
Issue No 16		04 June 1999

Piers Watch

The Hubris of Ignorance

A comedy of errors this week showed how the Daily Telegraph's disdain for industrial relations can sometimes bring it undone.


	Thanks for the free press, Piers!

For several years, the Daily Telegraph has taken the view that industrial relations no longer exists, so there's no need to assign a reporter to the round. It survived while it had Mark Robinson, a one-time industrial roundsman, in its State Bureau. But since Mark was poached by the Sydney Morning Herald a month ago, there has been no one with a background in the round (apart from Piers in his youth -- and he gave up on factual reporting some time ago).

So when the State Wage Case was handed down on Thursday, the Telegraph did not have any reporter with the experience to do the job. Instead they went for one of the oldest tricks in the book, taking copy from the Australian Associated Press's wire service and running it without accreditation as if it was their own.

Unfortunately, AAP's industrial reporter Dennis Peters was away on leave and a novice had been sent down to the Commission. At the post-decision door-stop he misunderstood comments about the decision from Michael Costa, interpreting calls for free-rider legislation to be introduced (see main news story) as having been part of the Commission's formal decision.

If this were true, it would have been a major story indeed. Within minutes of the story coursing over the wires, TV stations and radio shows were ringing up to check if the AAP report was correct. They were told it wasn't, AAP was contacted and a correction was issued swiftly.

But the Telegraph never called. The incorrect AAP copy went straight onto the front page of the afternoon edition without so much as a query -- complete with the misspelling of the Labor Council.

And so an absolute howler appeared on the front page of the Telegraph's afternoon edition, the NSW Industrial Relations Commission awarding union-only benefits via a State Wage Case. For the people who rely on the afternoon paper for their news, this becomes an unanswered reality.

The point of this story is not to beat up on the AAP reporter who was trying to do a difficult job. It is to illustrate that if a newspaper wants to have an authoritative voice on an issue, it has to be prepared to invest in the personnel to cover it properly. The Telegraph isn't and doesn't; and until they do their credibility for telling the truth to working people will remain zero.

While, they're happy to have Piers using his column for increasingly indulgent attacks on the NSW union movement and a one-dimensional editorial policy that characterises anything the trade union movement attempts as "a return to the bad old days". they can't be bothered covering what has always been a significant round.

If those running the Telegraph do not recognise the link between Piers' monstering of Michael Costa and their State Wage Case blooper, then they should try looking up "hubris" in the dictionary.

***********

Meanwhile, readers of the Australian Financial Review would be aware that Workers Online has been accused of being an enemy of Freedom of Speech.

Columnist Christopher Pearson made the claim while attacking us over the $1,000 bounty we have offered for information leading to criminal charges being laid against our favourite toad. (Not that we expect to find any).

If the term still meant anything, we may be concerned, as it is we wear the accusation with a bemused pride. Here is a copy of our letter to the AFR, which as of Friday, had still not been printed.

"Dear Sir,

Christopher Pearson's argument about Freedom of Speech (AFR May 31) is fundamentally flawed because it fails to recognise that speech in the public arena has never been free -- it isn't even cheap.

The point of offering a bounty on Piers Akerman is not to silence him (God forbid), it is to encourage people to look behind the smiling head-shots of our opinion leaders and ask what they really stand for.

Invoking a principle of Freedom of Speech would be fine if all groups and views had access to the mediums of communication. Unfortunately, though, the Australian media is dominated by a cabal of middle-aged, reactionary men offering a very narrow spectrum of views.

In the same way that the notion of "political correctness" has been used to trivialise issues like racism and sexism; "freedom of speech" is an empty slogan that trivialises the real issue of access to the public domain.

Indeed, the rise of new information technologies offers the best hope yet of opening access to speech in the public sphere. After all, how else would a little left-wing newspaper come to Mr Pearson's attention?

Yours Sincerely,

PETER LEWIS

Editor, Workers Online''

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 16 contents

Interview: Opening Australia
Lindsay Tanner talks about new ideas, new policy and new politics in the Information Age.

Unions: An Educated Fightback
A visiting US trade unionist reveals how training better union delegates is the key to reversing the membership slide.

Legal: A Fair Case for Free-Rider Laws
The proposal to enable unions to charge non-members a service fee for negotiating enterprise agreements is consistent with the principle of freedom of association.

History: New Ideas in Labour History
See the latest from the May issue of Labour History, A Journal of Labour and Social History.

International: Tiananmen Square Ten Years On
We remember the massacre and the role that working people continue to play in fighting injustice.

Review: Organising Our Future - What Use the US??
A new paper looks at what Australian unions can learn from the experiences of their American colleagues.

» State Wage Highlights Case for User-Pays

» Labor Hire Cowboys - the NFF Link

» Murder Call: Charge Bosses Who Kill

» Braddy Bunch to Lift Contractor Veil

» Rural Redundacies - Redeployment Confusion Reigns

» Woolies Shopfitters Win Back Jobs From Body Hire

» Political Payback: NSW Targetted in Costello Cuts

» Rio Tinto Buries the Truth

» Child Care Campaign out of the Blocks

» East Timor Mercy Ship heads for Dili

» Fabian Society Reforms

» Industrial Whoï¿½s Who Head for Geneva