Oprah, Wikileaks and 'J'Accuse'!

Celebrity is now so tightly bound up with the Fourth Estate (the media) they are one. Or so it seems. Recently, Australia had a visitation from the American “queen of television” Oprah Winfrey and politicians were more than willing to be seen supporting her, smiling for her success and waving to her fans. Her visit has been described as unique, and indeed that is how it played itself out.

But at the same time we have an arguably famous Australian ferociously representing the Fourth Estate, Julian Assange, who is fighting for his freedom, justice and his pursuit of our right to know yet who has been all but neglected by politicians who would not want to share a stage, let alone a news story with him. His growing international group of supporters are also of no interest to them.

But it all began exactly, 112 years ago when a French journalist brought injustice and wrongdoings at the highest level to the international headlines. His name was Emile Zola and his front page open letter to the French President was headlined “J’Accuse!” (I Accuse). He incurred the wrath of the powerful.

Celebrity firmly to one side - examinations of the Fourth Estate in Western newspaper history reveal a lamentable deficit of instances where politicians have been inclined to show any support for the media when it has taken an adversarial role in holding to account the other three estates of Western society - the judiciary, the parliament and the executive.

One rare instance where a politician did pay heed and responded favourably to the work of the Fourth Estate was when Keith Murdoch (Rupert Murdoch’s father) wrote a letter on the appalling loss of young Australian life at Gallipoli in 1915. When the then Australian Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher, had read his letter he ended the disastrous Dardanelles campaign.

There has been no such response to the work of Julian Assange. Politicians and the powerful are disturbed, affronted and incensed by the brave actions of Julian Assange and Wikileaks to keep the public sphere informed.

And while breathless members of the media are convinced of the unprecedented example of Wikileaks (no doubt augmented by the instantaneous power of the Internet), this challenge to governments and institutions is not unique. Yes, Oprah’s taping of her shows in Sydney was unique; but, thankfully, brave assertions of the Fourth Estate holding politicians to account are not.

As a scholar of media history, I’m struck by both the short-term memories of our media but also the striking similarities between the impact, circumstances and ramifications of Wikileaks and an equally earthshaking newspaper letter published in a Paris newspaper in 1898 - Emile Zola’s front page letter headlined “J’Accuse!”

“J’Accuse” did not divulge state secrets nor violate diplomatic exchanges: it did more than that, it benchmarked the watchdog role of the Fourth Estate. Newspapers and their journalists have struggled to rise to the occasion ever since.

At its time it was also an outstanding exception to the growing and stifling commercialism and emphasis on advertising within the newspaper industry in France. Similarities and concerns with contemporary media are obvious.

“J’Accuse!” was bold, audacious and motivated by a passion for justice. It brought a case of gross injustice of trumped up charges based purely on anti-Semitism in the French military to the French public’s attention. It was a case the military had tried to conceal from the scrutiny of the French press. Revealing concealment is where the Fourth Estate is at its best.

What resulted was an enormous cleavage in French society and its potency was such the scandal was pushed onto the international stage.

It was a declarative, brazen challenge to the establishment. Just like Wikileaks.

The open letter in the newspaper L’Aurore: Litteraraire, Artistique, Sociale was addressed to the President of France, Félix Faure, by editor Zola, in defense of the court-martialled Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French Army.

It became a “textbook” example of the watchdog role of the press.

In fact, the letter is acknowledged widely in the academic literature as an exceptional and rare proclamation in journalism that clarified, identified and exemplified the role of the press as the purveyor of truth and custodian of democracy and free speech.

As Zola said in the letter: “La vérité, je la dirai, car j'ai promis de la dire, si la justice, régulièrement saisie, ne la faisait pas, pleine et entire” (“Dare to tell the truth, for I have pledged to tell the full and complete truth if the normal channels of justice failed to do so.”). Sound familiar?

Its ramifications were prodigious and they convulsed a bigoted French society, politics and the press, outraged at Zola’s audacity at challenging and embarrassing the Prime Minister in public. Again, an obvious comparison.

At the time there were 2,401 newspapers published in Paris alone, and almost the entire popular press came out against Dreyfus. To these papers he was found guilty of espionage in collusion with Germany, uncontested and as charged. They shrank from their Fourth Estate role.

Dreyfus was arrested in 1894, tried and convicted on charges accepted uncritically by judges and in the absences of interrogation by the press it was only later learned that the conspiracy to pass on military secrets with Germany was actually carried out by another man in the military. Someone had to be framed - so it was Dreyfus.

But the letter, like all top notch investigative journalism, took time to bring about a just ending.

Stripped of his rank, banished to solitary confinement at the hellhole of Devil’s Island in French Guiana, the innocent Dreyfus was left to rot for the confected crime. And, when the French Army realised the extent of the heinous wrong they had perpetrated, instead of freeing Dreyfus, they engaged in an extraordinary cover-up that said more about manifest anti-Semitism and entrenched corruption in the military than the slipping of the odd military secret to the Germans, or indeed any notions of justice.

After the letter hit the streets, authorities were also determined to make life equally hellish for Zola. Not only did he fear for his life, he was arrested, tried, convicted and ordered to serve time eating porridge. Somewhere between the sentencing and the marching off for a prison term Zola managed to flee to London. He only returned when the French Government lost office in 1899.

Dreyfus was eventually freed from jail, exonerated, reinstated and promoted to major in the French Army but it was not until 2006 that the French Government formally apologised to both Dreyfus and Zola posthumously.

The apology, offered by President Jacques Chirac, occurred on the 100th anniversary of Dreyfus’ exoneration.

Zola’s defamatory letter was a catalyst in not just achieving justice for Dreyfus but in wider ramifications of articulating the honourable role to which the press, universally, could aspire. As Zola concluded his letter: “Et l'acte que j'accomplis ici n'est qu'un moyen révolutionnaire pour hâter l'explosion de la vérité et de la justice” (“The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice”). This exact sentence could have been uttered by Julian Assange.

In an interesting twist, the owner and co-editor of the Zola’s “L’Aurore” was the aspiring politician, Georges Clemençeau - later to become Prime Minister of France in World War I.

Politics and the Fourth Estate regularly revel in an enormously beneficial symbiosis as do celebrity and the Fourth Estate. On the other hand, the press’ watchdog role can also be ruinous for politicians and governments and when the media is “off the leash” and hard at work (not writing “glossy” reports) it has to face down utterly dire consequences.