BRS judgement is a vindication for the journalism but it does NOT mean the system works
Welcome to an end-of-week update after one of the most significant days in public interest journalism – the defamation victory of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Canberra Times over war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith.
Speaking of journalism, we also today reveal the content creation session for our conference on the rise of AI in the media and marketing industry, humAIn. And we’ve an update on an unusually positive day on the Unmade Index.
Unmade’s paying members got an early version of this email on Thursday evening. Everyone else had to wait until Friday morning. It’s just one of the benefits of being a member.
Our end of financial year offer for you to become an Unmade member with a 45% saving is now underway. Instead of our full price of $650, you can subscribe for just $358. That discount will apply for as long as you maintain your membership, and the size of the saving will never be repeated.
Unmade members get all of our Tuesdata posts along with access to our full publishing archive, which goes behind the paywall after two months. They also receive discounted tickets to our events, including humAIn, our conference focusing on the impact of AI on media and marketing.
How AI is shaping editorial, social media and digital content
Cat McGinn, curator of humAIn, writes:
The latest session we can today reveal for the program of humAIn | human creativity x AI focuses on the uses of generative AI for content creation.
Matt Martel, publisher of BusinessDesk NZ will share the story of the Kiwi business news publication’s adoption of AI. Martel was formerly an executive editor at Fairfax metro mastheads SMH and The Age for over a decade, focusing on multimedia.
Martel says this allows the Business Desk journalists to focus on in-depth reporting and covering stories that don’t come from press releases. Business Desk delineates its AI stories with the byline ‘BD AI’.
Emile Rademeyer, production studio Vandal’s executive director of creative strategy will share case studies from the company’s AI arm, AI Atelier’, including a feature film-length generative AI digital art exhibition for one of Australia’s largest corporates. Vandal’s clients include Woolworths, Spotify and the BBC.
And Mary Proulx, co-founder of social media agency Bread Agency will discuss using generative AI for social media research, influencer engagement and social media content creation. Proulx was formerly Head of Social and Influence at One Green Bean.
Previously announced sessions for humAIn include ANZ’s futurist Kate Young on how the bank is using AI in customer experience; Afterpay, Optus and BRX on how they’re using AI for campaign development and execution; BoQ Group, Asahi, CMC Markets and Mutinex on the use of AI in media planning and allocating marketing spend; and Penso’s Con Frantzeskos on applications of AI for consumer transactions,
Tickets for humAIn | human creativity x AI are on sale now.
The event takes place on July 12 in Sydney.
Vindicated, but they’ll never get the time back
Tim Burrowes writes:
June 1 will go down as a very fine day for Australian journalism. But imagine how many more scandals Chris Masters and Nick McKenzie could have brought to light over the last four years if they hadn’t been contending with the distraction of proving to a judge’s satisfaction that Ben Roberts-Smith is a murderer, war criminal and bully. Thanks to them, it’s legally safe to say that now.
Today’s verdict that Nine has proved the truth of its allegations was tremendously good news for anyone who wants to see public interest reporting thrive.
But it was an against-the-odds and expensive operation that only a three billion dollar media company like Nine would have had the resources to undertake.
The rich and the powerful use defamation law as a weapon to scare off legitimate reporting. Today’s result doesn’t change that, although it would have been a disaster for journalism if the verdict had gone the other way.
As an editor I’ve had a number of brushes with defamation law. Every one left me believing in the legal system a little less.
For starters, the system is stacked against those making the claim. If you publish an allegation you need to be confident you could prove that claim in court. It’s not for the other side to prove that it is untrue.
There are various rumours swirling the industry right now (as they usually are) about dodgy media agencies, predatory bosses and drug abusing executives. My guess is that they’re true. And my prediction is that none of these stories will be reported because they can’t be safely proved. (Although if you know what I’m talking about, feel free to reach out for an off the record conversation. Catch me on Signal.)
For the mega wealthy (or those with wealthy patrons, as was the case of BRS with his backer Kerry Stokes), the ability to sic lawyers onto those trying to discuss them is where money talks.
Defamation law is an asymmetrical weapon which can be used to tie up those wanting to expose truths.
For anyone who wants to stay in the business of public interest reporting, it takes balls of steel and last table poker skills. For every defamation action actually fought, there are another couple of dozen legal threats to be stared down.
The first stage is a lawyer’s letter. For media operations run purely as businesses this often works, and publications can either be persuaded to back off, or to take down an article already published. Publishers have to decide whether they plan to stand their ground when the moment comes, or take the easier route of folding every time the lawyers get involved.
A few weeks after I became editor of Media Week in the UK, we obtained a letter to a media agency owner in which a newspaper sales director set out the sliding scale of kickbacks if client spend was steered in their direction. It included the memorable phrase “I want to make you a wealthy man”.
Indeed, wealthy enough that he could afford to send a legal letter threatening to injunct us to stop us from publishing. Our CEO, who was managing a struggling business where cashflow was a challenge, nonetheless took the principled stand: ”If we give in to this one, we’ll give in to every one.” We stood our ground, knowing it might cost us tens of thousands to do so. When they realised we were willing to fight, they backed down (after clumsily trying to bribe me), and we published the story without needing to go to court.
In my time as one of Mumbrella’s owners, we would irregularly receive lawyers’ letters threatening us with legal action if we either published, or failed to take down something we’d already put up. If we were confident we could prove the truth, we’d stand our ground and send them a fierce letter from our own lawyer. Stephen von Muenster is an excellent rottweiler.
In most cases once they knew we had a lawyer and were not intimidated they would back down. Or more typically, they’d simply go quiet and after a few nights’ lost sleep, you’d realise the skirmish was once again anti-climatically over.
Eventually, and I’ll keep the details vague, my luck in avoiding writs ran out, and I got to experience the infuriating distraction of defending an article that was entirely in the public interest. For a number of months, dealing with the case dominated my working life. Other projects had to go on the back burner.
One of our journos had written an opinion piece predicting that a thing being attempted would fail, and its investors would lose their money.
Because the thing hadn’t yet happened, the person attempting it was desperate for us to take the article down as it might put off his potential investors.
After serving the writ and our expensive barrister writing and serving our reply, they offered to settle. If we simply took the article down, with no further public apology or costs, that would be the end of the matter. We wouldn’t even be restrained from further coverage.
Our insurer gave us a choice: accept the settlement, or fight on alone. I wasn’t the owner where this took place, and the decision was taken to settle.
The article came down, the thing went ahead, and the person who had taken the legal action got what he wanted. Soon the thing failed and the investors lost their money, just as we’d predicted. Every time I read about the now disgraced person’s exploits in the Australian Financial Review I burn with resentment at outdated, undemocratic defamation laws that mean the public lost its right to know.
Thank god for the ethos behind the independent journalism of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, inherited from Fairfax Media and kept burning at Nine. They were on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.
But that does not mean the system works. Journalists should not need to fight a war for four years just to get the truth out.
Green shoots on The Unmade Index
Seja Al Zaidi writes:
It was a uniformly positive day on the Unmade Index – unusually, not a single stock was in the red. The Index, which measures the performance of ASX-listed media and marketing stocks, rose 1.38% to land at 627.6 points.
Of the larger stocks, Seven West Media had the best day, up by 2.70%. Nine’s share price inched upward by 1.06%.
Domain saw a 1.74% rise, while ARN Media lifted by 1.44%.
Radio minnow Sports Entertainment Group rose 15%, while Enero Group and The Market Herald climbed 4.42% and 3.33%, respectively.
Time to leave you to your Thursday evening (if you’re a paying member) or to your Friday morning.
I’ll be back with Best of the Week on Saturday.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher – Unmade
tim@unmade.media
