BH:AG
2 November 2011
Hon Ray Finkelstein QC
Chair
Independent Media Inquiry
PO Box 2154
Canberra ACT 2601
Dear Sir
Thank you for the opportunity to make a short submission to your inquiry into
Australia’s newspaper industry.
The NSW Nurses Association
The New South Wales Nurses' Association (NSWNA) is the registered union for all
nurses and midwives in New South Wales. The membership of the NSWNA
comprises all those who perform nursing and midwifery work. This includes
assistants in nursing (who are unregulated), enrolled nurses and registered nurses
and midwives at all levels including management and education.
The NSWNA has approximately 54,000 members and is affiliated to Unions NSW
and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Eligible members of the
NSWNA are also deemed to be members of the New South Wales Branch of the
Australian Nursing Federation.
Our role is to protect and advance the interests of nurses and midwives and the
nursing and midwifery professions. We are also committed to improving standards of
patient care and the quality of services health and aged care services.
The Association empowers nurses and midwives to actively participate in shaping
every aspect of their professions: from pay claims and workload relief to professional
practice standards and legal protection. Participation in democratic branches
throughout NSW allows nurses and midwives to control their own agenda and to
ensure that each workplace has a voice in the Association's direction. To
supplement this democratic process, the NSWNA regularly conducts or commissions
research to consult with our members on the range of pertinent issues as necessary.
We believe that our goal of constantly improving the quality of care in the health and
aged care sectors in NSW and ensuring the efficient and effective allocation of
scarce resources in NSW is largely well-served by a fairly responsible and interested
media culture throughout NSW. However, there are times when we believe it is
undermined by some aspects of reporting practice in sections of the media, including
the print media.
In the interests of enhancing a responsible, informative media culture that facilitates
social progress and democratic practice we would like to address some of our
concerns.
Balanced and informative newspapers
The Association is a State-wide, grassroots organisation and our values are informed
by our members’ professional duty to act on and advocate for the interests of
patients. We rely on a range of media outlets to communicate health-related issues,
including industrial relations issues, in an accurate, informative and unbiased
manner.
In our view most newspapers, especially the regional and suburban newspapers in
NSW, largely do a good job of reporting all sides of an issue and facilitating local
public debate and scrutiny of issues of significance to their communities.
However, we are concerned about the lack of balance and avoidance of complexity
that increasingly characterises some newspaper coverage of matters of key public
interest, including in health, aged care and industrial relations. In our view this needs
to be nipped in the bud, as this lack of completeness corrupts the potential for these
debates to genuinely inform the NSW public, in a balanced way, of important health,
aged care or industrial relations issues.
We believe there is, at times, an excessive emphasis on sensational reporting of
errors or failures of care. The reporting of such issues is not to be suppressed, but it
is always important to ensure the story fairly contextualises the situation. A media
culture that fails to do this or that has an excessive emphasis on dramatic, screaming
headlines can create a political and managerial environment that provides shortsighted, knee-jerk responses at the expense of meaningful reform. This is not in
anyone’s interest and most certainly is not in the public interest. We have also seen
our members, at the frontline of care delivery, subjected to threats and abuse from
the public based on such oversimplified media reports.
Our approach to media relations is to provide as much background information as we
can to illustrate a point we are making or campaign we are running. We work very
hard, often at great expense, to provide credible research and hard data that can
withstand scrutiny.
We especially do this for the benefit of newspapers, because the whole point of
newspapers is that they supposedly have more space and words at their disposal to
cover issues in a more expansive way. If that strength cannot be utilised then they
are failing to provide a genuine public service and are failing in their self-proclaimed
role of providing scrutiny of important public issues and activities. They are really no
different to any other private organisation that has an opinion or view of the world. As
a result many of the privileges they demand for themselves – special access to
information and public officials, shield laws to protect sources, etc – need to be
questioned.
For example, in our experience some papers, especially in the News Ltd group, are
increasingly requiring extreme, sensational examples or case studies before they will
run important health or aged care issues raised by us.
The NSWNA is very experienced in dealing with the media and has a policy of
openness and public engagement. It operates in areas of significant public interest
such as hospitals, health services, nursing homes and prisons and is always notifying
the media of events it is involved in and, in turn, is regularly contacted by journalists
for comment or assistance on health and aged care issues they have become aware
of or are working on.
It also understands that many local issues it raises are just that, local, and not of
significant wider interest to involve all major media outlets, including the major
metropolitan daily papers. Having said that, our media distribution approach normally
involves all major metropolitan media outlets, just to keep them informed in case they
do see something they think has wider interest or in case the issue develops to such
an extent that it does attract wider interest.
However, because of the industries we cover, the NSWNA is also often involved in
much bigger issues and campaigns, which have significant public interest and public
impact. For the reasons outlined above, newspapers can and should play a key role
in informing the public and providing balanced scrutiny of such issues and
campaigns. However, it is hard to avoid the impression that there is an increasing
need for sensation and dramatic emphasis just to get such public conversations
going through key sections of the newspaper sector. We often feel the pressure to
comply with this just to try and get an important point across to the general public – a
point that is often strong enough, in our opinion, to not always require such
sensation.
Our recent campaign to establish mandated patient ratios illustrates this point. Our
claims were based on substantial independent local and international research,
examining the relationship between patient safety and staffing. This is a legitimate
and important public debate in its own right. It should not have to be backed up with
“bleeding” or suffering patients or industrial action just to attract the interest of
newspapers, which are meant to, and have the space to, subject such important
issues to greater analysis than a radio or TV news story.
This point was also illustrated during our 2004 aged-care wages case before the
NSW Industrial Relations Commission. This was a case that impacted on a key and,
at times, controversial public policy area, potentially involved considerable amounts
of public expenditure and included a list of excellent experienced witnesses with
interesting stories to tell.
For example, the Association arranged an independent academic researcher – a
senior accounting professor in NSW - to analyse the employers' case that the
industry did not have the capacity to pay the increases we sought. This person was a
witness before the Commission and the media was notified that he was appearing
and given a summary of what he was to talk about.
Significantly, the research uncovered widespread sloppy accounting practices and
cover-ups in an industry that receives billions in public funding and where concerns
about poor standards of care are frequently raised. It also raised important consumer
protection and consumer rights issues regarding the use of funds provided by
residents, including the controversial accommodation bonds.
These were matters of very clear and significant public interest, backed up by
independent research. The Sydney Morning Herald readily understood this point and
a balanced article appeared in that publication. However, on this occasion we could
not get coverage in any depth in the News Ltd press, which at other times has no
hesitation in running aged care victim stories. As a result, News Ltd effectively
censored, in its publications, an important public debate about nursing home funding
and resident rights.
The NSWNA also believes that, while it is an important role of the press to scrutinise,
it is not the job of the modern press to present a pre-determined outcome in its news
reporting and news pages. On occasions our officers have been told by journalists
that the information we are providing is not relevant or of interest because it is not
consistent with the ‘story’ they want to tell or the campaign they are running. It is a
cliché, but this lends some truth to the idea that there are times when media outlets
do not want “the facts to get in the way of a good story”.
The Association is of the view that the public is entitled to be properly informed about
the issues impacting on standards of care in the health system. Distortion of the facts
through incomplete and misleading reporting, based on a view or campaign the
newspaper itself wants to progress despite an alternative set of facts and information
being provided by people who have access to it, does not support the public interest
in developing better health and aged care.
In dealing with the media the Association, like all other public institutions, puts its own
views on issues and runs its campaign messages. It is the job of newspapers and
other media outlets to subject all that to scrutiny and find other supporting or
opposing views if they exist. The NSWNA does not believe everything needs to be
over dramatised and important information and debates should not be censored
simply because they cannot be immediately illustrated by a dramatic individual case
study. Many important health and aged care issues can stand in their own right and
are capable of being publicly discussed and understood without excessive recourse
to extreme personal examples.
Therefore the NSWNA believes the inquiry should look very closely at the content
and enforcement of media codes of conduct to ensure we can get a more balanced,
issues-based approach, with less individual sensationalism, in the general news
sections of Australian newspapers. The NSWNA believes there is an important place
in our newspapers for dramatic case studies and the exposure of dreadful individual
treatment and behaviour. However, we must not lose the balance between the
provision of important information to the public and the coverage of more complicated
yet important issues, in a fair and interesting way, and such dramatic “if it bleeds it
leads” news stories.
A free press or an independent press?
Also, the emphasis should be on an independent media, not a so-called “free” media.
The media, including newspapers, have a vital role to play in our society and as such
it should not just be “free” to do what it likes. It must be independent so it can
scrutinise society and facilitate public debate without fear or favour. However, there
should be and can be enforceable parameters. Those parameters do exist and can
be found in most media codes of conduct now. The main issue remaining to be
sorted out is enforceability and accountability, in that sense, of the media and
newspapers themselves.
Regulation of expenditure during election campaigns and its
implications for freedom of speech and media power
Finally, the importance of this debate about the role and conduct of newspapers has
been increased by recent restrictions imposed by governments on expenditure by
organisations such as the NSWNA during election periods. For example, the
O’Farrell Government in NSW has imposed significant restrictions on how much we
can spend on our own message, especially during election campaign periods. The
Queensland Government has introduced similar laws.
This is a significant erosion of the so-called freedom of speech in our society many
media outlets so often talk about. It means, especially during election campaign
periods (which have fairly elastic definitions and long lead times in some cases), that
newspapers and other media outlets have enhanced power in terms of what
messages get put in front of the public and how often they get put before them.
Such attacks on freedom of speech are being hidden behind altruistic reasoning such
as restrictions on the power of money. The problem is it simply amplifies the power of
private media companies in the political process. You can spend as much money as
you like, if you have got it, on pushing an agenda – and right up to election day – if
you are a private media company such as News Ltd or Fairfax. However, private
entities such as the NSWNA, and their capacity to go around the newsroom practices
and priorities of such companies, are being curtailed
It does not serve the interests of democracy or social progress in NSW or Australia to
now limit the right of member-based organisations such as ours to promote a
viewpoint, debate policy issues and raise concerns during election periods. If we are
to be regulated during election periods then the media, including newspaper,
coverage of election campaigns will also require significant regulation.
In the period leading up to the establishment of this inquiry there was a lot of national
and international discussion about the power of media proprietors and media
companies in the political process. Laws restricting organisations such as the
NSWNA risk significantly distorting that relationship even more. Surprisingly there
has been little media coverage or comment about freedom of speech in this context.
Finally, in terms of newspaper business models such laws also cut off a vital source
of potential revenue for newspapers during election periods – especially, as our
buyers inform us, newspaper groups demand an advertising premium for election
material in the form of the highest casual rate applicable plus maximum colour and
preferred-page loading rates.
Recommendations:
1. That the inquiry look at the content and enforcement of media codes of conduct to
ensure we can get and maintain a balanced, issues-based approach, with less
sensationalism, in the general news sections of Australian newspapers.
2. That the inquiry help switch the emphasis to discussion of an independent media
rather than a so-called free media and that the distinction be drawn between the two
ideas.
3. That the inquiry consider the impact of election spending restrictions, on
organisations such as the NSW Nurses Association, on the role and impact of
newspapers in society.
4. That the inquiry either recommend the abolition of all election spending restrictions
by member-based organisation, such as the NSW Nurses Association, or develop a
framework that provides greater regulation of media coverage during the periods that
restrictions on so-called election expenditure by such organisations are in force.
Yours sincerely
BRETT HOLMES
General Secretary