Dear Bono....

Whether it remains reassuring or not, press councils allow the omission of serious news stories to occur due to ignorance rather than any form of self-important mean-spiritedness. I have little doubt that no matter how much money the Murdochs and the Hearsts are making, the media moguls are not rubbing their hands together and taking pleasure in the tragedy that is mass famine. This would simply be not true. But what is true is that not dealing with extreme poverty seriously, and in turn, failing to report on its repercussions in proportion to its severity, does give audiences the impression that the issue is not as serious as it actually is. Nor is it rocket science for a discourse community within the journalism sphere to decipher this, where putting two and two together is more than a desirable capacity, it is their profession.

The second reason famine deaths are not reported daily is simply because the story isn’t new. More than 25,000 different men, women and children dying every day from hunger and chronic malnutrition might be a ruthless violation of basic human rights but it is a violation that took place yesterday, one that is taking place today and one that will take place tomorrow. It would go against tradition telling the same story over and over again. How would it be written? Who would read it? How could it even be illustrated? It does not matter that these bodies of people belong to different people, all that matters is that the statistic remains the same. And the same, inconveniently, equals boring. The same equals the opposite of newsworthy.

But one would think there would be some sort of legal obligation in reporting poverty deaths. Why is it that we have mandatory rules about printing state lottery results and weather forecasts but not casualties of famine? Despite the weather and lottery results always being different, there is never going to be much range. Lottery results will always be a bunch of numbers and tomorrow’s temperatures, wherever you live, will not be much different from day to day. In this modern age we have thousands of legal disclaimers and ethical mandates being forced upon society to adhere to all the time. More than 220 years ago the English invaded Australia and settled without consultation with the Aboriginal people. While Australian history books have always in the past referred to this occupation as a settlement, we are now obliged to re-write the school textbooks altering this detail as a European invasion. Today the white man recognises this injustice in a more practical sense, via a moral obligation prior to public announcements, acknowledging the tribe who previously occupied the respective land.

There are other legal obligations scattered throughout our society. There are commitments involved in the upkeep of Occupational Health and Safety standards. This necessary evil was implemented many years ago, but has only successfully played the role of pain-in-the-arse over the past 15 years. The ten million rules, regulations and forms needing to be filled in relation to OH&S might seem bureaucratic and silly but workers generally understand that they are there to save lives and limbs. Even within the journalism industry, a recent influx of dos and don’t in relation to the reporting of suicide have emerged. There is now specific language that cannot be used and factual information that should not be disclosed, by chance that it could potentially be harmful or influential to readers. Even some advertising editorials in newspapers require a transparent heading titled "advertisement", in case readers mistake the dribble for an actual news story about an outstanding vacuum cleaner that has won many awards for its sucking.

So my question is that with both the legal and moral obligations that exist in both today’s media and social discourses ─ why isn’t there some form of global media obligation on the reporting of extreme poverty deaths? Those who wonder where this would end in relation to an obligation to report breast cancer deaths or AIDS deaths or acts of sexual assault etc – my response simply refers to the nature of famine. Although as a society we are advocating that cancer is an unacceptable part of our world and violence against women is an unacceptable part of our world we have no real hook or knowledge of how to end it forever. We can promote awareness of AIDS and early detection of cancer but third world poverty is a crisis that continues because of the developed world’s failure to respond. Extreme poverty is a result of many things but its continuance is a result of neglect. Technically the cure to extreme poverty lies in food; clean water; medical aid; and self sustainability. Extreme poverty needs attention, it needs daily recognition and ultimately it needs to end.

After corresponding with various press councils around the globe I have come to the understanding that much of the fear surrounding these sorts of ideas of ‘obligation reporting’ lie in jeopardising the democratic rights of a ‘free press’. Many advise of their reluctance to dictate any instructions to publications, in concern that they themselves might be breaching the very code enabling a free press that is, in fact, one of the press councils’ jobs to preserve. Executive secretary of the Australian Press Council Jack Herman stated:

"The Council has ruled frequently on the question of the non-publication of material thought newsworthy by a reader. The Council is loath to interfere in the editorial judgement of a newspaper as to what is newsworthy to its readership. But it does consider such cases and can rule that the paper was wrong not to publish material. The newspapers do not report every day that the birth rate outdistances the death rate or that there are breakthroughs in medical and other technology that avert a greater number of deaths. The Council would not issue any ukase directing newspapers to report in the way you suggest. That just is not its role."

There are a few Australian cases concerning news omission I will refer to later in this book. However, if we come back to Herman’s statement that he is loath (a fantastic word by the way, up there with ukase and ‘girt’) to interfere with a publication’s opinion on what is newsworthy and what isn’t – I would argue that this indeed can contradict section 65(a) of the MEAA and Australian Journalists’ Association code of ethics which goes on to say that journalists should not distort facts by wrong or improper emphasis. Improper emphasis can be seen absolutely anywhere in the form of news agenda. You could flip through any edition of Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald and not find a story where tens of thousands of people have died from something preventable. In other words, improper emphasis has been placed on every single story that has been given the privilege of merely being printed.

Herman’s point in relation to the birth rate outdistancing the death rate is a fine example of the complications that exist surrounding the subject of famine. We might wonder whether these poverty-stricken mothers are bringing suffering onto themselves, continuing to bear children they are unable to support. Few stories from Australian newspapers have taught us anything on the United Nations Population Fund which has seen an increase in the use of contraception by couples in the third world rise from 15 per cent to 60 per cent over the past 30 years. Nor do they frequently tell us that the program lacks major funding for contraception methods and education in these developing nations. And worse still, the media has also failed its duties in making it common knowledge for us to be aware that regions with high birth rates usually take place in regions with high infant death rates. In the past, the key aspiration in life was to have one surviving son (surviving being the key word) but in the western world, this easy task has now been overtaken by the great Anglo-Saxon dream of owning one’s own home on a suburban quarter acre block with 2.4 children named Paris, Corey and Mercedes. The differences are not necessarily bad ones, but no doubt material.

Nonetheless, Herman raises a good point. These issues do complicate the feasibility of ending poverty. If this birth rate is so high, it would be like plugging your finger in a hole in a bucket of water with a dozen or so holes? However, the truth of the matter is that improved health conditions would lead to a higher probability of a child’s survival which would then lead to an alleviated population boom. Herman’s admission of other news stories that exist in relation to medical breakthroughs that avert deaths, not being reported, also complicate the matter. Is there really too much news going on in the world that all of it cannot be reported? Whatever his reasons, the action of including news on preventable deaths is necessary because it is proactive. Information produces knowledge which in turn produces concern which then justifies change. Reporting on medical breakthroughs that avert deaths is informative and a fortunate spurt of good news but, alas, not entirely productive. However, these stories should be reported too. Merely saying we don’t report every medical breakthrough doesn’t make it right either.

Within the media industry there is usually much caution surrounding the delivery of a complicated story. Medical or scientific stories are probably the best examples as they use a language that is familiar to nobody outside the science sphere. So it becomes a risky task for the raconteur to be able to report a news story where perhaps a medical breakthrough has occurred without oversimplifying it. For instance, is this new vaccine a cure for cancer (hence benefiting sufferers) or is it a prevention mechanism for those without the disease? Or, have we discovered the reason why certain cancer cells spread more rapidly than others or has one study merely concluded there could be a breakthrough in finding out?

Therefore, what comes from this half comprehension is a situation where a journalist will then want to offer his or her reader too much information. An authorised press release usually has the cryptic wording that makes sense to your average scientist, but might sound complicated to the average reader. A lazy journalist would much prefer to tweak a complicated press release than give their own summary and risk later being made to print a series of retractions for their misunderstanding ─ hey, I’ve been there. Not only would it be time-consuming but it is embarrassing to say the least. What results from this is saturation or an overload of information where the reader picks up the basic gist of the story – without feeling the confidence to be able to explain it faithfully to another person at a dinner party.

In relation to extreme poverty as a news story, press councils allow news omission to occur due to the basic principle that they, just like their readers, have absorbed over the years an overload of strewn information that has constructed a web of complicated facts. Such an impression has been made that: (a) humanitarian aid is going into the pockets of corrupt governments (b) countries undergoing civil war make it impossible for the UN to deliver aid into specific countries and (c) monetary aid will never end, becoming more of a necessity for the third world as they continue to depend on it. These falsehoods are the reasons we switch off on the subject of extreme poverty. These untruths give the ordinary person the feeling that the issue is obviously more complicated than it actually is and allows us to conveniently leave it into the hands of the humanitarians and politicians to tend to.

While corruption is affluent in developing nations such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, all humanitarian aid does not feed into the hands of corrupt governments. Poor countries are unable to dig themselves out of poverty because of debt repayments and miniscule amounts of foreign aid. Poorly governed countries, however, are a major factor in the maintenance of low-level incomes. War zones do not complicate the injection of humanitarian aid but in fact make aid even more crucial to a region. The low numbers of peacekeepers in Sudan over the past ten years led to genocide on the grandest scale in the new millennium. This issue however, did in fact receive an average amount of news attention from the world, mainly due to the complications of war pulling rank over the humdrum ordinariness of famine.

And the third-world becoming dependent on aid is a myth the Make Poverty History campaign is trying to stamp out but cannot do without the help of the media. The message needs to be made clear that commitment from governments to boost quantities of humanitarian aid is for impoverished countries to be able to reach a stage of self-sustainability. The commitment from our government should not be an ongoing and eternal handout. However, an eternal handout is what the mainstream believes is sub-Saharan Africa and Asia’s expensive solution.

The most common answer from press councils as to why they allow news omission to occur has become a bit of a cliché these days. Despite the press councils’ apparent commitment to preserving ethical and responsible journalism, many justify their apathy towards acting on news omission, by saying that it is not the role of the press council to interfere in the finished product of a publication. They say it is up to the readers to make the appropriate complaint to the council and identify the specific breach of the code it is meant to be abiding by. The usual stock standard response can be seen from the executive director of the British Columbia Press Council, Rollie Rose. Rose states:

"Press Councils have a written Code of Practice to which member newspapers agree to abide when they join the Council; it is against this Code that all complaints are measured. Complaints must be specific to the Code and cannot be of a general nature. While I understand, appreciate and even agree with your concerns, I have to tell you Press Councils cannot compel a member to publish or not publish a story; these decisions are the sole responsibility of the individual newspaper."

Therefore, what Rose is saying is that despite extreme poverty continuing throughout the world because of insufficient news coverage, it is more important to protect the rights of the free press and not interfere because of a pissweak code. Fortunately though, not all representatives of the Canadian press councils hide behind the bullshit buried in ethics codes. Executive secretary for the Ontario Press Council in Canada, Mel Sufrin, believes more can be done by the press councils; however, globalisation and the change in the way we gather news are contributing factors to the continued detriments of news omission. Surfrin states:

"I think it's fair to say that, as bad as Canadian newspapers are on this subject, newspapers in the United States are even worse. The Associated Press and Reuters News Agency provide comprehensive coverage of world news but, for some reason, many papers find space for only a small part of the information. It used to be that major newspapers sent correspondents out to many foreign countries but, with circulation falling and revenue dropping, many have cut back."

Not only does this say a lot about why news omission occurs, but it also tells us how overseas news reporting has changed in recent years with the introduction of the internet. Gone are the days where foreign correspondents representing various news companies were sent out to cover the issues of the day, reporting back to the publication or network with the exclusive story; networks and newspapers are saving money by globalised media companies such as Reuters that act as a sort of sub-contractor of news. Exclusivity is not so much a necessity for world news anymore. As long as the information is accurate, the source credible and the footage interesting – it will be given privileged publication or broadcasting space. It is a bit like real estate agents still being obliged to be in the business of rentals when the big bucks really comes from selling property; or Australian clubs and pubs being obliged to sell alcohol when all their money is made through poker machine turnover.

Sufrin suggests however that it is not necessarily that newsmen and women are not being posted out to these dispersed areas but that newspapers only allocate their story-purchase a small quantity of print space. It is also indicated that the internet has led to a substantial decrease in the print media’s circulation figures – leading to the need to reevaluate what is newsworthy these days and what is not. Nevertheless, while technology, news gathering and news resources change – one would think newsworthiness would remain relatively the same. One would even think that 25,000 preventable deaths each day would equal a worthy enough story to put on a front page, let alone manage its way into the dregs of the centre pages of the world news section.

And while some Canadians agree they can lift their game in relation to omitting important news stories, let’s see what some of these "worse" American counterparts have to say.

Executive director of the Minnesota News Council, Gary Gilson, almost distances the council from the media, making the point that we are lucky to be able to make the press answer to anybody at all.

"I can speak only from the experience of the news councils in the United States. I agree with you that much vital news that is left out should be reported. Pressure from the public in general and from advocacy groups in particular may spur editors to do a better job.

"News councils have limited themselves to addressing news that HAS been published. We have not addressed complaints about news that goes unreported, and there is a reason for this: To persuade news outlets to participate in our process of public accountability for alleged journalistic lapses. It is a victory to get news organizations to come out of their offices at all, especially to defend themselves against complaints about what they have done.

"It is our judgment that they would not participate if we invited them to defend themselves against complaints about what they do not publish. Their standard argument, in those cases, is that no outsiders have the right to dictate to them what they should be reporting.

"Of course pressure from the public (as separate from the quasi-judicial aspects of a news council process) is not dictation, and we as a news council constantly urge members of the public to assert demands for higher standards. Even our determinations, widely published, cannot be seen as dictation, since we have no authority (and want none) to punish or to order any news outlets to publish or not publish anything.

"The only authority we can hope to exert is whatever moral authority springs from a public discussion of journalistic standards and ethical behavior. And it often works.

"There used to be a number of independent journalism reviews in the United States; today there are only a few. The kinds of critical assessments they offer the public and the news media sometimes seem to compel media attention and sometimes change behavior for the better."

However, press councils are made up of members of the media, not policemen, so one would think there would be a mentality where one irresponsible journo is capable of tarnishing the fine reputation of the whole industry. That’s what one might think anyway. Yet Gilson emphasises that the Minnesota News Council has zero authority (and wants zero authority) to punish a publication for anything it might inappropriately print. That sure is some press council! I’m surprised it functions at all at the numerous risks of hurting someone’s feelings by asking them to explain an editorial cockup.

But Gilson brings up an interesting point about the independent journalism reviews. It isn’t only the United States where independent journalism reviews have died off. Many these days encompass new media and critique new mediums of reporting such as online journalism. But few are read and even fewer are read by people outside the media industry. Audiences tend to be robots when it comes to what is being reported. We question very little on how something is being reported because we spend most of our energy questioning what is being reported. And if we did not trust the media, then our opinions devised from what we have read would be little more than hunches.

Our blatant trust in the media reflects our disregard for extreme poverty. It is not a lack of interest we hold as an audience, but a possession of helplessness. The media is supposed to know the answers to everything. It might not be the case but we subconsciously believe this. They are our information providers. They tell us things we don’t already know. If all the news mediums in the world were just one person, we would consider him or her to be our most intelligent friend. They would be our lifeline if ever we were to appear on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? So when this wise person speaks very little of poverty in the developing world, of AIDS in Africa, of the urgent need for anti-malaria bed nets and of the very little humanitarian aid the richest nations actually provide – we believe these issues are (a) not as important as what is in our newspapers and (b) a hopeless situation that cannot be fixed.

In the American state of Hawaii, public radio stations run weekly educational shows on the power of the media. At times they touch on issues relating to news omission, with the program allowing questions from listeners to be asked on the goings on of the media, the interests of the moguls owning the networks and the mysterious people in charge of agenda-setting. Former chair of the Honolulu Community Media Council, Moira Gray, says corporate media today has become solely a business – not necessarily about the news – but more so about raking in advertising revenues.

"I can tell you that this council has in the past asked why the dailies do not cover certain stories and this is a common query across America. It seems to me that there are ‘a million stories’ waiting to be told - some are wonderfully joyful others are terrible tragedies. When there is limited space in a newspaper, there is severe competition for headline & story space. An editor must decide which story is important. The editor chooses a story based upon his/her perceptions of what the audience wants or his/her bias. In America, the press is a business and no one is going to tell a business how to sell its news; but more importantly, the press has the freedom to print what it deems important....and that is the question. What is important to the reader?

"Everyone around the world works very hard to maintain their families. In the western world, we've all tried to keep poverty away from our lives....public education being one of the most significant ways of doing that. Because we all work hard to keep poverty away from our doors, the story of another’s poverty is simply not an appealing story. So, we in the poverty community do try to find ways of telling the stories of our clients.

"When I speak about homelessness I ask a lawyer to imagine what it’s like to raise a child without a home - I ask these lawyers to imagine what they would do if their child was ill and they had no home or a bed to care for their child. It’s a question of helping someone to identify with the issues that the poor face. The more people who are concerned about the impact of poverty, the more the media will cover those issues. It is happening here in Hawaii. On a daily basis we see headlines about our homeless and the children of those homeless families. Since the papers began to cover this issue on a regular basis, the coverage has been enough to move the governor to do something about the poverty facing these homeless families."

I’m not sure whether asking lawyers these sorts of questions has had the desired impact Ms Gray would have been hoping for. I think if a lawyer had no home and no bed the first thing he’d do would be, sell the kid. But what Gray is saying is that the way to make people care is to make the issue affect people personally. Obviously homelessness in Hawaii was such a big issue that it triggered the call for advocacy journalism amongst the media there. This campaign then triggered public support which in turn led to policy reform. This is the same objective we need by notifying the world on extreme poverty and expanding the campaign to the developed world.

Funnily enough, when the Australian Press Council is ever asked the question why they continually allow the exclusion of serious news, the APC continue to issues an 18-year-old press release to help answer the question. Is it really that seldom the public ask questions on news omissions that they feel comfortable issuing an 18-year-old press release?

And what was going on in 1991 where they were being bombarded with queries on why certain stories had not made it into the papers or on the television? And the answer to that is obviously the repercussions of the Gulf War. The war notorious for its lack of war-like images and military commitment towards censorship. Unlike Vietnam, people were probably disappointed they weren’t seeing enough dead bodies on their television screens. The high level of censorship involved during Desert Storm by George Bush Senior’s Republican government was a charade not too distant from what the media is doing and has always done with the poverty issue today. Not unlike the US government, the media pretends extreme poverty doesn’t even exist.

The following is how the APC defended the Australian media’s journalistic right not to print certain news stories, including extreme poverty:

General Press Release No. 143 (December 1991)

The Australian Press Council has had before it, from time to time, complaints from various groups and organisations, including political parties, that their press releases were not receiving adequate mention in the columns of a newspaper.

That publicity should be given was urged for a number of reasons, including:

• the inherent importance of the issues;

• the support, including in the case of political groups electoral support, accorded to the authors of those statements;

• the limited media, particularly daily press access available in the given community

• the Council’s own proposition that the freedom of the press is the freedom of the people to be informed.

The Council is sympathetic to the frustrations of community groups who feel their views are not receiving the coverage they deserve. In a pluralistic society it is important that citizens know of the views and opinions of significant community groups.

At the same time the Council notes that the daily press is not the only source of information in society. With technological developments, a proliferation of sources is available.

In addition, the Council is a strong supporter of editorial discretion to determine what, from a proliferation of material, is in fact newsworthy. This discretion, provided it is bona fide, must remain that of the newspapers, and it would be improper for the Council to seek to substitute its views for that of the editor. The Council would only intervene on evidence that the discretion was improperly exercised, for example for political or commercial advantage. The Council cannot of course presume impropriety; it is for those who allege this to show its existence on the balance of probabilities, at least to raise a presumption which would create an obligation on the newspaper to rebut.

The Council strongly supports the freedom of newspapers as entities freely to determine the selection of news, provided that this is bona fide and in accordance with the principles.

Where a community group is aggrieved by the exercise of that freedom in a particular case, or series of cases, the Council would expect that the newspaper would treat both seriously and promptly any complaint properly made.

All valid points, however, we’re not talking about a Red Cross bake sale or a Rotarian barbecue here. This isn’t a fundraiser to help our kids go to Japan to play soccer. It is hard to seriously emphasise the absolute tragedy and devastation of extreme poverty. This is not even a story about 25,000 people dying each day from incurable diseases. These are human beings perishing because they do not have the basic necessities to stay alive. Heck, even the contestants on Big Brother and Survivor still argue whether toilet paper is considered an essential item for them. Heartbreakingly, food is an essential; clean water is an essential and basic medical care is an essential. All of these are basic human rights. Extreme poverty is a type of mass killing caused by a failure to act. The harshest reality is that all these deaths are so preventable.

However, I honestly believe that people do in fact care about other people whether they are strangers or not. I believe it is not in our nature to be uncaring towards those who suffer. Even our governments represent people to be caring in the direst and most horrible of circumstances. In the western world, (mostly the US) states who issue the death penalty do so through quick and relatively humane methods. And I am only talking about America now, but we do not crucify people or tar and feather them or burn them at the stake. The majority of supporters for the death penalty would probably not accept these measures. But, throughout the world more than 150 countries still use torture. Now what does this say about the world we live in? I bet the immediate and subconscious reaction to this question is a feeling of good luck that we do not live in one of these countries. But if we did not know already that more than 150 countries use torture as a means of punishment or extracting information, then what does this say about us? I am sure Amnesty International had hoped back in 1961 when the organisation was established that by 2007, these sorts of facts would either be history – or common knowledge for everyone to know by now. Unfortunately it isn’t. There are atrocities going on in the world that the media are not reminding us about and conveniently and tragically, it means we do not have to think about them.

Our patriotism should stop living within the pride of our own countries and start reflecting the pride we take in the planet we live in. I am sure that winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games is going to mean very little the day the entire world is at war with each other; nothing has been done to manage climate change and an extra billion people are suffering from chronic malnutrition. So many wars are still being fought over land and its resources and who is entitled to what and where. We are yet to find an answer to the violence war produces but we are rich in answers to cease the suffering of human beings from famine. No matter how proud I am of being Australian, all it means is that I was lucky to be born between a pair of legs situated in an Australian hospital with adequate health care. I will never tattoo the Southern Cross to myself. And until we feed these people, no one in any country has anything to be proud of.