Wendy Bacon Journalist, activist
MenuROSEANNE Beckett, who served 10 years in jail before the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal quashed five convictions for offences against her husband, must now prove she is innocent as part of her case for malicious prosecution, a NSW judge ruled today.
It's 22 years since the then NSW Detective Peter Thomas led a group of police who raided Roseanne Catt's house in Taree. He then charged her with a number of charges including assault and attempted poison of her then husband Barry Catt. After a four months trial, in 1991, she was convicted of eight offences. Roseanne ( who now used the name Beckett) spent the next ten years in prison but was released after the media and new witnesses raised fresh evidence and questions about whether there had been a miscarriage of justice. A NSW Supreme Court Inquiry later found that the key prosecution witnesses, including Thomas, had conspired against her. The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal later acquitted her of the attempted poisoning charge and dismissed a number of other charges. Two convictions remain. Today, Roseanne Beckett's malicious prosecution case begins in the NSW Supreme Court. I've followed this case for 11 years for Sydney Morning Herald. Here is my last report. will be following the case with twitters, posts and stories.
I'll be speaking at a sminar in support of Bradley Manning organised by the Sydney Solidarity for Bradley Manning on Tuesday evening, August 2. Leading up to the night, Professor Stuart Rees of the Sydney Peace Foundation published a piece on Online Opinion.
This week, Jenna Price and I published a small Australian Centre for Independent Journalism study on the coverage of the phone hacking scandal in Australia on The Conversation a new publishing venture from the Australian university and research sector.
This weekend, I was on ABC24's program One on One being interviewed by Jane Hutcheon about why I think an Australian media inquiry is necessary.
News Ltd boss John Hartigan has assured the punters that all's well at Holt St. So why won't he answer Wendy Bacon's questions about how journalism gets done at his papers?
As the phone hacking scandal blew up in Australia where News Corporation controls 70% of the metropolitan audience in the most concentrated media in the developed world, News Ltd CEO John Hartigan assured the public that nothing so heinous as phone hacking would ever happen in Australia. There was no evidence to doubt his word, but it seemed to me that each media context was different. News corporation is a integrated global company. Some stories got by phone hacking by News International were certainly published here. There were also other questions to which it would be useful for Australia readers to have answers.
There is a long tradition of media owners in Australia invoking press freedom to trump calls for frameworks to ensure accountability and ethical behaviour, especially at News Ltd.
There is debate about whether we should have an Australian inquiry into the media and in particular News Ltd which controls 70% of our print media and chunks of our sport and TV industries. I would have thought with arrests of News executives for criminal and corrupt activities and investigations into whether the company is 'fit and proper' to hold licenses, an inquiry would be on the agenda. Some journalists disagree, fearing that an inquiry could lead to state control. Those of us pushing for an inquiry need to be clear on the issues it should explore and what we hope to get out of it.
Why does Australia have such a concentrated media and such a weak system of self-regulation for media owners? To help make sense of all this, I made a brief timeline of media regulation in Australia. You can find it here in New Matilda. Back in the early seventies, Murdoch even opposed the foundation of an Australian Press Council ( APC) funded and controlled by the media organisations. He later joined by then withdrew after a finding of bias against one of his newspapers. News Corporation later rejoinedfter the APC did not pubicly oppose his takeover of the Herald and Weekly Times. This was a crucial step which made him the dominant media boss in Australia. He was assisted by some political mates who were disgruntled with media company Fairfax's investigative journalism.