Media Misled Public on S11

Date: 31 December 2000

Dr Bernard Barrett, a retired academic in history/sociology, has submitted a report to the Victorian State Ombudsman demonstrating that the corporate media and the Victoria police mis-led the public about the S11 protests in Melbourne in September 2000.

The Ombudsman is investigating complaints about police brutality at the protests and also complaints about police removing their personal name tags from their jackets.

Dr Barrett's submission to the Ombudsman says that, judging by TV coverage of the protests,

For three months before the World Economic Forum meeting, the corporate media had taken on a role as counter-protesters. This was especially true of the Herald Sun; this paper's stories looked almost as though they had been cut and pasted from handouts issued by the World Economic Forum, the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, the Victoria Police media office or pro-corporate think-tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs.

The media's portraying of the protesters during those three months as violent created a climate of impending conflict. The media failed to give much coverage to conferences and public meetings, which the protesters held on September 7-10 to discuss the issues of global corporatisation and economic rationalism. This news blackout intensified the focus on conflict and violence.

Although the Age, the Australian and ABC radio featured some discussion about global corporatisation in early September, the Herald Sun and radio 3AW mostly ignored this aspect, instead portraying the protests purely as an outbreak of criminal violence and traffic snarls.

The media, especially the Herald Sun and 3AW, tried to frighten "respectable" people from supporting the protests. Therefore, it would not be surprising if some Herald Sun readers and 3AW listeners at the Casino precinct on September 11-13 were there primarily to "see violence", rather than to facilitate a "non-violent demonstration". West Australian Premier Richard Court and Victorian Opposition Leader Denis Napthine arrived at the venue knowing that they would have a confrontation with the protesters. Evidently, other counter-protesters were also among the crowd.

The Victorian police force had already been criticised by conservative politicians in April 1998 for "failing to crack down" on trade unionists and civil rights protesters in the maritime industrial dispute revolving around the Patrick stevedoring company. It appears that late on Monday 11 September 2000, Premier Steve Bracks authorised the police command to crack down on the WEF protesters. Accordingly the Force Response Unit was unleashed upon the first few people who showed up just before dawn the next morning.

For all these reasons, the media's prophecy of violence became self-fulfilling.

After analysing all the stories and TV footage of September 11-13, I find that the media's written claims about assaults committed by citizens were, in fact, not supported by (and were, in some cases, contradicted by) the TV footage. I am not saying that no member of the public committed any violence around the Crown Casino during the three days, especially in view of the Herald Sun floating the idea of taking along marbles and urine. My point is that, during the three days, the television coverage showed footage of punches and beatings being committed by police and none being committed by civilians.

Of all the news outlets, the Herald Sun was the most "far out" in its verbal assertions when compared with the visual evidence. The Herald Sun's stories consisted of a series of "beat ups".

The protesters were noisy, disruptive and obstructive, yet they were overwhelmingly peaceful. The protests did not constitute a riot and one must question whether the protests justified such violent intervention by the baton-wielding "riot police", the Force Response Unit.

No doubt, many of the "ordinary" police manning the gateways tried to behave with a reasonable degree of professionalism while acting under orders. The violence at the Crown Casino came overwhelmingly from the free-ranging Force Response Unit, anonymous and unaccountable in their helmets and mostly with their name tags removed. Judging by the TV footage, each of the baton-attacks of Tuesday 12 September looks like a riot by the Force Response Unit, aided by the mounted police and others, not a riot by civilians.

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Contact:	Mark Fontaine
Union:	Labor Council of NSW
Email:	markfont@hotmail.com

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