Major US news organisations took a stand when their rivals came under political attack. Similar action from Australian media is long overdue, experts say. 

In September, US President Donald Trump raised the stakes of his contentious relationship with the media by abruptly banning CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House over what he alleged was “fiction” and “lies” in their reporting. 

The outlets had all recently reported on sensitive issues, but Trump said the ban was a result of “cumulative stories over the last few years”, and threatened bans on other outlets could follow. 

In response, ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC suspended their White House press pool coverage, effectively muting the president during official White House engagements until he launched his own ‘Trump TV’. 

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” the organisations said in a joint statement. 

“No administration should restrict a news organisation because it objects to its reporting.” 

A similar show of solidarity should have taken place in Australia months earlier when ABC journalists were ejected from a One Nation event on the eve of an important by-election, University of Melbourne Centre for Advancing Journalism senior research fellow Denis Muller tells PIJI.  

He says the lack of action from other media presented “a low point” in Australian journalism history. 

It also may have emboldened One Nation and its leader Pauline Hanson to later bar the ABC, Guardian, The Age and The Australian from party events and erect an “orange brick wall” blocking regional newspapers from local One Nation candidates. 

As the leader of a minority party, Hanson does not hold the same level of power and influence as the US president.  

But it’s the principle, not the scale, that matters, Muller says. 

“It’s still the matter of principle that politicians do not get to pick and choose who will cover them and how they’ll be covered,” he says. 

“It very much goes to the credit of all of [the boycotting US outlets] that they … put the principle ahead of profit … and said ‘One out, all out.’” 

The participation of Fox News in the press pool boycott may have taken some by surprise due to the organisation’s traditionally favourable coverage of Trump.  

But Muller suspects the organisation would be aware it could be similarly targeted by a future administration; indeed, the Obama administration briefly excluded Fox News from press pool coverage in 2009 before relenting under protests from fellow news organisations. 

If certain journalists are barred from attending a political event, all others should walk out – but that decision should come from organisations’ leadership rather than individual journalists, University of Technology Sydney Centre for Media Transition co-director Monica Attard says. 

“I think that media organisations … ought to band together and come to an agreement on how they will cover Pauline Hanson in the future if she continues to bar certain media organisations from her events,” she says. 

“In the lead-up to a federal election, I can think of no better time to sort the issue out once and for all. 

“Australians deserve to be exposed to critical analysis and engagement with the parties and the politicians they’re expected to vote on.” 

Dimming the spotlight 

Throughout the White House press boycott, major US news organisations continued to report on Trump and White House events, but from a distance and without clear footage and audio. 

The president – who, despite his discontent with the tone and content of media coverage, is notably fond of media attention and opportunities to air his views at length – quickly launched 24/7 digital channel Trump TV to fill the void.  

But if news media freely reports elsewhere, giving politicians opportunities for greater control over their narratives via social media and other digital channels will not unduly benefit them long-term, Attard says. 

If politicians tried to replace the critical eye of journalists with their own content, she says they would appeal to pre-existing supporters but would ultimately lose the attention of the additional voters needed to gain political traction. 

“Politicians thrive – and live, to some extent – by publicity,” Muller says. 

“They can do without it for a while. But after a while, it begins to have an effect because they disappear from public view.  

“And once you disappear from public view as a politician, it doesn’t take very long for people to forget you and to move on to the next person who is in public view.” 

‘Journalists are not stenographers’ 

Terms such as ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ were popularised by Trump and his team early in his first presidential term and are still widely used almost a decade later to attack journalists who question party lines or whose reporting reveals unflattering facts. 

“[These terms] play into the predisposition of the public to disbelieve the media,” Muller says. 

“When I told my father I was going to become a journalist, he said, ‘What? They’re all drunks and liars.’ That was in the 1960s.  

“The public has always been softened up to believe the worst of the media and to believe they tell lies.” 

Hanson and other One Nation members often echo Trump’s view on mainstream media, responding to scrutiny with accusations of lies, fake news and comments being taken out of context. 

When questioned about restricting select journalists from One Nation events, national party director James Ashby described One Nation’s relationship with the ABC as “like going back to some domestic violence relationship and just getting beaten every time they come through the door … Depending on how you treat us, we’ll treat you.” 

Attard says Hanson and One Nation have misconstrued the role of media, which is to scrutinise people in power; whether those people like the results is “irrelevant”. 

“Journalists are not stenographers. They’re not there to just write down what politicians tell them, and favourably and uncritically report it,” she says. 

“They’re there to analyse it, and to test it, and to make sure that what emerges from those processes is the closest approximation to the truth.  

“So long as media keeps doing that, then it continues to produce public interest journalism. The minute it doesn’t, then it’s producing propaganda.” 

– Sezen Bakan