Problems in getting to the story and getting it out

All theorists agree that the media has some role in keeping government accountable - usually ranked somewhere behind the electorate generally and the parliamentary opposition and marginally ahead of assorted other institutions of democracy like auditor-generals and corruption commissions.

Theory is all very well. In Australia generally, the institutions and mechanisms of accountability can be seen to be under pressure. In a State like Queensland where the electorate can't hedge its bets with a legislative council assembled differently than a legislative assembly and where the parliamentary opposition is a squabbling and unfocussed rump, the scope and requirement for a strong media role in accountability is correspondingly greater.

If media outlets rise to this challenge, it creates a whole new set of tensions - with their other role as businesses out to make a mostly honest buck and with governments used to mostly getting their own way on most issues with a minimum of fuss.

The Most Unaccountable State

Queensland may well qualify as the least accountable of the serious States. It has but one house of parliament, no great tradition of independence on the part of the speaker, and only a fairly new and certainly not a very feisty heritage of parliamentary committees.

This is probably best illustrated by reference to current speaker Ray Hollis, in a former life the chair of a committee which ventured some very mild criticism of the Goss government. Words were exchanged behind closed doors and Hollis emerged sprouting strenuous disagreement with his own report - "arguing with himself" as the wags put it.

Estimates committees, a gloriously productive and usefully mischievous institution in the Senate, exist in Queensland only in a carefully choreographed way. Despite the highly restrictive interpretation of what estimates might be, a promising line of questioning may start - but the rules allow for its almost immediate interruption.

Members of the governing party who venture an opinion on something as innocuous, for instance, as nude bathing on secluded beaches face stern and instant discipline; what is worse perhaps is that they accept it so meekly.

Our auditor-general, technically an officer of the parliament, has done some useful work but isn't really in the league of notable recent Auditor-Generals from the Commonwealth, New South Wales and Victoria. The role, however, along with that of other officials like the ombudsman, comes with some quirky straitjacketing about what can be looked into and how it can be looked into.

A State which does not accept that parliamentarians are much entitled to information is hardly likely to extend any special privileges to journalists or, for that matter, the inquisitive elector. Queensland is obviously not the only jurisdiction to show itself much more adept at demolishing freedom of information than it was at introducing it.

In line with general practice, documents are now buried under a pile of restrictions and huge retrieval costs, and further insulated from discovery by blatant abuses. A recent case involved interested parties being invited to make submissions on a development application to which access could only be gained through an FOI process taking longer than the submission period, where only a portion of the application could be accessed anyway, and then only at an exorbitant price. However the case may have highlighted possible loopholes which could be exploited by public-spirited old age pensioners with an intimate knowledge of departmental document retrieval processes.

More than a decade ago, Fitzgerald directed the attention of his new Electoral and Administrative Review Commission to the anti-democratic activity of the growing cohorts of government media advisors. Some dust and feathers flew while a report was compiled, and the media generally suffered some embarrassments over revelations of how much copy was being more or less directly written and provided by those allegedly under analysis and scrutiny.

It was perhaps not surprising that this report did not enjoy much shelf life, but now might be a good time to dust it off. A useful context might be other recent controversies on the unaccountable power exercised by ministerial staff.

The trend in government is to remove from the public service all rights of information provision to the media, even at the highly technical or specialist level. The only officer licensed to comment then becomes a ministerial media advisor who covers the whole field from relaying (or making up) the political commentary of the minister to passing over (and often getting tangled up in) the nuts and bolts information held by field officers, prosecutors and researchers. With the best will in the world a ministerial media advisor or even an advisor or two could often not deal adequately or appropriately with every query.

That's being charitable - the role is more usually interpreted as being much, much more about covering the ministers' proverbial against all possibility of embarrassment than as providers of information, which is presumed to be public information unless there is some very compelling reason for it not to be. Among a sizeable, and growing, grab bag of techniques for not answering questions are:

1. Simply not responding to calls or not being available.

The expectation, borne out often enough to make the tactic worthwhile, is that the absence of a response will kill the story. Variations on this theme include promising responses which never eventuate. This can approach being a whole of government response directed at a particular troublesome issue, journalist, or publication. But journalists do not have to let them get away with silence - if it is impenetrable, it should be met with exposure and ridicule.

2. Passing the platitudes.

The answer is meaningless twaddle or relates to some other question not asked. In general terms, one expects an answer to have a level of detail commensurate with the question. Often generalities do fit the bill, providing the overall flavour or colourful quotes to illuminate the issue. However a political discourse conducted entirely at this level is a meagre meal. The real story is almost invariably only revealed with some specifics, some analysis and some questioning on that basis. The ease with which many journalists can be passed off with a few platitudes is of enormous comfort to the trade of authority. Queensland Transport Minister Steve Bredhauer issued a release in which he claimed the State was the "provider of one of the best public transport systems in the world". For any journalist familiar with virtually any other city including Bogota, Columbia, this should have provoked uncontrolled hilarity and led to merciless lampooning. It passed largely without comment.

3. Playing favourites.

Announcements or stories of general interest and applicability are given as presents to journalists who are perceived likely to treat the material in a sympathetic manner. The initial treatment often sets the tone of subsequent coverage.

An argument can perhaps be mounted that to glorify mere prior announcements of government policy with labels like exclusive or reference to highly placed leaks is fairly disingenuous on the part of media outlets. Their journalists and their own hunger to be first, are merely being harvested by governments seeking to set up the story with the most coverage on the best spin. Fitzgerald and EARC certainly had the view that if it was an announcement or a release it should be made available to all.

The term leak should be reserved for the juicy stuff they do NOT want out.

4. Running up to deadline.

There was a considerable contrast between the way in which Australia's first and second State of the Environment reports were released. The first, prepared under a commendably independent process, was released to journalists under a three day embargo to allow them time to digest the weighty tome, before it was released at a lunchtime event with copious talent available.

The second, full of bad news, had no prior release - journalists were presented late in the afternoon of a busy parliamentary day with an abbreviated summary report and the balance of the 1270 pages in relatively inaccessible CD-ROM. Most hacks not surprisingly relied heavily on the positive spin release from the Minister's office, and the story quickly died from then on.

5. That's not a story.

This is a fairly familiar attempted kill-off line that the flacks serve up to the hacks all the time. It is also surely something for the journalist or media organisation to decide. However, the line often works with over-busy or insufficiently savvy reporters. There have been cases where media personnel and organisations have checked to see whether the government thinks a particular issue is a story - and then taken the advice given. This is just asking for management.

6. Burying the news and other diversions.

There are often attempts to bury or deflect anticipated embarrassments with a diversionary announcement. In one case, which shows almost breathtaking audacity, the Queensland government long and strenuously opposed the declaration of additional protected areas within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. When forced to the wire by the Commonwealth, a quick release emerged from Premiers to claim the credit for protecting the reef, while the Commonwealth fumed in the background.