Democracy and The Press

Here is something I found. It is from a website which is an association of newspaper publishers in Australia.

Before I came to Australia, these words would not have had much meaning to me. They would have sounded good, of course, but I would not have felt much when I read them.

Today, just now, when I found them, they touched me deeply. I felt their importance. They had emotional meaning which only the strength of my feelings can truly attest to.

In particular, these words trigger an emotional response from me:

The preservation and defence of hard-won democratic traditions rest on an unfettered free-press.

This evokes memories of Lithuania -- the books I read about communism there.

Thoughts of Anne Franke. Hiding in the attic in Amsterdam.

And Memorial Tower, here in Goulburn, Australia.

One night I went out for a walk. I looked over to the tower. A literal beacon of something. A reminder of something. But of what?

It is meant to be a reminder of the people from the local community who died fighting for their country. But what exactly were they fighting for? Were they really fighting to make it a free country? And if so, what does free really mean?

Freedom is important to me. I need it like I need air.

In the USA one of the state's mottos is "Give me liberty or give me death." Another is "Live free or die."

I think I learned in USA history that Patrick Henry said "Give me liberty or give me death."

But you don't give someone death, you kill them. Or you let them die. Take away their air, their water, their food and they will die. It doesn't matter much exactly how you say it. My point is that I need freedom. I need it like air, water and food. Perhaps more.

Without freedom I am slowly dying inside. Take away a person's freedom and they will also surely slowly die.

They might be walking, working, even being "productive" in factories or schools. But inside, they are dead or dying.

I saw the walking dead in Eastern Europe. I saw it in their faces. I saw what communism did. My friend Jonny Lewis, one of the founders of Green Peace in Australia told me yesterday, "At least we live in a democracy. At least we can criticize the government without being afraid of being shot."

And I agree.

But there is more which makes a democracy function smoothly, ideally.

Yes, you can criticize the government here. But what if you have no voice? What if you have no power?

This brings me back to the media, to the press.

The press here seems to be failing in its "duty" to inform the public. Or let's say failing in its "responsibilities and obligations" as the above quote says.

Let me try to make this simple. For my readers and for myself....

A few people want to put a waste processing center on one of the river banks. It seems the reason they want to put it there is because it also has access to the train tracks.

The trains move waste from Australia's largest city, Sydney, to an old quarry - a huge hole in the ground. It seems some people want to bring more of Sydney's waste here by train and sort the trash to pull out the recyclable materials before compacting the rest of it and putting it back on the train.

I have learned there is big money in waste processing. They city of Sydney will pay something like 100 dollars per tone of waste which is removed from the city. They are talking now about over 1 million tons of waste a year, so there is at least 100 million dollars at stake for someone.

Most of the people here in the city didn't know anything about the plans to process waste by the river. When they find out they say, "Why would you want to do it there?"

The answer seems to keep coming back to one thing -- Because it is on the train line.

Around 90 percent of the people don't want the waste processing center to be put in that location. Yet the local government seems to be actively or passively supporting the plan. Why they would support it is a matter of speculation at this point. So far they are not publicly saying that they support the plan.

Yet they are also not publicly saying they oppose it.

But if the people don't want it there, and the local government is supposed to represent the people, then what?

Now back to the press.

Some local elected officials have told me that they have done their job of informing the public because they have had an open forum and the issue has been in the paper.

True. It has been in the paper. But what has the paper said? Or more importantly, what have they not said?

What they have not said is exactly, precisely, specifically where the waste processing center is going to go. In other words, they haven't shown a map which lets people know that this location is literally on the river banks. Worse, yet, it is on one of the main entrances to town. It is within easy walking distance from two primary schools and several day care centers. It is less than 10 minutes by bike from the center of town, where the banks, the post offices and the cafes are located.

The location is the single most controversial and disputed issue. Yet the local paper has not clearly stated the location.

This bothered me. So I acted on my feelings. One thing I did was help make a map showing the location. Then I helped make some posters and some flyers. A few of us have now spoken to several hundred people. As mentioned, nearly 90 percent of them are opposed to the location once they see it.

And a key issue is that most of those 90 percent either did not know anything at all about the plan to change where the city takes its trash, or they didn't know the details. Many people, for example, thought that it was just going to be a recycling center or "centre", as they spell it here.

So there is a) a lack of information and b) an abundance of misinformation.

Given this, how then are people in the community supposed to make an informed decision about whether they want a waste center in that location?

Now, whose "responsibility" is it to tell the people what is going on? Is it the responsibility of the elected officials? Is it the responsibility of the non-elected government staff who have to approve or reject the proposal? Is it the responsibility of the developers who want to profit from processing the waste? Is it the responsibility of the local newspaper?

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One definition of "responsibility" means being able to respond. Or let's say, to take action. If you don't know something bad is happening, you can't take action to stop it. We would say also that you can't be held responsible, at least generally speaking. If I don't know that the rain forest is being cut down, for example, I can't really be held responsible, unless you make the argument that it is my responsibility, duty or obligation to make sure I am informed of anything which is important to the health and survival of the planet and the human species. See note

To extend that ..(unfinished)

But what if you are the cause of the bad thing that is happening?

--

What if my children or grandchildren say, "Daddy" or "Grandpa" "Why didn't you do something about it?" Will it satisfy them and your conscience to say "I didn't know about it." What if they say, "Why didn't you?"

An important part of freedom means freedom from fear. Freedom from fear of your own leaders. Freedom from fear of those you work for.

Media Policy -- xxx unfinished but see below

Here are a few quotes from the local government's media policy.

Here is the Media Policy Objective:

To recognise the value of the media as a means of Council communicating information to the public and to always be open, honest and pro-active in our dealings with them.

Then you read further and it says:

A good working relationship with the media is imperative to Goulburn Mulwaree Council successfully relaying its key messages to the community.

Then it says:

To ensure clear and consistent messages are communicated appropriate authority for media comment on behalf of Council is as follows:

Next it lists who can talk to the media. This is where it starts to sound more like something from George Orwell. (IE 1984 or Animal Farm - btw, sadly, many people, especially young people I have talked to, haven't read these two books)

So basically it says they want to have an open relationship with the media, but the staff can't talk to the media.

It sounds like something out of George Orwell's 1984. It is a not-so-subtle attempt at information control and propaganda.

Just for the record, at the top of the page it starts with a table which includes the following:

The words "Business Unit" seem a bit out of place for a local government. It also seems suspicious that it is coming from the "Executive Division". This suggests the top management of the city government wants to be in control of the information. Another suggestion of this is that the media staff report directly to the city manager, the highest authority in the non-elected local government. This seems a bit unnecessary, unless the goal is information control and manufactured consent.