One of the most valuable things the Centre has done over the last year is the research into how journalists dealt with the trauma of Black Saturday. This resulted in a book by Dr Denis Muller and Michael Gawenda. You can see it featured our homepage.
Now, to mark the anniversary of that great disaster, Denis Muller reflects on what journalists have learned.
By DENIS MULLER*
How the media covered the Black Saturday contained many big lessons about how media practitioners should cover disasters.
Research conducted by the Centre for Advanced Journalism in 2009 and 2011 showed that while the media generally performed well and that most survivors said the coverage of them had done more good than harm, media practitioners were ill-prepared for the ethical dilemmas that confronted them.
To make matters worse, there was no consensus among media practitioners about the rules to follow in resolving these dilemmas. As a result, individual practitioners were thrown back on their own moral compass. While many made good ethical decisions, others made bad ones.
In journalism, the bad tends to put pressure on the good, because editors in general are remote from the ethical contact-point and eager for the story. Journalists always feel under pressure to deliver.
This is the ethical equivalent of Gresham’s Law in economics, that bad money drives out good. In a similar way, because of the powerful competitive ethos in journalism, those who make bad ethical decisions but succeed in getting a story as a result, put pressure on those who would otherwise make good ethical decisions but risk missing the story.
A big lesson from the bushfires, however, was that good ethical decision-making in fact often led to good stories. This was especially true where media practitioners wanted a story from a survivor. Practitioners who approached the survivor gently, carefully and respectfully were much more likely to obtain an interview than those who approached aggressively or arrogantly.
It emerged from the research that the key here was recognition and acknowledgement by the practitioner of what the researchers called “survivor autonomy”.
The central importance of this concept lies in the fact that in the aftermath of a disaster, survivors may be stripped of everything that gave them self-sufficiency and independence: a home, assets, money, food, clothing. Perhaps for the first time in their adult lives, they are dependent on others. This alone can inflict deep emotional wounds.
Add to that the loss of their past and, worst of all, in some cases the loss of beloved family and friends, and it is clear how bereft a survivor might be.
In these circumstances, a survivor has little more than the power to decide whether to speak, to whom to speak, and what to speak about.
The research showed that the media practitioner who has the insight to understand this is likely to be not only respectful in approaching a survivor, but to place as much power as possible in the hands of the survivor – power, that is, over the media encounter.
The media practitioner does this by identifying himself without prevarication, asking whether the survivor would be prepared to talk while at the same time offering to withdraw if the survivor wishes, and by asking open questions which allow the survivor to decide what to talk about.
These are only two of the many lessons which it is hoped were learnt by the media from Black Saturday. It is also to be hoped that they are being applied in the coverage of the current floods in Queensland and New South Wales.
Dr Muller is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Advanced Journalism and was chief investigator for the Centre’s research into the ethical issues arising from the media’s coverage of Black Saturday and its impact on survivors. The results were published in Black Saturday: In the Media Spotlight published by Cussonia Press.