Ethics in journalism ...

Letter I sent to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald editors, which has been ignored.

To The Sydney Morning Herald/ The Sun-Herald Editor,
Re: article The Sun-Herald …
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Ethical choices!

After reading Ms … article … my heart goes out to all “Sharon’s”, to all women who are desperately trying to find ways to “speak their truth” and are being ignored and/or ridiculed, courageous women such as those speaking out about their treatment when experiencing the devastation of a miscarriage in our hospitals, those long ignored women who tried to get someone to listen to them when they talked about the “Butcher from Bega” and his maltreatment and mutilation of women. Who will speak up about the injustices and traumas women still experience? Who will respect and support women and allow them to speak their “truth”?

Ms … does not inform us what issue Sharon had contacted her in regards to, but the issue I brought to Ms … attention in April 2008 was the situation of Australian women and children trapped overseas by domestic violence and systemic and judicial failures. The material I subsequently mailed her clearly described the traumatic experience of two Australian women and their children trapped in a foreign country by domestic violence and the subsequent and devastating systemic and judicial inequities and inadequacies which failed to protect them or ensure they experienced the safety, security and justice they needed and deserved. (Which I have been told by an academic is “not an unfamiliar story”.) The extensive documentation shared not only showed how traumatic and harmful this experience had been for these innocent and vulnerable Australian children and women but also gave contact details for clarifying and verifying the information. These women had been further traumatised by attempting and failing to obtain any assistance for their children or themselves from any Australian authority or the media that had assisted, advocated for, or acknowledged other Australians overseas including David Hicks, Schapelle Corby, the “Bali Nine”, and other innocent Australian victims of violence overseas, such as London and Bali bombing victims.

Part of Ms … justification for refusing “to help” Sharon is her subjective, pejorative, self-serving, and unsubstantiated assessment of Sharon’s “mental state”, which is something I also experienced in my dealings with Ms …. Making the whistleblower the problem and denigrating their “mental state” is a common way of negating those who are trying to “speak truth to power” as whistleblowers. Noticeably Ms … did not denigrate and negate Baz in this way in her article. Nurse Toni Hoffman also experienced this form of backlash when she tried to bring attention to Dr Jayant Patel’s actions in Queensland, a situation that similarly to domestic violence was resulting in great harm and the death of innocent and vulnerable people.

How many other women besides Sharon and myself have contacted Ms … because like me they read her articles in The Sun-Herald, or because like me they read the information on her website and believed that as a “feminist”, and “ethicist” she found violence against children and women unacceptable? What would Ms … have hoped or expected if she was either Sharon or me and we had the privilege, power, safety and opportunity that she has and we had chosen to publicly ridicule her while keeping the secret of her concerns, including domestic violence, when she had asked for our assistance?

Ms … conceptualises ethical choices in an either/or framework, I would like to emphasise that it is about “choice”! It is not an either/or situation, we can hold dear our personal relationships “and” make choices to role model social responsibility to our children and speak up about life and death issues! In the many months since I shared information with her, Ms … has had many, many weeks of writing articles and making choices in regards to time with family and for her relationships. Unlike the deadly fire and choice scenario she describes in her article, the choices she writes about actually having to make in regard to her family relationships are things such as attending her “child’s school play”.

Also like Sharon, in her contact with me Ms … attempted to portray me as someone who wanted “rescuing”. Unlike Ms …, I do not see women and children who have experienced domestic violence as pathetic victims who need “rescuing”. Women and children who have experienced the trauma and injustice of domestic violence are human beings who need and deserve human rights, safety, security, justice, support and advocacy! (Which is what I believe most women would hope for and expect if they had the misfortune to be the victims of domestic violence and systemic and judicial failures - or is Ms … the exception to that reasonable expectation?)

In her book The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the human spirit. (Melbourne University Press 2006), Australian ethicist Margaret Somerville, in a chapter titled “Past Virtues for a Future World: Holding our humanness on trust”, mentions “hope” as one of the “human qualities” that she believes “will be essential in taking ethical paths into our human future.”(p 208) The five “old virtues” Margaret Somerville considers essential for these “ethical paths” and our future are “trust, courage, compassion, generosity and hope” (p 208), none of which I experienced in Ms … article.

If it was a life and death issue for Ms … child (as domestic violence has been shown to be for far too many children and women), I would miss my child’s school play – and have missed much, much more in all my children’s lives because Ms … is not the only person who calls themselves an “ethicist”, “journalist”, or “feminist”, not the only person who has privilege, power and opportunity, and chooses not speak up for and with children and women who have experienced domestic violence.

So Ms … , even though you have made it clear that you would not even miss your child’s school play to save my or anyone else’s child or any woman from the traumatic and too often fatal experience of domestic violence - I would miss much if it meant saving your or any other child’s life and contributing to them having a future free of violence and abuse, and as you know from the extensive material shared with you, I have already given up much to try and create a better and safer world for all women and children – you and your child included!

“The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing” Edmund Burke.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” Martin Luther King Jnr

Name withheld for safety considerations

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(Name and contact details supplied …)

Dear Editor,

To have read the posted list of people I have asked for assistance on my online resource/blog www.womenwhowant2gohome.blogspot.com which Ms … was made aware of in April 2008, Ms … would have seen and have made a choice whether to read or ignore the adjacent posts “Situation Synopsis” and “To Whom It May Concern”.

Sincerely
(Name)


Despite a phone call to the editor from a highly respected academic who validated my information and recommended printing of my letter, and a letter to both the editor and Ms ... from a friend of mine the paper chose to ignore all of us and did not print either of the letters, comment in print, contact my friend or me.

Robin Bowles, quoting Graham Archer (Today Tonight, Channel 7, Adelaide) in her book Rough Justice: unanswered questions from the Australian courts (The Five Mile press Pty Ltd 2007)…

“The biggest threat to a properly informed public is the existence of media monopolies. Competition for the alternative view is essential to a properly functioning democracy. I believe there are times when the media should take a stand on issues of public interest and in particular, the accountability of our public authorities. Almost all of the miscarriages of justice that have been successfully resolved have had some form of media presence behind [the campaigns]. In some cases they have only been successful because of the pressure the media has brought to bear. In this sense, the media has a role to play beyond being just a passive and neutral information source.” P. 165

Take care ... take heart ... Merinda