ Rev. Gordon Cheng – a Sydney Anglican minister at Carlingford Parish.
▪ Dr Dan Donovan – a lecturer at the Australian Catholic University of Sydney who is a priest of the Sydney archdiocese.
Mr Challis and Fr Donovan are Catholic critics of Cardinal Pell – and the Anglican Church in Sydney is well known for its deep opposition to Catholicism. This was the kind of unbalanced panel on the Religion Report which was acceptable to Radio National head Dr Jane Connors before the Religion Report was closed down by ABC management in 2008. But this is another story.
Gerard Henderson – the author of Mr Santamaria and the Bishops, a study of the involvement of the Catholic Church in Australian politics in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s – took exception to Stephen Crittenden’s attempt to link Cardinal Pell’s comments about Catholic MPs in 2007 with the situation which affected some Catholic MPs during and after the Labor Split of 1954-1957. At that time the Catholic Church was divided. Archbishop Daniel Mannix in Melbourne supported the Democratic Labor Party – which was expelled from/broke away from the Australian Labor Party in the mid 1950s. Cardinal Norman Gilroy in Sydney, on the other hand, supported the ALP and opposed the DLP.
Stephen Crittenden asked a series of leading questions to John Challis – attempting to draw comparisons between Cardinal Pell’s comments in 2007 and Archbishop Mannix’s position with reference to those Catholics – including prominent Labor MP Arthur Calwell – who remained in the ALP, and did not join the DLP, some half a century ago. Crittenden commented:
Of course those were the days when Arthur Calwell was humiliated by his parish priest who denied him communion. And Archbishop Mannix’s auxiliary bishop in Melbourne, Arthur Fox, declared that it was a mortal sin to vote for the Labor Party.
In personal correspondence with the late John Russell, Gerard Henderson inter alia wrote that Crittenden’s claims about Arthur Calwell and Arthur Fox were “undocumented assertions” and sent a copy of this note to Jane Connors and Stephen Crittenden at Radio National. Dr Connors wanted to know whether Henderson was proposing to lodge a formal complaint with the ABC. When Henderson replied in the negative – since this would be a waste of time – she completely dropped the matter and expressed no interest whatsoever about the historical accuracy of Mr Crittenden’s comments.
On 19 June 2007, and again on 16 July 2008, Gerard Henderson wrote to Stephen Crittenden requesting evidence in support of his assertions about Arthur Calwell and Arthur Fox and sent copies to Jane Connors. Both emails were totally ignored. So on 8 October 2008 – after a long delay – Gerard Henderson took up the issue with Mark Scott. Mr Scott responded on 31 October 2008 and Gerard Henderson replied to the ABC managing director on 13 November 2008. The latter two letters are published below.
Mark Scott’s letter – which was clearly drafted following advice from Radio National and (presumably) Stephen Crittenden – demonstrates the unwillingness of ABC personnel to acknowledge errors. It also provides a case study of what Mr Scott has subsequently referred to as the ABC’s thin skin.
Mark Scott to Gerard Henderson
October 31, 2008
Dear Gerard
Thank you for writing to me on these matters. As you know we are looking at matters relating to our self-regulation and intend to come back to you separately on those matters when Paul Chadwick is in a position to do so. You raise valid points around how we should deal with simple factual requests whilst not making them formal complaints requiring process through our Audience & Complaints & Handling Department.
In answering your points in relation to the need for ABC presenters/producers to provide evidence to document claims which are made on-air, I can confirm that Stephen Crittenden had no documented evidence to support his first assertion at the time, however his comments were made in the context of the discourse with John Challis and based on Stephen Crittenden’s genuinely held understanding of Arthur Calwell’s experience at the time.
In reference to your second point, evidence to support this statement is in:
Moira Byrne (PhD. Candidate. Political Science, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, The Australian National University). Let the Little Children Come to Me: The Catholic Church’s Response to Mandatory Detention of Child Asylum Seekers, Refereed paper presented to the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, University of Adelaide, 29 September- 1 October, 2004. p9.
It contains the quote: “More famously, during the Labor ‘split’ of the 1950s, Bishop Arthur Fox in Melbourne said it was a ‘mortal sin’ to vote Labor while they negotiated with Communists, as clergy elsewhere largely maintained Catholics could vote as they pleased, or even encouraged Catholics to persist with and influence the traditional labour movement (O’Farrell 1977, 401-3; Hogan 1987, p249; Campion 1982 p.115; Stokes 1983, 137; Henderson 1986, 218,224).”
Edmund Campion’s Rockchoppers: Growing Up Catholic in Australia published in 1982 by Penguin Books p1 15 contains the following: “Before then he [Mr BA. Santamaria] would happily run his machine under the hierarchy, accepting their pay, going to Dr Mannix for political advice, tacitly consenting to Dr Mannix‘s ban on his lay critics on the Catholic Worker, and profiting gratefully from the support of bishops such as Dr Arthur Fox, who told his people that it was a mortal sin to vote for the Labor Party.”
While unable to provide documented evidence of the first comment, John Challis agreed with Stephen’s account of the time and it formed part of the overall discourse about the relationship between church and politics. I have asked however that that we include a footnote on the online transcript to the effect that it cannot be attributed but was a widely held belief.
Thank you for bringing these matters to my attention
Yours sincerely
Mark Scott
Gerard Henderson to Mark Scott
On 13 November 2008, Gerard Henderson replied to Mark Scott as follows:
13 November 2008
Dear Mark
Many thanks for your letter dated 31 October 2008 in reply to my email of 8 October 2008. I note from your letter – and from our brief conversation in Melbourne on 28 October 2008 – that the ABC is looking at how it should deal with simple factual requests without classifying them as formal complaints. I understand that this is part of the ABC’s broader review into self-regulation which we have discussed previously. I look forward to hearing further from you in due course about this.
The ABC’s Appalling Scholarship
I know how busy you are. Consequently, in my email of 8 October, I requested that you arrange for someone within the ABC to respond to me. I note, however, that you decided to sign-off yourself on my formal request that Stephen Crittenden provide evidence for the statements which he made about the late Arthur Calwell and the late Bishop Arthur Fox on The Religion Report on 13 June 2007. In view of the appalling scholarship in your response, I can only assume that someone at Radio National prepared the letter which you forwarded to me.
I propose to deal with the two issues separately.
1. Stephen Crittenden’s claim that one-time Labor leader Arthur Calwell was denied the Catholic sacrament of communion by his parish priest in Melbourne.
In your letter of 8 October you wrote:
I can confirm that Stephen Crittenden had no documented evidence to support his first assertion at the time, however his comments were made in the context of the discourse with John Challis and based on Stephen Crittenden’s genuinely held understanding of Arthur Calwell’s experiences at the time….. While unable to provide documented evidence of the first comment, John Challis agreed with Stephen’s account of the time and it formed part of the overall discourse about the relationship between church and politics. I have asked however that we include a footnote on the online transcript to the effect that it cannot be attributed but was a widely held belief.
This is grossly deficient response. As the ABC’s editor-in-chief, you concede that Mr Crittenden has no evidence to support his claim about Arthur Calwell. So you propose to remedy this situation by including a footnote on the online transcript to the effect that, while there is no evidence for the claim, it “was a widely held belief”. This is totally misleading.
What evidence do you have for the proposition that Mr Calwell was denied communion was ever “a widely held belief”? Who held the belief? Where was such a belief ever expressed? The fact is that Mr Calwell did not make this claim in his memoirs and it was not made by his biographer. John Challis’ recall four decades after the event is not evidence – and certainly does not constitute a “widely held belief” held by anyone other than Mr Challis and Mr Crittenden. I have discussed this matter with the historian Ross Fitzgerald who is the author of The Pope’s Battalions: Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split. Professor Fitzgerald has advised me that he has never previously heard of the Crittenden/Challis claim.
As the evidence stands, your proposed footnote would amount to an act of intellectual dishonesty. The footnote should record the fact that there is no evidence to support the statement made by Mr Challis and Mr Crittenden about Mr Calwell being denied the sacrament of communion by his parish priest. That’s all.
What Really Happened – Unknown to Radio National
If Stephen Crittenden and John Challis had read Arthur Calwell Be Just and Fear Not and Colm Kiernan Calwell: A Personal and Political Journey they would be aware that Mr Calwell left his parish church in Flemington, and attended St Francis Church in the Melbourne CBD, because he was criticised (pace Calwell) or feared that he would be criticised (pace Kiernan) by a priest during a sermon from the pulpit. That’s all.
2. Stephen Crittenden’s claim that Bishop Arthur Fox said that it would be a “mortal sin” for Catholics to vote for the Australian Labor Party.
In your letter of 31 October you wrote:
In reference to your second point, evidence to support this statement is in: Moira Byrne (PhD. Candidate, Political Science, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, The Australian National University), Let the Little Children Come to Me: The Catholic Church’s Response to Mandatory Detention of Child Asylum Seekers, Refereed paper presented to the Australian Political Studies Association Conference, University of Adelaide, 29 September-1 October, 2004. p9.
It contains the quote: “More famously, during the Labor “split” of the 1950s, Bishop Arthur Fox in Melbourne said it was a “mortal sin” to vote Labor while they negotiated with Communists, as clergy elsewhere largely maintained Catholics could vote as they pleased, or even encouraged Catholics to persist with and influence the traditional labour movement (O’Farrell 1977, 401-3; Hogan 1987, p. 249; Campion 1982, p. 115; Stokes 1983, 137; Henderson 1986, 218, 224).”
This section in your letter would score a fail mark if it were submitted in a first-year university essay. Clearly whoever did this research for you merely typed the words “Bishop Arthur Fox” and “mortal sin” into Google and came up with the paragraph at Page 9 of Ms Byrne’s APSA paper. The researcher was content with what was found and did not bother to check four out of Ms Byrne’s five citations to ascertain whether they actually supported the claim which she made. Your researcher does not seem to be aware that the Henderson cited by Byrne is actually me. This has led to the ludicrous situation whereby you have quoted me as evidence against my own position. Pretty incompetent, don’t you think?
The fact is that the sources cited by Moira Byrne do not support her claim that Bishop Arthur Fox “said it was a ‘mortal sin’ to vote Labor”. I have checked the footnotes myself.
▪ The first reference cited by Ms Byrne refers to Patrick O’Farrell’s book The Catholic Church and Community in Australia (1977). In fact, there is no reference to “mortal sin” at Pages 401 to 403 of this book.
▪ The second reference is to Michael Hogan’s book The Sectarian Strand (1987). In fact, there is no reference to “mortal sin” at Page 249 of this book.
▪ The third reference is to Edmund Campion’s book Rockchopper (1982). I will cover this below.
▪ The fourth reference is to the chapter by Geoff Stokes titled “South Australia: consensus politics” in the edited collection Machine Politics in the Australian Labor Party (1983). In fact, there is no reference to either “mortal sin” or Bishop Fox in this chapter.
▪ The fifth reference is to my own chapter titled “The Catholic Church and the Labor Split” in the edited collection titled The Sydney-Melbourne Book (1986). In fact, there is no reference to “mortal sin” at either Page 218 or Page 224. It is quite dishonest for your researcher to suggest that I made a claim which I have actually refuted for decades.
In your letter of 31 October 2008, you also wrote:
Edmund Campion’s Rockchoppers: Growing Up Catholic in Australia published in 1982 by Penguin Books p115 contains the following: “Before then he [Mr B.A. Santamaria] would happily run his machine under the hierarchy, accepting their pay, going to Dr Mannix for political advice, tacitly consenting to Dr Mannix’s ban on his lay critics on the Catholic Worker, and profitting gratefully from the support of bishops such as Dr Arthur Fox, who told his people that it was a mortal sin to vote for the Labor Party.”
This claim is the same reference as cited by Moira Byrne. Even a cursory examination of Rockchoppers would reveal that it contains neither footnotes nor endnotes and the author does not cite a date or a place when/where the Bishop Fox comment was (allegedly) made. Put simply, Fr Campion did not provide any primary or even secondary evidence to support his statement about Bishop Fox. It is quite misleading for you to imply otherwise. Any competent and professionally trained researcher would know that quoting from an unsourced comment does not constitute evidence.
As a matter of background, the leading historians in the field of the history of the Catholic Church in Australia in the 20th Century are Patrick O’Farrell, Michael Hogan, Bruce Duncan, Ross Fitzgerald, Jim Griffin and myself. None of the above has ever said that Bishop Fox once declared that it would be a “mortal sin” for Catholics to vote for the ALP.
What Really Happened – Unknown to Radio National
What happened is as follows – I quote from my 1982 book Mr Santamaria and the Bishops, viz:
On Sunday, 15 May 1960, at De La Salle College in Melbourne, Bishop Fox, after speaking initially about education, went on to discuss the ALP. He said that the ALP could not expect Catholic votes if it continued to deny educational justice to independent schools and then mentioned unity tickets – arguing that the ALP was “not doing anything” to oppose the Communists: “In the present position of some members of the ALP being dominated by the Communist Party I and other Catholics would be ashamed to vote for such a weak and timorous party. I would regard myself as having a bad conscience if I did so.”
The Bishop pointed to the defeat in April 1960 of the right-wing leadership of the Gippsland Trades and Labor Council by a unity ticket, and concluded that: “No Catholic with a good conscience could vote for the ALP while it continues to have such negotiations with the Communist Party”.
Stephen Crittenden or Jane Connors or Sue Howard or whoever does your research could have traced the quote by using the index of Mr Santamaria and the Bishops. Had any of the above bothered to contact me for the source of this quote, I would have directed them to The Advocate, 19 May 1960, Page 7. Alternatively, Jane Connors could have checked The Religion Report’s own website, where on 26 February 1997 Jim Griffin quoted Bishop Fox to the effect that no Catholic in good conscience could vote Labor – but did not claim that he had used the term “mortal sin”.
Those who were brought up in the Catholic faith – like Stephen Crittenden, John Challis, Ed Campion and myself – know precisely what the term “mortal sin” means. There is no excuse for any of us to consciously verbal a person by using the words “mortal sin” when in fact the term was not used.
Bishop Fox’s comments as reported in The Advocate make it clear that he never used the term “mortal sin” with respect to Catholics who voted for Labor. This was a (false) assertion put about by his opponents at the time and since – including Stephen Crittenden, John Challis and Ed Campion. There are many things that a bishop might declare that a Catholic could not do in good conscience – such as avoiding paying a train fare. But such behaviour does not necessarily equate to a “mortal sin” – and Bishop Fox never claimed that it did with respect to Catholics who voted ALP circa 1960.
The ABC’s Culture Of Denial
As indicated, I do not hold you personally responsible for the lack of professionalism in your letter. However, it does stand as evidence of the prevailing culture of denial – and sensitivity to criticism – which pervades large sections of the ABC. It also stands testimony to the standard of management at ABC Radio in general and Radio National in particular – and as a reminder that RN management allowed Mr Crittenden to use The Religion Report as a form of advocacy journalism for years. If Dr Connors had properly managed Mr Crittenden, the current controversy would never have occurred.
I first wrote to Stephen Crittenden seeking his evidence for his assertions about Mr Calwell and Bishop Fox as long ago as 19 June 2007 – and forwarded a copy of my email to Jane Connors in her capacity as manager of Radio National. I wrote to Mr Crittenden again on 16 July 2008 – this time I copied in both Dr Connors and Sue Howard. After 18 months, all the ABC has been able to do is to come up with an unpublished paper by a Ph.D. student – where the cited sources do not support the claim made. The flight into Google in this instance is both lazy and insouciant.
Conclusion
It is my opinion that, in your role as ABC editor-in-chief, you should arrange for both of Stephen Crittenden’s false and undocumented claims to be corrected on the ABC website. The success of ABC on-line entails that it is important that transcripts on the public broadcaster’s website are accurate.
As previously advised, I am aware how busy you are and that consequently, you are reliant on good staff. However, the evidence suggests that you are sometimes let down by poor staff work.
You may recall that in late 2006 you wrote to me supporting Media Watch’s criticism of my interpretation of the Victorian Court of Appeal’s decision in The Queen v Joseph Terrence Thomas. You subsequently acknowledged to me that neither you nor anyone in your office had read the case before you signed the letter. Kirstin McLiesh, on whose advice you acted, has no legal qualifications and did not bother to refer the matter to the ABC in-house lawyers. It turned out that, in your capacity as ABC managing director, you signed-off on a memorandum prepared by an anonymous Media Watch researcher – who may or may not have legal qualifications. All this is documented in my letter to you dated 2 May 2008. My request for information about the name and designation of this researcher still stands. I hope to find out one day – in view of the ABC’s commitment to the Right to Know campaign.
Now, in your capacity as ABC editor-in-chief, you have signed-off on a letter which says that evidence in support of Stephen Crittenden’s claim about Bishop Fox “is” contained in a paper by Moira Byrne – when an actual check of Ms Byrne’s sources reveals that this is manifestly not the case.
If the ABC is to take self-regulation seriously, you and your colleagues at Radio National will have to do better than this.
Best wishes
Yours sincerely
Gerard Henderson
The Abc Finally Agrees To Online Correction
There were further communications between Gerard Henderson, Mark Scott and the ABC’s managing director’s office. On 17 December 2008 Mark Scott advised Gerard Henderson that the statements which Henderson had suggested would be added to the ABC transcripts online “for the sake of accuracy”.
The transcript for the Religion Report which originally aired on 13 June 2007 now contains the following postscript:
There is no evidence that Arthur Calwell was ever refused communion by his parish priest. However, Mr Calwell either was criticised, or believed he would be criticised, from the pulpit and decided to attend Mass at St Francis’ Church in the Melbourne CBD rather than at his parish church.
There is no evidence that Arthur Fox ever said that it would be a “mortal sin” for a Catholic to vote Labor. However, Bishop Fox did say in 1960 that no Catholic in good conscience could vote Labor while it deals with the Communist Party in trade union elections.
If it took Gerard Henderson close to 18 months to get this clarification placed on the ABC’s website – following the personal intervention of the ABC’s managing director – it takes no imagination to recognise just how deep is the ABC’s sensitivity to criticism. Mr Scott has now formally advised ABC personnel that they need “thicker skins” and has set in place a reformed system for feedback and review (See Issue 33). Not before time.
Until next time then.