New and old media struggles

If you bother to read to the end I won’t promise you’ll be amused but this story about new and old media is at least interesting. The new represented by X and the old in this case represented by the Sydney Morning Herald. X has been here I think since 2007 the SMH since I think 1831.

I saw a tweet by someone I follow and I won’t include his name here because I don’t want to cause any consternation or upset. I don’t have a problem with this poster usually but this event was so extraordinary that I just had to comment. He wrote:

Now I'm not one to speculate as you know but if you were Justice Lee picking up the paper today and seeing a headline saying a lying recidivist and alleged rapist should receive compensation, I dunno, I'd probably be taking a dim view.

I immediately thought that there had been an announcement in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case. It had been in the media a lot the previous year. I personally had heard nothing so when my acquaintance tweeted this my ears pricked up. Had the judge said something? Surely I would’ve seen an announcement if the case had been brought to a conclusion.

So I responded with a question and my acquaintance replied with a link to the story that had appeared on the SMH website a day or two before. I had seen this story and it was just word of what the lawyers for one party had suggested should be done. I asked if the SMH had done wrong by publishing the story.

But the judge hasn't announced anything, this story is just reporting on the progress of the case. There doesn't seem to b anything abt this story that's exceptional from a legal standpoint. Were you suggesting otherwise?

He said “No” and I asked again if the SMH had done something wrong.

But [name removed] your tweet suggests something different. It seemed to me that reporters who had been invited into the court and had done their job as the judge wanted them to do were the object of your opprobrium. Correct me if I'm wrong. Did the SMH do something inappropriate here?

He told me to let it go, I told him to be wary of defaming the plaintiff.

This highlights a certain problem that new media has with regard to the instruments of government. People who use new media have trust issues for whatever reason, I can’t fathom what they are in every case, in fact in most cases there’s no way to know why a person might distrust authority, but the fact is that my acquaintance worked for a media company for all of his adult life.

What to make of this event?

It’s funny how posters like my acquaintance crow with delight when an election result that is favourable to them transpires, how they celebrate when someone they hate is successful convicted of some offence. Yet they still don’t like authority, in this case simply the authority the SMH has to be trusted based on 190-odd years of operation. 

If this situation doesn’t illustrate the conflict between the new and old medias I don’t know what does. You see here a electronic platform that is being used to publish defamatory material with the assistance of a company that is legally going about its business as the judge wants. My acquaintance is exploiting the company for his own purposes.

Calling someone an “alleged” rapist is bad enough, the word at least shields the poster from possible action. The other accusation? Bruce Lehrmann has shown no inclination to let things go, and his case in court at the moment hinges on what the judge thinks about his testimony and the testimony of the woman he is accused of assaulting. 

This is the thing with social media, the release is instantaneous, you can get things off your chest but they can come back to bite you. I contacted Seven West Media, which had paid for Bruce Lehrmann’s accommodation. I had tried to find out who was representing Lehrmann and in the news stories had only been able to discover the names of his barristers. Now I needed that of his solicitor.

UPDATE

• The initial poster blocked me then about five days later unblocked me saying “I’m sorry”. Another person’d gotten involved who also blocked me, but so far no apology from that quarter. I did find out where she works though (in an art gallery).
• I sent an email to Lehrmann’s solicitor but they never got back to me. As at the time of posting this the judge in the case still hadn’t made an announcement.

Details of Assange case are starting to disappear

I was reminded of Julian Assange last night when another segment came on the nightly news detailing the progress of the extradition case currently being heard in the UK. Assange is still in prison and his future remains up in the air. I wonder how he is faring and I remember again the first time I saw Julian, in 2009, when I was at my computer and I saw a video of a young man enthusiastically making an announcement at a podium. Assange quickly became a global phenomenon and the waters soon became muddy.

I’ve long been a supporter of Julian though I don’t think he’s ever been a journalist. Because he was publishing documents it’s possible to confuse categories but his relationship with the media has always been contradictory and rebarbative. The number of journalists this publisher has pissed off is very long and I have no doubt he’ll continue to try to use the media for his own purposes as time passes.

‘Don’t extradite Assange’ read this sign (see above). ‘Don’t extradite our rights,’ it goes on, conflating the destiny of the sign’s subject and that of the person holding it. I can feel the anger and I share a part of it myself. I just don’t know what the US has against Assange, and hope that, at the very least, that part of justice that is the public airing of positions can be allowed, with the help of the appropriate authorities, to take effect. 

The above photo shows the beginning of the forgetting. It was necessary for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to put up a shot showing a newspaper headline in order to orient viewers. Perhaps without such an establishing shot many would be puzzled over the identity of this person with the strange name.

Assange will continue to polarise and to unite. The following photo shows a few of the people who were outside on the street in London for the protest against the UK authorities. People are angry that Julian is still locked up and in a way they have a right to be angry. I sometimes feel puzzled by the state of affairs but I want to know more. 

A little ruckus over the Sussexes’ second child

This article isn’t a swipe at the media but is, instead, a swipe at those who exploit it. I’ll start on 15 February when, at 7.30am Sydney time, America’s Associated Press tweeted that Duke and Duchess of Sussex were expecting their second child. What followed in my limited universe of hopes and aspirations was very small, the contretemps, and hardly worth mentioning but for the consistency of the replies to my adventure, which had been, as follows:

Odd! Considering the Sussex' difficult relationship w the media, why trumpet about Megan again being in the family way? I don't understand ..

Just to make it clear I was genuinely puzzled I put a small emoji in at the end of the post, a quizzical face with a half-frown and blank eyes. I thought the emoji might take any sting out of the post, render it bland and qualify it with the sort of humour – obvious and conventional – that you need to use on Twitter if you want to avoid difficult interactions with people who are more likely to express anger than to empathise with what you’re feeling.

I got anger. One person replied:

They confirmed the news to get it out of the way so paparazzi wouldn’t have an incentive to stalk them for a scoop. Are you new here?

This person was more reasonable:

Because think of all the media outlets commenting on how fat she's getting over the coming months? If they drip feed the news they want the media to have then fair play to them.

As was this (not entirely convincing) riposte:

Meghan is an American actress and celebrity. We would care if she wasn't married to Harry. We're just especially delighted because they are an incredible power couple who are deeply in love. I'm so glad he's away from that toxic family and living his best life.

Over on Facebook I also had grief, having posted this:

Associated Press just announced The Sussexes are expecting a new child. Find it hard to judge Megan but it seems odd to go to the media again after having just won a court case against the British tabloids. If you're going to critique the media -- and even take them to court -- surely you'd want to avoid using them entirely. It seems silly to me, but others will have different views, I'm aware ...

A person used Facebook to snippily correct my spelling of the duchess’ name (I’d put “Megan” – a capital crime in itself), and added:

The case was around the press printing a private letter between Meghan and her father.

The royal tradition of sharing the news of new arrivals is something quite different.

She went on to say that she saw a different standard being applied to Meghan compared to other members of the royal family, with a coda containing information to the effect that she wasn’t a fan of the royals in general – which I took to mean that she supports the idea of an Australian republic.

With one of my Twitter adversaries (almost readying himself for pistols at dawn) I had a further discussion. He said,

I don’t know how to tell you this, but when people get pregnant they often announce it.

To which I replied (considering his response to at least have been civil):

Sure mb to family, but not to the world. Megan and Harry have made a point of critiquing the media. Megan even won a court case recently. If William mentions it in passing to the media that's enough, surely.

To which he responded:

We announced ours on Twitter and Facebook. We don’t have a spokesperson. 

Don’t you have something better to clutch your pearls over?

Ouch! As a parting shot I replied:

I should get new pearls. My old string has been worn down to nubs from constant fretting.

He finally shut up, probably because I’d added another emoji to my humorous tweet, this time a face with eyes of different sizes, as though my avatar were demented, and with its tongue sticking out of its mouth. This emoji was more aggressive than the first one – the replies to my fairly innocuous tweet had been, some of them, unnecessarily nasty – but it still contained a sting, just to let my interlocutor know I wasn’t a complete pushover. Someone else said,

They quit being working royals. They didn't enter a monastery

*Sigh* 

It was all – the sarcasm, the threat of a flame war if I carried on (which I didn’t), the negative emotions being expressed rather than positive ones – all of it was pretty standard for Twitter. Here was all the evidence anyone could need of how fear and loathing has come to characterise public debate, and while reactions to my well-meaning comment were often humorous, I was, in all cases, the butt of the jokes. Not the media and certainly not Meghan who, as had happened so many times, was clearly a figure whose destiny provokes the strongest possible reactions in people.

The AP story that caused all the reactions had the title, “Duchess of Sussex expecting 2nd child, a sibling for Archie,” and was, therefore innocent enough. It also contained an image showing Harry and Meghan walking along together before a collection of stray individuals. The royal couple are holding an umbrella – or, at least, Harry is. Meghan in the photo has her hand gripping Harry’s right arm. In her right hand she holds a clutch and she is dressed – looking slim and terrific (absent baby bump) – in a light-blue gown. They are out for the evening perhaps, I thought to myself, at a concert. 

In fact it had been an awards night. (This article kindly lists all of Meghan’s fashionable clothing, just so the photo is not wasted.) Marie Claire had a story about the same event, which was in March last year.  

But – don’t look at me! (maintain a civil tongue, now) – three days before the AP story went up, the Sydney Morning Herald had a story headlined, “Meghan Markle wins privacy battle.” 

Meghan Markle has won her privacy battle against a British tabloid, with a court ruling the publication of a letter she sent her father was unlawful.

The video on the newspaper’s website started with a still image that was also taken at the 2020 Endeavour Awards, the only difference between the two images being that for the video the SMH photo had been taken from a different angle.

Back on Facebook someone I only know from using that platform for communication, said:

They want it both ways and all on their terms

Which I thought summed up the situation perfectly, and which had been – in my initiative sallie – the nub of the matter. The royals in question were milking an opportunity to raise their brand since – now that they’d split formally from Harry’s dysfunctional family – they would in future partly rely on money they could earn from their own enterprise in order to pay the bodyguards and the hotels and the first-class seats in international passenger jets (at least, once the vaccine had started to kick in and borders opened up again).

Bing lied to me. Harry and Meghan are no longer “senior” royals, and in a January 2020 story Time put up this:

In a statement shared on their official Instagram page on Jan. 8, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said that, as they transition away from their role as “senior” royals, they plan to “work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.”

In the AP story there’s this:

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “Her Majesty, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales and the entire family are delighted and wish them well.”

Rancour abates on account of the happy occasion (blood is thicker than water) despite a tense separation of what were – once upon a time – shared interests. But being aspirational Harry and Meghan are not going to let a good opportunity pass by them. They do, indeed, want to have their cake – be unburdened by the exigencies of royal routine – and eat it, too – they’re not going to miss a chance to capitalise on the fever for royalty shared by most of the community.

It ensures an unlimited supply of lucrative offers from different parts of the global community. For these two are, without question, global superstars. The crème de la crème. Yet people still sympathise with them. With Meghan especially. As though they were people “just like us”.

Her problem is that relations with The Mail on Sunday (the British tabloid she sued in court) and its ilk – economic loss will be offset by publicity for the machinery of signification – are likelier to continue, in future, fraught if – as she’s done with her pregnancy announcement – she cravenly capitalises on the intersection of family and public sphere. 

Of course, we cannot know what the future holds. We can only hope that, unlike their grandfather, her children grow up content with their lot and able to lead fulfilling and productive lives. While, considering what happened to Harry’s mother, kicking up a fuss over the expected baby is probably not wise, retirement would lead to a fall in income.