MWD Issue 53

GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG – ISSUE NO. 53

14 MAY 2010

IN THIS ISSUE

● A John Howard Institute? Deborah Snow’s Exclusive

● Maurice Newman Segment – RN Breakfast Post-Budget Group-Think

● 7.30 Report Prompts Transcript Readers How To Interpret the O’Brien/Rudd Interview

● Kathy Lette’s (Temporary) Angst – Life at Bloomsbury Without Gordon and Sarah

● Mike Carlton and Jonathan Holmes Look Back in Self-Indulgence

● Guy Rundle’s Worthless Scenario

● Great Media U-Turns – Christopher Hitchens and Malcolm Mackerras

● Virginia Trioli’s Trioli Moments

● Why Nancy Just Can’t Cope with Catherine Deveny Right Now

● History Corner. Historical Denial and Public Broadcasting: SBS, Pope Pius XII and A False Allegation of Anti-Semitism – How a Correction Was Achieved

STOP PRESS

A Howard Institute?

According to a Deborah Snow exclusive in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, moves are afoot to establish a John Howard Institute to act as a kind of think tank. Details are few and far between – except that a former Young Liberal heavy named Noel McCoy appears to be involved. [That’s not a good sign. – Ed.]

The only person willing to talk to Ms Snow about how such an institute might work was Chris Sidoti, head of the taxpayer subsidised and Labor orientated Whitlam Institute. Mr Sidoti declared that a Howard Institute would be a “terrific” idea and said that the government should support it. How very Whitlamesque. Want to establish a think tank? Here’s a bucket load of taxpayer money. Go to it.

Come to think of it, there is some precedent here. (See The Sydney Institute Quarterly, December 2008). When prime minister, John Howard threw some $30 million at the United States Study Centre in Sydney. Soon after Kevin Rudd and Victorian premier John Brumby threw $15 million each at the Grattan Institute in Melbourne. Now the Rudd Government is about to kick in some $112 million to establish a public policy institute at the Australian National Institute in Canberra. [Why not establish a taxpayer funded criminology institute in the small South Australian abode of Snowtown? – Ed.]

MAURICE NEWMAN SEGMENT (CONTINUED)

Yet More Group-Think on RN Breakfast

While on the Grattan Institute, it was good to hear Saul Eslake (the Grattan Institute’s economist) on the Radio National Breakfast’s 2010 Budget panel on Wednesday. He was involved in a discussion with Heather Ridout (chief executive officer of the Australian Industry Group) and Clare Martin (chief executive officer of the Australian Council of Civil Service – ACOCS). What a panel.

It was one of those conversations which ABC chairman Maurice Newman has depicted as group think – i.e. where everyone pretty well agrees with everyone else. Such business groups as the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) were critical of at least parts of the Budget. The AIG was the least critical of the three key business organisations. But it was the AIG that got the RN Breakfast gig. Saul Eslake is not a known critic of Rudd Labor’s economic policies. And Clare Martin, the former Labor chief minister of the Northern Territory, only really criticises Labor from the left when she advocates more welfare spending.

Needless to say, little criticism of the 2010 budget was heard on the panel. This distinguished it from this morning’s panel on Tony Abbott’s budget reply – where The Age’s Michelle Grattan and Channel 7’s Mark Riley were quite critical of the Coalition’s economic policy.

Radio National Breakfast invariably mentions it if a guest on the program once worked for a politician, say, John Howard – or if a guest happens to work for a privately funded think tank. But on this occasion no one mentioned Ms Martin’s Labor background. And no one described the Grattan Institute as “government funded”. How about that?

“RED” KERRY AND (UM, AH) THE PRIME MINISTER

What a you-beaut dust-up between Kevin Rudd and the ABC 1’s 7.30 Report last Wednesday. No doubt some will say that Mr O’Brien’s aggressive grilling of the Prime Minister provided evidence of the public broadcaster’s “balance”. As in – “well, sure, Red Kerry used to bag John Howard and the conservatives but now he bags Kevin Rudd and the social democrats”. However, this is not MWD’s position. For starters, Kerry O’Brien has given Kevin Rudd a soft run for eons. And then there is the point that it was only time before senior ABC types bagged Rudd Labor from the left.

Kerry O’Brien [Is he the very same “Red” Kerry who once worked for Gough Whitlam but does not declare this? – Ed.] was wont to criticise the Howard Government from the left. And now he’s criticising the Rudd Government – also from the left. How frightfully Aunty. Remember that some of the ABC’s key presenters also criticised the Hawke and Keating government from the left.

It was a typical O’Brien interview. The 7.30 Report presenter was more interested in putting his own views – sometimes expressed as statements, sometimes in the form of leading questions – than he was in hearing the Prime Minister’s answers. “Red” Kerry’s principal complaint was that Kevin Rudd had “squibbed” it on climate change by not going ahead with the emissions trading scheme legislation. This led to a degree of prime ministerial anger exhibited in his passive/aggressive use of the word “mate”.

It seems that the ABC wants to continue the argument. Rather than assume that the hoi poloi can read a transcript for themselves and form their own conclusions about the O’Brien/Rudd exchange, the 7.30 Report website has done a bit of editorialising. The transcript carries the following heading: “Angry Rudd defends ETS backflip.” Quite a feat, when you think about it. For the public broadcaster has managed to make two critical judgments of the Prime Minister is just five words. A fair heading would have been “Rudd defends ETS decision”.

Also, the transcript of the O’Brien/Rudd interview on the 7.30 Report website contains every one of the Prime Minister’s occasional “ums” and “ahs” – as the following extract illustrates:

Kerry O’Brien : Isn’t it also your job to communicate it? I mean, as the leader aren’t you also supposed to be an effective communicator? Let me put this to you. All the polling you’re doing – is that showing that the people really understand this array of health measures that you’ve kept announcing one after the other after the other?

Kevin Rudd : Ah, Kerry, ah if, um, you’d come down the Queensland coast with me and the New South Wales coast to practically all the major centres, um, in those, ah, regions with their local hospitals and sat with the local doctors and nurses and allied health professionals and the patients and spoken to each of their local media perhaps not read by you in the studio where you are this evening, let me tell you …

How about that? The 7.30 Report runs the Prime Minister’s words verbatim – “ums” and all. But it clears up “Red” Kerry’s errors and occasional senior moments on its transcripts. For example, when O’Brien referred to one time Liberal MP Jackie Kelly as “Jacqui Harvey” and when he introduced well known Labor adviser Bruce Hawker as a Liberal Party activist. See Issue 47.

NANCY’S PICK OF THE WEEK

Kathy and Geoffrey and Gordon and Sarah

The British general election was one of the most important – and interesting – in recent times. So it was good to see that The Age covered the (then) still undecided contest as its Page One lead last Saturday. There was a report from the London based Paola Totaro. Fair enough. And alongside this was a piece by Australian expatriate, novelist, cliché-grinder and pun-specialist Kathy Lette. For the younger MWD readers, in her wild youth young Kathy was a surfie chick from Cronulla who wrote (with Gabrielle Carey) about her adventures in the 1979 novel Puberty Blues.

These days the sassy Ms Lette knows lotsa important people in the Old Dart and, what’s more, she’s married to the pompous Geoffrey Ronald Robertson QC (and bar). Mr (or is it Justice?) Robertson talks with a Sloane Square plumb in his mouth. This results in what Nancy regards as an “Epping accent” – it’s the kind of accent that is useful to portray in Sloane Square (London) if you wish to disguise the fact that you were born in Epping (Sydney).

The record shows that in her take on the UK election for “The Guardian-on-the-Yarra”, Kathy Lette was up to her best form as a pun-ster. The piece was headed “Parliament may end up very well-hung indeed”. Get it? Ms Lette let everyone know that she was with the New Labour types on election night/morning in London and went to bed around 4 am wondering whether her “good friends Sarah and Gordon [will] be kicked out of their home in the morning”. The reference is to Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah and the prime minister’s official residence at 10 Downing Street. No surnames by request.

Earlier in her piece, Kathy Lette summed up the election campaign as follows:

Three male candidates, three male debate moderators, all angsting about the size of their elections. Is mine big? Is mine the biggest?

Pretty funny eh? When KL heard that there was an early swing to the Conservative Party she “went as limp as a perm in a sauna”. KL told Age readers that when husband Geoffrey heard that some voters had not been able to cast their ballots, he told television viewers “that under the Human Rights Act they can sue officials for denying them their right to vote.” How very Robertsonian. Then Ms Lette wrote about sex (why not?) – and concluded with the following observation about David Cameron and his colleagues:

An old Etonian just can’t drive past a perversion without pulling over. Which will make it a very well-hung parliament indeed.

Yes, we know. We also know that it is likely that, when the grief of Kathy and Geoffrey subsides, it’s Cronulla (or Epping) to a brick that they will be smooching up to the new tenants at Number 10 – David and Samantha. No doubt, in time, they will become “Dave” and “Sam” and that 10 Downing Street will be topped up on occasions with puns and legal profundity from the Lette/Robertson unity ticket. Just you wait.

MIKE (CARLTON) AND JONATHAN (HOLMES) CHANNEL KATHY – SORT OF

For a list of gender balance, it’s appropriate to state that Kathy Lette is not the only commentator to comment regularly on themselves. Last Saturday in the Sydney Morning Herald Mike Carlton told us all about his sexual desires circa 1962. It was one of those columns which commenced: “In my final year at school…”. Go on.

Then on the ABC website The Drum on Thursday, Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes opined that “nostalgia for one’s youth is normal, and normally boring”. He came to the conclusion after telling readers how – in his youth – he was inclined to act in a sexist and drunken way. You know, nude swimming dalliances, five hour lunches – all that sort of stuff. [Why does the ABC run such boring sludge on its website? Ed.]

THE FOG OF PUNDITRY – GUY RUNDLE’S SMUDGED CRYSTAL BALL

While the topic of the British election is still relevant, what a wonderful piece that was by one-time Arena Magazine managing editor Guy Rundle – who is now living in Britain and scribbling for Crikey . Writing in “The Guardian-on-the-Yarra” last Sunday, the Melbourne-born comedy writer concluded his article titled: “The result of UK election? Perfect chaos” by giving vent to the following scenario:

…it involves a switcheroo under discussion last week, and that involves [Gordon] Brown performing one final act of self-sacrifice at the end of three years of sheer hell that he has been through since becoming prime minister. In this scenario, Brown resigns both the prime ministership and leadership of the Labour Party, which then falls automatically to Alan Johnson as an interim Labour leader. As his final act, Brown advises the Queen to call on Johnson to form a government, and Johnson and [Nick] Clegg promptly announce a deal based on a shared progressive platform, and leading to that prized voting referendum and a new election next year.

What a plan. On Sunday (Melbourne time) Guy Rundle was seriously discussing a scenario whereby Alan Johnson became prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – per courtesy of Liberal Democrats support. By Wednesday (Melbourne time) the Conservative David Cameron had been sworn in as prime minister with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as his deputy. Moreover David Miliband, not Alan Johnson, emerged as the favourite to replace Gordon Brown as Labor leader. Nancy says – “Guy – stick to your comedy gigs.”

GREAT (MEDIA) U-TURNS OF OUR TIME (CONTINUED)

Christopher Hitchens Forgets Nick Clegg

Everyone keeps asking me about Nick Clegg, he [Hitchens] told the Eye two years ago, soon after the change of Lib Dem leadership. “Nick Clegg? I honestly don’t remember him”.

–Private Eye, No 1261, 30 April 2010. Page 6

Christopher Hitchens Remembers Nick Clegg

Years ago, when I toiled as a columnist for The Nation, [Nick] Clegg was my intern. What I chiefly remember, apart from his now-famous personal charm, was how “European” he was. His parentage was partly Dutch and partly Russian. He has since married a Spanish woman and has three children with Spanish names. And, of course, his party is the one most closely identified with the British aspiration to full British engagement in the EU. This is the strength and the weakness of his position, and of his party.

Christopher Hitchens “Clegg’s cavalry tears through UK’s dreary duopoly”, The Australian, 6 May 2010

Malcolm Mackerras – There Will Be A Double Dissolution This Year

There will be a general election for the House of Representatives in 2010. It will be the 43^rd such general election. There will also be a Senate general election rather than half-Senate election. It will be the eighth such case. The seven Senate general elections so far have occurred in 1901, 1914, 1951, 1974, 1975, 1983 and 1987. Apart from our first Senate general election in 1901, the above are years of past double dissolution.

– Malcolm Mackerras “Double dissolution is still on”, Canberra Times, 6 January 2010.

Malcolm Mackerras – There Will Not Be A Double Dissolution This Year

There will be an election this year and it will be the 43^rd general election for the House of Representatives. It will be accompanied by the normal periodical election for half the Senate. As to dates I would say it could be as early as August 21 or as late as October 30. However, the exact date will not alter an important fact: the present Senate will stay well in place until June 30 next year.

– Malcolm Mackerras “Wrong poll forecast and lost in leadership woes” Canberra Times, 16 May 2010.

YET ANOTHER TRIOLI MOMENT

Trioli Has Own Trioli Moment

Last week’s inaugural “A Trioli Moment” was so popular that it is truly fitting that this week’s gong has been won by the gorgeous La Trioli herself.

On the ABC 2 News Breakfast program last Wednesday, Ms Trioli had this to say about the 2010 Budget.

This strikes me as the kind of budget that someone like Peter Costello would have loved to hand down year after year after year. Except that he had a prime minister who came in, apparently, at the last minute – according to his [Costello’s] own memoirs – saying: “Mate – we’ve got some more tax cuts we need to give – show us the money we’ll spend it here, here, here and here.”

Then this morning Ms Trioli had this to say about Tony Abbott’s Budget reply:

The rhetorical attack – “this reckless spending must stop” – on the [Rudd] government. Isn’t it a bit of a punch that misses…because this isn’t a high spending budget. In fact, quite the contrary.

What a Trioli Moment. A quick glance at the 2010 Budget reveals that the projected deficit for 2010-2011 is $40.8 billion and that real expenditure is expected to grow by 2 per cent. During his time as treasurer, Peter Costello actually cut expenditure and turned the deficit into surplus, even before the arrival of the profits from the mining boom.

CATHERINE DEVENY INTERRUPTED

MWD had intended to update Catherine Deveny’s departure from The Age. However, Nancy was so emotionally overcome by the Deveny story – as published on The Drum last Tuesday – that the task has been delayed for a week. Mrs Deveny’s descriptions of the tears she has shed and her description of the ABC as “full of communists and lesbians” has had its effect. Right now Nancy is having a bex and a lie-down.

HISTORY CORNER

HISTORICAL DENIAL AND PUBLIC BROADCASTING

This week and next week History Corner will focus on case studies of how difficult it is to get public broadcasters to correct historical errors – and on the poor quality of what passes for historical understanding within the public broadcasters. In the event, in each case corrections were made – but only because the public broadcaster’s managing director intervened in his capacity as editor-in-chief and cut through the organisation’s culture of denial.

SBS WORLD NEWS’ FALSE ALLEGATION ABOUT POPE PIUS XII

First up – SBS. On Sunday 10 May 2009 Rena Sarumpaet declared on SBS World News Australia that Pope Pius XII was “long reviled for alleged anti-semitism”. There is no evidence to support this assertion – certainly SBS could not provide any evidence. It took until 29 May 2009 for the matter to be resolved – with the item being removed from the SBS World News Australia Online site and a clarification placed on the SBS World News Australia website. This followed the intervention of SBS managing director Shaun Brown.

The correspondence published below traces developments. It provides important insights into the hostility to Pope Pius XII within certain sections of the media along with a case study as to how difficult it is to obtain a correction from a public broadcaster.

Email From Gerard Henderson To Paul Cutler – Director News & Current Affairs, SBS TV, 11 May 2009.

Paul

I was watching SBS World News last night when the newsreader referred to Pope Pius XII as being “long reviled for his anti-semitism”.

As you will be aware, this is a very serious allegation to be made by an SBS newsreader – as distinct, for example, by someone commenting on SBS World News.

I know you will be busy this evening but I would be grateful if you could provide the following information when you have time tomorrow – viz:

Is it SBS World News’ view that Pius XII was reviled for anti-semitism? If so, what is the evidence that SBS has which would support such a statement?
Is SBS World News aware of any other views to the contrary? If so, why were these views not canvassed on SBS News last night?

As you will be aware, there is a controversy about whether Pius XII did enough to publicly condemn the Holocaust. This is a matter of controversy on which many considered commentators – including Jewish commentators – have differing views. However, I have never heard it suggested that Pius XII, who is known to have supervised the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews in Italy from the Nazis, was in fact anti-semitic. If SBS World News has any considered evidence to the contrary this should be supplied. Otherwise SBS should correct its unproven and untrue allegation about Pope Pius XII.

Looking forward to hearing from you – especially since, as I understand it, SBS TV has signed up the “Right to Know Coalition”.

Best wishes

Gerard

Gerard Henderson

Executive Director

The Sydney Institute

cc: Shaun Brown, Managing Director, SBS Corporation

* * * * *

Email From Paul Cutler To Gerard Henderson – 12 May 2009

Dear Gerard,

Thank you for your e-mail of yesterday referring to our news story of Sunday May 10 previewing the Pope’s visit to the Middle East, including Israel.

I should point out that although you quote our package as saying Pope Pius Xll was “long reviled for his anti-semitism”, it actually said: “And there was fury at moves to beatify wartime Pope Pius the 12th – long reviled for alleged anti-semitism.”

Pope Pius Xll’s record leading up to and during the Second World War, particularly in regard to his statements and actions regarding the European Jews, has long been a source of controversy. There is no doubt he is reviled by some sections of the Jewish community, both in and outside Israel, and others, for his perceived passivity in the face of the Nazi persecution of, and extermination of, Europe’s Jews. Some commentators have also put forward the thesis that this indicated he was anti-Semitic. Contrary to this, the Pontiff’s supporters point to his personal role in saving many Jews from extermination to rebuff that accusation.

Our report of Sunday night could have been more carefully worded, but there is no doubt that Pope Pius Xll is reviled by many, and has been the subject of allegations of anti-Semitism. That is why our story spoke of “alleged anti-semitism”.

For the record, our story on the same subject last night said “In the past, the Pontiff has courted problems by revoking the excommunication of a Holocaust-denyng Bishop… and backing the beatification of the controversial wartime pope, Pius the Twelfth.” Another on our website today simply said: “… Pius XII is accused by Israel of not doing enough to resist the holocaust.”

I will continue to monitor coverage of this sensitive issue.

Kind Regards

Paul

Paul Cutler
Director News & Current Affairs
SBS Television & Radio

* * * * *

Email From Gerard Henderson To Paul Culter – 12 May 2009

Dear Paul

Thanks for your note – and for your acknowledgement that the SBS World News’ reference to Pius XII on Sunday “could have been more carefully worded”. You can say that again. I note, however, that you have no apparent intention of clarifying the matter on air.

You quote the SBS World News presenter as saying on Sunday that Pius XII was “long reviled for alleged anti-semitism”. Yet, despite nearly 24 hours notice, you have not been able to come up with any evidence to support the allegation that Pius XII was reviled for anti-semitism.

You do not name even one considered source for this most serious allegation. Instead you delve into fudge with such words and phrases as “there is no doubt”, “some sections”, “others”, “some commentators” and, again, “there is no doubt that”. Then you dart off and refer to other SBS comments which are unrelated to my request for evidence about the specific allegation. Your response would not receive a pass mark in a first year university history essay.

My request was – and remains – clear:

What is your evidence that Pius XII was long reviled for anti-semitism – alleged or real? Who made such an allegation? When was it made? Did anyone refute it? How was it refuted? What was the outcome of any such debate?

In your response to me you state that “the Pontiff’s supporters point to his personal role in saving many Jews from extermination”. Well, so they do. But SBS World News did not make this point on Sunday. Convenient, eh? Because no anti-semite would bother saving Jews from extermination, would he or she? In which case the (alleged) allegation would have no standing.

As I understand it, SBS World News receives taxpayers’ funding to report the news. It is not the role of SBS newsreaders to editorialise about contentious issues without any evidence of any kind.

For the record, the fourth and fifth paragraphs of your email are totally unrelated to my initial comment.

As you may, or may not know, some of Pius XII’s key defenders are Jewish – including at least one rabbi.

I still look forward to some specific evidence to support the claim made on SBS World News last Sunday re Pius XII.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

cc: Shaun Brown

* * * * *

Email From Paul Cutler To Gerard Henderson – 13 May 2009

Dear Gerard,

I first thought your inquiry was an informal one, but upon reading your reply to my response, it is clear you are alleging a breach of the SBS Codes of Practice.

I am therefore obliged to refer the matter to our Ombudsman Sally Begbie who will conduct an independent investigation against code 2.2 (Accuracy, Impartiality and Balance). Someone from her office will be in touch.

In the meantime, I will refer all correspondence on this issue to Ms Begbie.

Thanks

Paul Cutler

* * * * *

Email To Paul Cutler From Gerard Henderson 13 May 2009

Dear Paul

I refer to your email which I have just received.

Your response is a complete fudge. Contrary to your assertion, I have never alleged a breach of the SBS Codes of Practice – indeed, I do not know what they are. Moreover, I have no wish that this matter be referred to the SBS Ombudsman – I have better use of my time.

All I have ever requested is the evidence which SBS has to support the assertion on SBS World News on Sunday 9 May 2009 that Pius XII was reviled for alleged anti-semitism.

This is a simple request for information. That’s all. All you have to do is to name the source or sources which support this assertion which was made on SBS World News. This is not an unreasonable request – especially since Shaun Brown, on behalf of SBS, signed up to the “Right to Know” Coalition. At the time Mr Brown declared that publicly funded organisations should be “forthcoming with information that is relevant and important to the public they serve”. As you are aware, SBS is a publicly funded organisation.

Your attempt to pass this matter off into the SBS bureaucracy means that I am denied an instant reply to a request for information. I plan to write about this matter on Friday and would appreciate a response to my request for information by close of business on Thursday 14 May.

Best wishes

Gerard Henderson

cc: Shaun Brown, Managing Director

Bruce Meagher, Director, Strategy & Communications

* * * * *

Email From Alison Angles To Gerard Henderson – 14 May 2009

Dear Mr Henderson

Please find attached a letter in relation to your recent complaint to SBS about the World News Australia program.

Yours sincerely

Alison Angles

Dear Mr Henderson

Re: World News Australia – 10 May 2009

I write in response to your recent emails of 11, 12 and 13 May to the Director of News and Current Affairs, Paul Cutler. As the matter you raise in relation to the World News Australia program of 10 May 2009 concerns the accuracy provisions of Code 2.2 of the SBS Codes of Practice, Mr Cutler has referred your emails to the SBS Ombudsman.

The SBS Ombudsman can proceed to a formal investigation of the World News Australia report referred to in your emails.

If you would like your complaint to be investigates, the SBS Ombudsman will wrote to you within sixty days of the receipt of your complaint with the outcome of this impartial process of review into your concerns. If you do not received a response within the time period, or you consider the response to be inadequate, you are then entitled to take your complaint to the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

While your complaint, if investigated, will be dealt with as quickly as possible, please be aware the SBS Ombudsman, Sally Begbie, is currently on annual leave and therefore an investigation is unlikely to be concluded before the end of June 2009.

Your email of 13 May indicates that you do not want the World News Australia report of 10 May to be investigated by the SBS Ombudsman. Can you please clarify this point and let me know within the next fortnight whether or not you wish to proceed with a formal investigation.

If you do not wish your complaint to be investigated the matter will be treated as an informal complaint and referred back to the News and Current Affairs Division. Any response to informal complaints is at the discretion of the relevant division.

Yours sincerely

Alison Angles

Audience Affairs Researcher

* * * * *

Email From Gerard Henderson To Alison Angles – 14 May 2009

Dear Ms Angles

I refer to your email of 14 May 2009. As I have already advised Shaun Brown, Bruce Meagher and Paul Cutler, I have no wish to have this matter considered by the SBS Ombudsman.

I note, in passing, that the Ombudsman is currently on leave and that even if I had made a complaint the matter would not have been concluded before the end of June 2009. In other words, SBS seems to believe that it is appropriate that a request for information regarding a news broadcast which aired on 10 May 2009 should not even be considered before 30 June 2009.

In the meantime, I look forward to Mr Cutler’s response to my request for information – in accordance, of course, with SBS’s public declaration of the right of individuals to obtain information from publicly funded organisations. My email of 13 May 2009 refers.

Yours sincerely

Gerard Henderson

cc: Shaun Brown

Bruce Meagher

Paul Cutler

* * * * *

Email From Sally Begbie (SBS Ombudsman) To Gerard Henderson 15 May 2009

Dear Mr Henderson

Thank you for your reply to Audience Affairs.

As requested, I will take no action.

I should perhaps clarify what may have been a confusion created by the response from Audience Affairs. If you had requested the Ombudsman to investigate, the final response may not have reached you until the end of June. But it is not the case that a request for information regarding a news broadcast which aired on 10 May 2009 would not even be considered before 30 June 2009. Quite the contrary.

Regards

Sally Begbie

SBS Ombudsman

* * * * *

Email To Sally Begbie From Gerard Henderson – 15 May 2009

Dear Ms Begbie

I refer to your email of 1.42 am on Friday 15 May. I should point out that the final paragraph of your letter is quite confused. You write that:

However in her letter to me dated 14 May 2009 Alison Angles, of SBS Audience Affairs, wrote to me in the following terms:

Ms Angles’s letter clearly indicates that if I did lodge a complaint with the SBS Ombudsman the matter would not be concluded before the end of June 2009. Such a complaint would have resulted from a request for information concerning an SBS program which went to air on 10 May 2009.

SBS should be able to do better than this.

Yours sincerely

Gerard Henderson

* * * * *

Email From Gerard Henderson To Shaun Brown, Managing Director, SBS – 20 May 2009

Mr Shaun Brown

Managing Director

SBS Corporation

14 Herbert Street

ARTARMON NSW 2064

Dear Shaun

Commiserations about the outcome of the 2009 Budget for SBS. Let’s hope the decision is reversed or at least revised.

As you will be aware, I have kept you informed about my recent correspondence with Paul Cutler, Alison Angles and Sally Begbie.

I am now writing to you in your capacity as editor-in-chief of SBS in the hope that you will take some managerial decisions to resolve this matter. I do so in the knowledge that, on behalf of SBS, you signed up to the Right to Know Coalition.

Put simply, I believe that I have a right to know what evidence SBS World News has to support the comment made by Rena Sarumpaet on Sunday 10 May 2009 – namely, that Pius XII has been long reviled for alleged anti-semitism.

As the record demonstrates, Paul Cutler placed this matter with the SBS Ombudsman – who happens to be on annual leave. In any event, I did not want my letter to go to the SBS Ombudsman – and made this clear to Alison Angles and others.

Ms Angles concluded her letter to me, dated 14 may 2009, in the following terms:

If you do not wish your complaint to be investigated [by the SBS Ombudsman] the matter will be treated as an informal complaint and referred back to News and Current Affairs Division. Any response to informal complaints is at the discretion of the relevant division.

This is fine by me. I look forward to Mr Cutler’s actioning his discretion in this matter and answering the questions which I raised with him on 13 May 2003 – viz:

It seems to me that I have a perfect right to know such information. Consequently, I hope that you will support my request for this information.

In case you have not seen it, I have attached a link to the article by Simon Caldwell titled “Good Time to Reprieve Pius XII” which is published in the current addition of The Spectator. As Mr Caldwell makes clear, any allegation that Pius XII was reviled for anti-semitism is – at the very least – highly contentious. This is the reason why Mr Cutler and the team at SBS World News should provide the material which formed the basis of the highly contentious comment which was made about Pius XII on Sunday 10 May.

Here’s hoping for a positive response – in the interests of the “right-to-know”.

Best wishes

Yours sincerely

Gerard Henderson

Email From Shaun Brown To Gerard Henderson – 26 May 2009

Dear Gerard

Thanks for your letter. Yes, I am aware of all the correspondence on this matter. Indeed you can blame me for suggesting the matter might be investigated by the Ombudsman if you were willing to confirm your complaint was a formal one.

I did so because it seemed to me that you believed the line in question was unjustified and was a form of editorialising. If that is correct it would be a breach of our Codes of Practice and would require SBS to consider what consequential action it should take. Should any complainant not accept the findings or actions by SBS, then the matter can be appealed to ACMA.

While I recognise that this might have involved a level of formality and delay that was unacceptable to you (the absence overseas of the Ombudsman would slow things down, I agree) I make no apologies for at least offering this option. When I arrived at SBS in 2003 I found there was no formal complaints process and no means for complainants to have their concerns investigated by a party independent of the editorial decision-making processes of SBS. The current complaints process, led by the SBS Ombudsman, has rectified that.

Anyhow I accept that you don’t wish to go down that path and that your principal concern is to discover the sources used by the journalist in assembling the line in question.

I am advised by the newsroom that the initial source was Agence France Presse which in wire copy said: “Pope Pius XII – reviled for what Israel perceives as his passive stance during the Holocaust.” The journalist then searched the internet for supplementary material and used the following sources:

Daniel Goldhagen, New Republic, Jan 2001 also (1996) Hitler’s Willing Executioners.

John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: the Secret History of Pius XII

The newsroom has looked into the source for the AFP quote and believes it is derived from the caption below a picture of Pope Pius XII in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.

I have asked news management for its opinion on the validity or appropriateness of the line used by SBS and the sources used to justify it. Paul Cutler has already conceded to you that the wording was not satisfactory. He believes the more appropriate option would have been to use the AFP line in its original form or, alternatively, to balance any reference to alleged anti-Semitism with the additional statement “although his supporters say he helped save Jews from the Nazis”.

The journalists responsible for the preparation and checking of the report have been advised of this.

Gerard, you still have the option to make a formal complaint, and although the Ombudsman is currently overseas the investigation can be significantly progressed in her absence.

Yours sincerely

SHAUN BROWN

Managing Director

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Email To Shaun Brown From Gerard Henderson – 27 May 2009

Mr Shaun Brown

Managing Director

SBS Corporation

14 Herbert Street

ARTARMON NSW 2064

Dear ShaunThanks for your letter of 26 May 2009. I do appreciate the interest which you have shown in this matter. And I do acknowledge that Paul Cutler has conceded that the wording concerning Pope Pius XII in the SBS World News on Sunday 10 May 2009 was unsatisfactory. However, I also believe that SBS World News is an important conveyor of information, that it should be accurate and that when its coverage is not satisfactory then this should be corrected on-air as soon as possible. Whatever merits the SBS’s Ombudsman procedures may have, they do not provide for instant corrections or clarifications on-air. The fact is that the wording about Pius XII’s alleged anti-semitism – which you and Paul Cutler concede is not satisfactory – remains uncorrected on some websites which transcribe SBS World News.

And now to the issue of content. I understand that you probably did not draft the second half of your letter of 26 May. All I can say that whoever did draft it would not be deserving of a pass in a first year university essay. It is a dreadful piece of scholarship – so bad as to be intellectually dishonest.

In my correspondence over the past two weeks, I have sought to find out the source for the statement, made by Rena Sarumpaet on SBS World News on 10 May, that Pope Pius XII was “long reviled for alleged anti-semitism.” No reference was made by SBS World News on 10 May 2009 to Pius XII’s response to the Holocaust. None whatsoever. Yet your letter of 26 May refers only to the Holocaust.

In your letter of 26 May, you described the source for SBS World News’ claim about Pius XII is as follows:

journalist then searched the internet for supplementary material and used the following sources: Daniel Goldhagen, New Republic, Jan 2001 also (1996) Hitler’s Willing Executioners. John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: the Secret History of Pius XII.

The newsroom has looked into the source for the AFP quote and believes it is derived from the caption below a picture of Pope Pius XII in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.

The fact is that the AFP copy, on which the SBS World News story was based, does not even mention the term “anti-semitism”. Rather, it refers to the late Pope’s responses to the Holocaust. This latter issue is a matter for genuine historical argument. Some scholars believe that Pius XII did what he could to minimise the effects of the Holocaust; others maintain that he should have spoken out against Hitler and the Nazi regime. But failure to publicly condemn the Holocaust does not necessarily equate with anti-semitism. For example, the Red Cross is also criticised for having failed to condemn the Holocaust – but the Red Cross has not been condemned for anti-semitism. Likewise some commentators believe that the likes of Winston Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt should have done more to thwart Nazi Germany’s murder of Jews – but neither have been accused of anti-semitism by serious scholars because of this.

In short, there is nothing in your letter which provides any evidence of any kind that Pius XII was anti-semitic. Nothing whatsoever.

In relation to the claim that Pius XII did not do enough to condemn the Holocaust (which was not made on SBS World News and has been introduced into the correspondence by you), the following comments should be made:

Daniel Goldhagen is a well known critic of Pius XII. For the record, contrary to the claim in your letter of 26 May, his book Hilter’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996) does not even mention Pius XII.
You cite an article on Pius XII by Daniel Goldhagan in “New Republic, Jan 2001”. I assume the article the SBS letter drafter has in mind is an article by Goldhagen which was published in the New Republic on 21 January 2002. This article has been severely crticised by historians and has been withdrawn from the New Republic’s website. I very much doubt whether the person who drafted your letter has even read the article – just as he/she clearly has never read Hitler’s Willing Executioners.
John Cornwell is a well known critic of the Holocaust. This is documented in his controversial book Hitler’s Pope (1999) which influenced Daniel Goldhagen’s 2002 article in New Republic. But SBS

seems unaware that John Cornwell has since changed his position. In his book The Pope In Winter (2004), John Cornwell wrote:

I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler’s Pope, that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans. He left no private diaries or correspondence with clues as to what was going on in his heart.

There are other sources which defend Pius XII’s response to the Holocaust – including Ronald J Rychlak Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis (2005) and Rabbi David G. Dalin The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius Rescued Jews From The Nazis (2005). SBS World News is either ignorant of, or ignored, this material. This is quite unprofessional.
Your letter of 26 May 2009 contains no evidence to support the implied claim that there is a reference to Pius XII’s alleged anti-semitism in the Vad Vashem Holocaust Museum. I understand that the actual reference is to Pius XII and the Holocaust.

In conclusion I repeat that I have no intention of lodging a formal complaint on this issue – which, in any event, would not be concluded before 1 July 2009. In my view, in your capacity as SBS editor-in-chief, you should insist on SBS World News making an on-air correction/clarification. Especially since you and Paul Cutler have acknowledged that SBS World News’ coverage on 10 May 2009 was not satisfactory.

I also believe that you should bring about a situation whereby SBS newsroom staff, who draft your letters, are better trained in historical research and counseled against intellectual dishonesty. Journalists should be taught that quick glance at the internet is not a substitute for actually reading books or articles which they subsequently cite.

Over to you.

Best wishes

Yours sincerely

Gerard Henderson

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Email To Gerard Henderson From Shaun Brown – 29 May 2009

Dear Gerard

Thanks for your last letter.

I have enquired about the continued use of the line in WNA Online and the newsroom advise me that it has been removed from the site.

I note also there is now a clarification on the World News Australia website.

Kind regards

Shaun

Shaun Brown

Mangaging Director

SBS Corporation

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Until next time then.