A Moral Obligation To Inquire

NEWSPAPERS are supposed to deliver news and today, just for once, the Silly manages to do just that. Stretching belief even further, the man breaking the scoop is none other that Butch Carlton, whose dirt on Defence Minister Stephen Smith's alleged machinations in the most recent chapters of the Skype Affair represents, if true, an iron-tight case for resignation or sacking. There is some background in an earlier post here and a bit more here, both of which Andrew Bolt comprehensively updates and interprets.

Well here is a minor but very interesting sidelight to the bigger story of Smith's apparent deceits: How will the Melbourne Press Club react to the latest news, which casts further doubt on the story that last year won a Walkley award for Channel Ten's Hugh Riminton and Matt Moran? Despite growing suspicions that the scandal-hungry Riminton cast himself as the willing and useful idiot in Smith's campaign to villify ADFA Commandant Kafer,  the Press Club yesterday included him in its list of finalists for its Graham Perkin Award. And, yes, it was for the same story about which so many doubts now hover.

Finko & Rickety have just devoted several hundred pages and an unknown sum of public money to an examination of the Australian press and its shortcomings, at least as they are perceived from quarters where hoax-enabler Margaret Simons and the like are regarded as pillars of truth. Shouldn't the MEAA, which administers the Walkleys, and now the Melbourne Press Club, be conducting inquiries to establish if Riminton and Moran's award and nomination are deserved?

A profession that cared about its reputation would not need persuading.

The Fog Of War

CHANNEL TEN reporter and Walkley award winner Hugh Riminton has published a follow-up piece in the Age today that should be read, especially by anyone who saw this little blog’s thoughts a day or two ago. Riminton points out that the copy of Kirkham QC’s draft report he has seen suggests subterfuge and double dealing at Defence, and one of the points he makes is quite alarming. As he puts it: 

To take one example: ''[Her] room was not plastered with shaving foam,'' as I had reported last year. Kirkham discovered that it was not shaving foam but ''Jif cleaning liquid''. It was smeared on her door - or in his phrasing ''applied'' - in sufficient volume to stain the carpet. By publicly denying it was shaving foam but not revealing it was another similar agent, Defence exposes itself to questions over whether it is distorting or withholding information and misleading the public.

Riminton has a physical copy of the report, one assumes, and it would be a great favour if he were to post it somewhere – or promise to do so when he has mined whatever journalistic advantage remains in keeping the contents to himself. There is more than idle curiosity to this hope because the mess in Stephen Smith’s portfolio gets more ludicrous as it grows murkier. If Defence erased mention of the Jif and did so to mislead, as Riminton says it did, then it is playing very fast and loose with the truth and someone must be held to account.

But at the same time, other citations in Riminton’s defence of last year’s Scoop Of The Year don’t really help his defence all that much. That’s why an open copy of the leaked report would be so handy.

Consider: 

RIMINTON 2011: Kate maintains that during that conversation, Commodore Kafer said "he'd like me to address my division (of cadets) because they'll be angry". Specifically, she says Commodore Kafer said "it might help if she apologised (to her classmates) for bringing the division into disrepute by going to the media".

SMITH, March 7, 2012: The Commandant did not order or advise the female officer cadet to apologise to cadets in her Division for having gone to the media;

RIMINTON 2012:  well, actually, Riminton has nothing to say that would resolve the discrepancy between Kirkham’s report and his words of last year.

See, it really would be nice to see that leaked report. And then there is this: 

RIMINTON 2011: As Kate left Commodore Kafer's office she walked past a sergeant. In a growling sneer, he said, "You've gotta be kidding, don't you?"

SMITH, March 7, 2012: No Sergeant had spoken offensively to the female officer cadet on leaving the Commandant’s office

RIMINTON 2012: Kate's account that she was advised to apologise to her cadet peers for going to the media, that she was sneered at by a sergeant, and that she was abused by cadets at a morning assembly on April 6, 2011, is also dismissed. But if Kate was not subject to vilification or abuse, if her consistent and detailed accounts are unreliable, Kirkham offers no explanation as to why, on the day after the story broke, deputy commandant Paul Petersen felt it prudent to move Kate ''away from her peers'' to accommodation in the officers' mess.

But the biggest mystery of all is this: Kirkham says Kate was not abused at that morning assembly, for that is how Defence summarises his findings, when Riminton’s said she was called a slut. Riminton now wonders how thorough Kirkham’s investigation must have been for this information not to have found its way into the report.

So, what to believe?

Kirkham is incompetent or crooked.

Defence is incompetent and crooked

Riminton is incompetent, crooked and being played by Stephen Smith

Kate is a liar

Stephen Smith is incompetent, rash and not feeding Riminton the full truth

and, most baffling,

Every single soul who attended that morning assembly is so crooked and such an accomplished liar that a QC could not winkle the truth out of one of them.

A copy of the draft report would be handy for all to see. Perhaps, instead of leaking it to a sympathetic reporter (as he almost certainly did), Minister Smith might like to table Kirkham's handiwork in the House. Then we can all have a look.

It's In The Mail

A WALKLEY AWARD must be a very nice thing to have on the mantelpiece, where it might be displayed to visitors as proof that a reporter is master of all his or her craft's noble skills and fearless attributes. Accuracy, the layman might think, would be high on that list and, not far behind it, a professional disdain for presenting unsubstantiated gossip as verified fact.

If so, Channel Ten's Hugh Riminton will probably be on the way to the Post Office this very minute to send back his Walkley award. That would be the All Media Scoop Of The Year he shared with Channel Ten colleague Matt Moran for exposing the nest of sexism and Skype-worthy cadet-on-cadet action at the Australian Defence Forces Academy.

Here is one of the several reports on the matter which earned Riminton his occupation's highest honour. If time is short, go straight to the 5:00 minute mark of the clip, where you will see and hear the Walkley winner with the spirit very much upon him:

Breathless stuff, especially Riminton's assertions toward the end of the clip in regard to the female cadet's bastardisation "after she went to the media". Did you catch it all, that litany of torments the poor girl was forced to endure?

Upset at the gross injustice of it all? Well don't be, because not a Walkley-winning word of it is true.

Here is how the folks on Red Russell Hill summarised their investigation's findings, as reproduced this week in a press release issued on behalf of Defence Minister Stephen Smith:

In relation to specific allegations made in the media, the Inquiry found:

• The Commandant did not order or advise the female officer cadet to apologise to cadets in her Division for having gone to the media;
• The female officer cadet was offered counselling in her meeting with the Commandant;
• No Sergeant had spoken offensively to the female officer cadet on leaving the Commandant’s office;
• The female officer cadet was not abused by cadets in morning assembly on 6 April 2011;
• No speech of apology was cancelled because of the volatile mood of cadets and fears it would fuel anger directed at the female officer cadet by fellow cadets; and
• The female officer cadet’s room was not plastered with shaving foam.

It is a pity the Finko & Rickety Review has finished its business, as co-author Matthew Ricketson would almost certainly have wished to include a few words about Riminton's inaccuracies in the finished document.

Ricketson, you see, has served five times as a Walkleys judge. Perhaps, when Riminton returns his Walkley, he should mail it straight to Ricketson, who knows exactly what to do when professional standards are not observed.

And if you think Ricketson needs to be reminded of ethics, the need for accuracy, the danger of unbridled enthusiasm and, most of all, the oddity of a would-be censor teaching journalism, let his boss know all about it:

Phone: 02 6201 5000
Fax: 02 6201 5036
Email: Stephen.Parker@canberra.edu.au 
Postal Address: University of Canberra ACT 2601
Executive Assistant: Ms Alexis Johnson
Phone : 02 6201 5000
Fax: 02 6201 5036
Email: Alexis.Johnson@canberra.edu.au  


UPDATE: If Riminton wraps up the Walkley, colleague Matt Moran can pay for the string, brown paper and stamps:

UPDATE II: Regardless of the reports' other deficiencies, does a scoop which cannot spell the name of one of the drama's chief players deserve to be honoured?

Just so Riminton and Moran will know when they express their regrets in a note of apology, it's "Kafer" not Keefer.

(many thanks to reader Learned Friend for reminding the Professor of Riminton's career-crowning accolade)