by Paul McCafferty, President Queensland Law Association
May 1999
For some time the legal profession in Queensland has been subjected to hostile, certainly not friendly, coverage by The Courier-Mail which enjoys something of a monopoly in Brisbane and is the largest circulating newspaper in Queensland.
Some criticism has been fair. Some has not and we have always attempted to set the record straight by presenting the newspaper with facts and 'backgrounder' meetings.
We understand that in the cut-and-thrust of daily journalism we cannot be too sensitive, too precious, about relatively minor errors. Indeed, often our approach is not to ask for a correction but simply to provide additional information for working reporters so that errors are not perpetuated.
Recently, however, we have been the victim of treatment from The Courier-Mail which warrants an accusation of unfair and biased reporting.
As professionals involved in the daily trauma of conflict it could be said we need to have thicker skins. There's some truth in that but the power of the media - which is no reflection on the quality of the media - is that public opinion, thus public policy, is influenced by what is reported.
Public perception is important, hence our defamation laws. Indeed, our submission on legal reform to the Attorney-General contains some recommendations for fundamental reform because, though the facts shown there is no problem, the public perception is that there is a problem and it is not within the capacity of the profession, given a hostile media and ideological government, to change this perception.
I feel it is important to let you all know the sequence of events which resulted in the conclusion that The Courier-Mail is, at least, guilty of sloppy editorial management and, at worst, conducting some form of lawyer-bashing vendetta.
Lawyer-bashing may raise sniggers late in the night in a newsroom bereft of humour, but it is as unproductive as any form of discrimination because it is unbalanced and thus bad reporting.
To treat its readers with respect The Courier-Mail should ensure balanced coverage of the issues now confronting the legal profession. It isn't - it's being selective.
Immediately we present our reform submission to the Attorney-General we sent a copy to The Courier-Mail, with a press release highlighting the newsworthy aspects of our submission.
The release was headlined, "Solicitors challenge government on regulation". It said: "Queensland's peak professional body for solicitors, the Queensland Law Society, has told the government it wants to hand back the job of regulating the profession.
"If the government accepts the recommendation, made in the Society's submission to the Attorney-General's review of the legal profession released today, Queensland will be the first to relinquish the role.
"Society President Paul McCafferty said the state government had imposed the self-regulatory function on the profession and had for decades dictated the terms, but had failed to support or defend the system. Instead the government had chosen to hide behind the popular misconception that the profession protected its own in a type of 'Caesar-judging-Caesar' situation".
Over the past few years The Courier-Mail has been the messenger of sometimes strident calls for an end to Queensland's system of legal profession regulation. But not a word on this recommendation, nor any aspect of the Society's submission, has been reported in that paper.
Yet within days of this submission from the official representatives of solicitors in Queensland, The Courier-Mail allocated substantial space to an article from a suburban solicitor questioning the background of the self-appointed, unregistered and somewhat mysterious Queensland Legal Reform Group. And within days space was found to publish in full a response of this 'group', a response which added no further facts to their pedigree.
If that smacks of selective reporting worse was to come.
An article in the business section of The Courier-Mail on April 15 dealt with the sale of APPIIL by the Queensland Law Foundation. The article contained a number of errors. Rather than request, or demand, a correction I sent a letter to the editor.
The Courier-Mail eventually published the letter, but only after a number of calls from us.
The Courier-Mail, it seems to us, is intent on manipulating the message it sends to the community about lawyers. We hope that is not the case; if it is, society suffers when the media loses its objectivity, its passion for a "fair go".
We would of course take the matter up with the Australian Press Council, an organisation wholly dependent for its existence on funding by the very media it 'investigates'.
To put 'perception' into context, Professor Dennis Pearce, chairman of the Press Council, says this in his Chairman's forward in the 1998 annual report, "The Council has no compulsory powers as it does not have a legislative base. Nor does it have any enforcement powers, even of a contractual nature. In all these respects the Council is quite different from other bodies, whether statutory or self-regulatory, that deal with complaints from members of the public about the actions of government agencies or professional or industry bodies."
He goes on to say, "I had heard much before my appointment of the Council being a 'toothless lapdog' of the press proprietors. It was said that it voted on factional lines and no publication paid any attention to it."
Doesn't it now seem the accusation of "Caesar judging Caesar" is the pot calling the kettle black.
I raise this simply to inform you that we have done everything in our power to keep the media, thus the public, informed. Sadly, it seems, for the moment, that having sorted the wheat from the chaff The Courier-Mail prefers to publish the chaff.