This is the latest instalment in The Murdoch Century, a series examining the legacy of News Corp and Rupert Murdoch.
On my professional plate are several dozen uniquely precious possessions: the names and stories of survivors of sexual assaults and other forms of violence and abuse. The offences they have suffered involved the loss of their agency, and I have learnt that the most important priority is the restoration of identity and story to their sole ownership and control.
Among the current pile are allegations that would make you gasp, even after all the revelations of the past several years. I know of rapes committed by some very powerful men, so far unreported. In my work with their survivors, among the questions that frequently (not always) arise is this one: should they go public with their story, and/or their name, and if so, how?
The equation is complex, and the solution different for each person contemplating telling their story. There are many risks, not just legal, to be weighed against the potential benefits — which, to preempt one response from trolls, I have never known to include the survivor’s personal reward. Every survivor I know is motivated principally by the desire to protect others.
If the survivor chooses to go ahead, then the choice of media is critical: which journalist, which publisher, what medium.
In a country where one corporation so heavily dominates the media landscape, it is impossible to avoid considering its outlets as an option for disclosing a public interest story. It is also true that Rupert Murdoch’s empire is not a homogenous wall of bad-faith reporting; it employs many good and ethical journalists and most of its outlets do at least some legitimately good work in this field. So, even if one could ignore News Corp, which one can’t, it wouldn’t make sense to do so.
I say that partly because there are no mainstream media organisations that haven’t compromised themselves at some point in their handling of sexual violence allegations, including the one I’m writing for at the moment. Crikey has published articles it should not have, which have done harm to survivors and the cause.
And News Corp isn’t the worst — the Daily Mail is a disgrace of a publication that rejoices in an editorial policy of prurience and gross irresponsibility in its reporting of sexual violence.
However, News Corp has a special sauce that it applies to victims of abuse (or alleged abuse, whatever), taking it to places other media would be wary to go. The difference arises from a fundamental feature of the publisher’s approach: it is a media organisation, but also a political one. As a result, its modus operandi, and instinct, is to campaign rather than merely report.
News Corp takes on causes routinely; not all of them anti-progressive, and not always obvious. The Australian historically campaigned for progress in First Nations affairs, although currently it is campaigning against the Voice to Parliament. The News Corp tabloids have taken up the #MeToo cause in various guises, with disastrous irresponsibility in the Geoffrey Rush case but with genuine intent and good outcomes in other circumstances (such as the #LetHerSpeak campaign).
It just isn’t as simple as painting the whole of News Corp’s operations, all of the time, with the brush of reactionary culture warring. Sky News after dark, yes. But the main website news.com.au, for example, tends frequently towards a progressive angle.
In a sense, this unpredictability is more problematic than its opposite would be, because you can’t be sure which side of the story News Corp is going to prefer. But you do know that the company will go all out once it’s made that call.
For worked examples of what I mean, look no further than the campaigns waged against the deceased victim of an alleged rape by Christian Porter, and against Brittany Higgins, in the pages of The Australian. The former was a political campaign in the interests of the then-government of Scott Morrison, the latter a more classical culture war in defence of a patriarchy that feels the #MeToo movement has gone too far. Both did indescribable harm.
While I may strongly disapprove of the campaign itself (as I do), that’s not really the point. The Australian, or any outlet, can report and opine as it wishes. It’s a free press, thankfully, even if it’s rather too concentrated and foreign-owned.
The significance from my perspective is that News Corp, whether we find ourselves on the same side of an issue or not, is a campaigning organisation that wields oversized cultural power, and that makes it a dangerous beast. Among the risks is that it will place its own imperatives above the interests of a vulnerable person with whose story it has been entrusted.
So, it’s tricky and, to be honest, less than preferable. While it’s nice when the media outlet you’re working with throws its weight behind your client’s cause, it’s better when it instead does what the first editor I ever worked with on a survivor story (Chris Graham of New Matilda) explained to me was his policy: honour the story. Taking that approach also honours the survivor, and consequently holds the best chance that their agency — over their name and their story — will be preserved through the media storm.
Obviously News Corp isn’t going to stop being a political operation or remove the campaigning instinct from its DNA, but for advocates in any field it’s useful to understand that this is the nature of the beast. Engage, if you choose to, with open eyes.
Disclaimer: I was the lawyer for Porter’s alleged victim.
