On
June 1, 2015, ABC’s Media Watch presented a segment titled “Horror story lacks
facts” (Barry, 2015), drawing on its investigation of a chilling and “gorging” (Barry,
2015) story told by a federal MP being reported nationally, that shocked Australians
and even citizens in the UK.
The story – young man
reported as an ice addict for having mental illness
The
story was first published on the Central Coast Gosford Express Advocate (the Advocate)’s
website (Stubbs, 2015) in a live blog reporting the Central Coast Ice Summit
held on May 22, 2015. In her opening speech of the Ice Summit, federal MP Karen
McNamara recalled an incident of “a young boy [who was an ice addict] taken
into an emergency department for treatment who gouged out his own eyeballs and
ate them” (Stubbs, 2015).
On
the same day, the claim was parroted by other newspapers including Fairfax’s
Illawarra Mercury (Carr, 2015a), Newcastle Herald (Carr, 2015b), and The Examiner
(Carr, 2015c), as well as the Daily Mail Australia (Sutton, & Quinn, 2015),
The Independent (Saul, 2015), the Daily Star (Drewett, 2015), and the Mirror (Robson,
2015) in the UK. Other News Corp and Fairfax papers, including The Daily
Telegraph (Stubbs, Barnes, & Taylor, 2015a), The Courier-Mail (Stubbs et
al., 2015b), The Australian (Stubbs et al., 2015c), The Herald Sun (Stubbs et
al., 2015d), The Sydney Morning Herald (The
SMH) (Carr, 2015d), and news.com.au (Stubbs et al., 2015e), also published
the story on the next day.
While
people were still discussing whether the story was true, serious doubts had
emerged on social media (Barry, 2015) throughout the weekend. And on the
following Monday, May 25, the myth was busted by Dr Bart Fielden, who had
worked on the case, back in 1999, wrote a letter to the readers of The SMH
(Fielden, 2015):
The patient who ripped his own eyeballs out because
he could see the devil, swallowed them and… vomited them back up… at John
Hunter Hospital while I was working there... He had a chronic mental illness
and I doubt methamphetamine was involved. (Fielden, 2015).
According
to the Foundation for a Drug-Free World (n.d.), the harm for taking crystal
methamphetamine include hallucinations, panic and psychosis. However, a patient
who has mental illness does not necessarily mean that he/she has taken
methamphetamine.
Thus,
we are now unable to confirm whether the claim was true, and which brings us to
the issue whether the information had been verified or double-checked before
being published through the media outlets.
Verification of information
The
first one to ask should be the federal MP who made the claim – had she, and/or
her team, made “any attempts, [before and] since publicly talking about this
young ice addict, to track down the source of the information?” (Australian Broadcasting
Corporation [ABC], 2015a). And, in reply to this question raised by the
Media Watch researcher, Karen McNamara says, “the horrific story… was told to
me by a frontline healthcare professional. I have no reason to doubt their
account of the incident” (ABC, 2015a). She intentionally or unintentionally
avoided the other queries, including when was she first told the story, which
year and in which hospital did the incident happen, and whether or not her
source witnessed the incident by him/herself (ABC, 2015a).
This
is a great mistake made by the MP, but our focus is not on her. The first who
reported the story, as mentioned, was the Advocate, a News Corp paper, which
“reported the statement about the ice addict as part of a live news blog run by
a reporter at the event” (ABC, 2015b). The editor-in-chief says that the team
had “immediately sought further information from Mrs McNamara’s staff” once the
statement was posted on the live blog, and that they had “also contacted John
Hunter Hospital, NSW Health, and NSW Police” (ABC, 2015b).
According
to the responses given to Media Watch from the Hunter New England Local Health
District of the NSW Health (ABC, 2015c), the department advised the Advocate
that they could not find any recent record of the occasion; there was a similar
case at the hospital “more than a decade ago”, however they were unable to
“confirm a link to the drug crystal methamphetamine” (ABC, 2015c). Similar
responses were provided from the NSW Health and NSW Police, and were reflected
in the Advocate’s story (Stubbs, 2015a), as well as those in other News Corp
papers. Meanwhile, Fairfax’s papers published only the responses of the Hunter
New England Health department, but not those of the hospital and the Police
department (Stubbs et al., 2015a).
As
noted by Butler and Rodrick (2007, p.620), the print media in Australia is to
follow a voluntary code of practice by the Australian Press Council, which was
established as early as in 1976, but has recently reviewed its Statement of
General Principles in 2014 (Pearson, & Polden, 2015, p.23). The Principles
state that publications have to “ensure that factual material in news reports…
is accurate and not misleading” and to “provide a correction or other adequate
remedial action if published material is significantly inaccurate or
misleading” (Australian Press Council [APC], 2014). Specifically to
reports related to drugs and drug addiction, the APC suggests that “the harmful
effects of any particular drug should not be exaggerated or minimised” (APC,
2001a), and the news story should highlight possible preventive measures to
tackle drug abuse. “Personal experience or anecdotal evidence,” at the same
time, “should be clearly identified as such” (APC, 2001b) in health and
medical-related news stories; statements and claims should always be
“cross-checked with some other source” (APC, 2001b).
It
is clear that the Express Advocate did not seek confirmation from authorities
prior to releasing the statement on their real-time online blog, which might be
breaching the APC Statement of Principles and guidelines, although most of the
News Corp and Fairfax papers, including the Advocate itself, did mention that
health officials could not link the incident with crystal methamphetamine.
Unfortunately, neither a correction nor a clarification of the report was found
following the story.
Free speech leads to
living truth
However,
when considering free speech and truth, at the same time, Mill (cited in
Butler, & Rodrick, 2007, p.7) has a slightly different view on that. He
explains that an opinion is considered “truth”, and remained as a “living
truth”, if and only if it is continually challenged; otherwise, “if it is not
fully, frequently and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma” (Mill,
1991, p.95). His argument is that free speech should be promoted since truth
can only be discovered when there is a wide circulation of ideas (Butler, &
Rodrick, 2007, p.7), “every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of
truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with
whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended” (Mill, 1991,
p.110).
Therefore,
it can be argued that, even though the truth was not published at the first
place, or false claims were reported, the real truth will be brought out eventually
after an extensive discussion and debate, which is beneficial to the community,
enhancing people’s knowledge consequently. For instance, in this case, Dr Bart
Fielden would not be writing to the SMH to clarify the incident if the
statement by federal MP Karen McNamara was not widely reported and discussed
around the nation. But, on the other hand, we also have to consider the consequences
of making false statements (the act itself), referring to Mill’s utilitarian
theory (Dwyer, 2012, p.12), which might mislead readers and audiences.
Misleading headlines
The
story’s headlines written by various newspaper outlets are also worth investigating.
It
could be said that Fairfax and the Independent had performed better in giving
an appropriate title of the story, comparing to other papers. Carr (2015a), the
journalist for Fairfax, wrote the title, “MP claims addict gouged out and ate eyeballs”,
and even including the MP’s name in the article published on The SMH (Carr,
2015d), since there was no evidence to prove the gouging of eyeballs was
related to the drug. It would be relatively less misleading to mention, at the
very start of the article, that it was only a statement claimed by a particular
person, rather than potentially implying that it was a confirmed case. One of
the UK papers, The Independent, also put “Australian MP claims” (Saul, 2015) at
the end of the headline.
On
the other hand, however, News Corp and two of the British papers mentioned
earlier did not include that in their titles, even though Stubbs, Barnes, and Taylor
(2015a), journalists of News Corp, cited the responses given by the authorities
including the health officials and the NSW Police department.
Epilogue
 |
| Comparison among different newspapers |
It
is, therefore, essential for media practitioners to discuss and reflect on
whether to publish unverified “breaking news” to grab audiences’ attention as
soon as possible, or to confirm information obtained is accurate and reliable
before releasing them to the public. Integrity is very important nowadays for
professional journalists; it is what distinguish them from others, including
“citizen journalists”. It is also essential to contemplate the wordings used in
headlines, so as to avoid misleading propositions.
REFERENCES
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