In September 1994, John Newman, a member of the New South Wales Parliament, was gunned down outside his home in western Sydney. Mr Newman was the first Australian politician known to be assassinated.
The brutal murder shocked the nation.There was no immediate suspect.
Phuong Ngo and John Newman: a murderer and his victim? (image via ABC)
Eventually arrests were made. Local businessman and aspiring politician Phuong Ngo, along with two alleged accomplices, were tried for the murder. After two aborted trials and a mistrial, Mr Ngo was eventually convicted of the murder in June 2001. He remains in prison to this day.
Not everyone in the community was satisfied by the verdict. Phuong Ngo has defenders who continue to protest his innocence. I have no opinion on the matter, having never taken the time required to study a complex case. Naturally, I hope an innocent man is not in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
In April last year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s current affairs program 4-Corners ran a gripping documentary called The Newman Case. 4-Corners suggested Mr Ngo had indeed suffered a serious miscarriage of justice. Various apparent anomalies in the police case were discussed and dramatized. When I watched the program at the time, I thought reporter Debbie Whitmont made a very strong case that an official review was merited.
Reporter Debbie Whitmont: walked off with a Walkley
I wasn’t the only one impressed by the program. It later won a prestigious Walkley Award as the best Television Current Affairs, Feature, Documentary or Broadcast Special of the year.
In June 2008, a judicial review of the the Newman murder case was announced. Former District Court David Patten, who oversaw the inquiry, issued his report just a few weeks ago – on 17th April 2009.
The review Judge upheld the original verdict – adding that “material before his inquiry had ‘actually increased rather than diminished’ the Crown case that Ngo plotted the death of Labor Mp John Newman at Cabramatta on September 5, 1994.”
Last week, Media Watch, the ABC TV’s entertaining weekly 15-minute critique of the Australian media, reviewed Debbie Whitmont’s award-winning Four Corners program in the light of the subsequent judicial review.
Jonathan Holmes of Media Watch: avidly keeping an eye out for the public interest?
Jonathan Holmes, the Media Watch presenter, began by acknowledging a personal friendship with the documentary makers. Even so, he was scathing about their editorial decisions. Media Watch suggested there had been unreasonable selectivity on the part of 4-Corners, resulting in a biased portrayal the case for and against Mr Ngo’s guilt.
And that’s where the Newman and Ngo story rests, as of today. But this article is not mainly about that. It’s about the Australian mass media’s pursuit of truth – or lack thereof – depending on the case.
In this instance, the media’s behaviour, while flawed, was ultimately laudible. If the review Judge is to be believed, the police and judicial system also approached the case professionally and ultimately ensured justice was done. Whether that’s correct depends on whether the verdict was truly sound – but at least one can say that if the 4-Corners program assembles the strongest evidence against the verdict at that time, it did not, on reflection, amount to a persuasive case against the court’s verdict.
Neither the media nor the justice system emerge from this saga as paragons of perfection. But in the end, once enough care was taken, the system seemed to work. This ultimately depends on the honesty and decency of key participants. In the Newman case, enough of them – within both the justice system and the media – appear to have behaved with integrity; the public can feel some confidence that the ‘judgment’ against Ngo is at least based on the best evidence currently available.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch: worth watching - pity about the blind spots
It’s nice to report a good news story: the system does work on occasion! And there’s the rub. That, my suspicious mind tells me, is exactly why this little saga ran its course…
Sure, there’s some residual egg on faces (who’d trust Debbie Whitmont’s stories any more?). But the system, overall, was vindicated. Importantly, the role of the serious mass media was ultimately redeemed. True, 4-Corners seemed to let us down – but the valiant Media Watch was watching – and told us all about it!
Contrast this with tragic saga of Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur Massacre, another notable murder case in Australia during the 1990s which occurred shortly after the Howard Government came to power in 1996.
It was Australia’s largest mass murder on record. Yet there was no trial, as the defendant pleaded guilty (months after initially entering a not guilty plea). There wasn’t even a coronial inquiry or inquest! (Howard personally intervened to prevent this). The official case against Bryant has never been tested by any judicial process whatsoever, flawed or otherwise.
Martin Bryant: No trial, no inquest and no 'media watch' at all!
Nor has the Australian mass media ever critically scrutinized the official Port Arthur story, following up on the obvious problems with the official version of events that numerous commentators outside the mainstream tent have discussed. There has been no highly-critical 4-Corners documentary in this case. There are few if any calls from prominent Australians for a judicial review.
Media Watch has overlooked all these anomalies – and going by its past record, it’s unlikely to change course any time soon. ABC policy appears to be that anyone who publicly doubts Martin Bryant’s guilt is a ‘conspiracy theorist’. The ABC ‘doesn’t do conspiracy theories’.
Australia’s mass media is not staffed only by evil people. But resisting the darkest malevolence of our times typically requires acts of positive courage. Very few top journalists seem to have this courage; do any of them occupy senior positions in the Australian mass media?
I suspect there is deep penetration of the western mass media by unaccountable, clandestine forces (the so-called ‘Intelligence Agencies’ and Zionist/Jewish Lobby are probably the most powerful of these – and seem closely inter-linked). Consequently, there are effective ‘mechanisms in place’ to screen out reportage that seriously threatens these interests.
The Newman case is not of that type. In fact, it provides excellent fodder for the public. The very fact there’s such controversy about the case conveys a subtle underlying message: the system is open, the media are independent, justice is the overall goal of all – and yes, do relax, we’re all in safe hands…
The BBC's Jane Stanley, miraculously announcing the fall of WTC-7 on 9-11 half an hour before it happened! (not of interest to 'Media Watch')
What of the Port Arthur massacre, or the 1978 Hilton bombings, or 9-11? (Australians were among the dead on September 11th 2001 in New York).
In Australia at least, no-one wins media prizes for investigating unapproved ‘conspiracy theories’ of that type. If anyone ever did, Media Watch would probably skewer them on air.
It’s how the system works to cover up the biggest lies – in Australia and elsewhere in so-called ‘western democracies’.
To achieve that crucial unstated goal, organizations such as the ABC need all the credibility they can garner from stories such as the Newman case.
POSTSCRIPT: The 4-Corners team is unapologetic. In a Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece – Outcome of Ngo case does not discredit Four Corners – on May 2nd, they treated readers to some truly unctuous self-congratulory hype. Here’s some of it:
Recent comment on the Patten inquiry finding against Phuong Ngo has been critical of last year’s Four Corners report into the conviction of Ngo for the murder of the Labor MP John Newman… This criticism betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and practice of investigative journalism.
Four Corners believes the issues raised in the report deserved the light of public scrutiny. This decision was not taken lightly. It was made in the public interest…
They conclude:
Australians are fortunate to have a legal system based on the presumption of innocence, and a tradition of rigorous investigative journalism. Suggestions that the program contained “innuendo, omission, supposition, false accusation and a preconceived outcome” are false and offensive.
How reassuring to read Australia has a tradition of rigorous investigative journalism – and that the presumtion of innocence is always upheld. (No wonder Martin Bryant won’t watch TV any more. Who, in his situation, could bear to watch liars and cowards pat themselves on the back?)
If I was a member of the ABC current affairs team and saw myself in the mirror, I’d be inclined to throw up. Australians have been stripped of crucial civil liberties on their watch – and our troops have been packed off to two illegal wars – all thanks to an unopened box of largely uninvestigated lies.
When they draw a taxpayer-funded salary, these people demonstrate their utter shamelessness.
