Media Watch (TV program)

This article is about the Australian television program. For other uses, see Media Watch.

Media Watch
Directed by	David Rector
Presented by	Jonathan Holmes (from 2008)
Theme music composer	Roi Huberman
Country of origin	Australia
No. of seasons	21
Production
Executive producer(s)	Lin Buckfield
Running time	15 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC1
Picture format	576i (SDTV)
Original run	8 May 1989 (1989-05-08) – present
External links
Website

Media Watch is an Australian media analysis television program presented by Jonathan Holmes for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In recent years the program has focused on critiquing the Australian media.

It played a key role in revealing the unethical behaviour of radio talkback hosts, which became known as the Cash for comment affair as was the centre of an investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Authority.

Format

Jonathan Holmes sitting at the "desk".

Media Watch is viewed by some as a watchdog of the Australian media, that investigates and exposes media bias and breaches of journalistic ethics and standards.

The series initially presented a roughly even mix of amusing gaffes (such as miscaptioned photographs) and more serious criticism. Over the years, the emphasis has shifted towards the latter, although the show often begins or ends with a more humorous piece.

Although most episodes of Media Watch focus on any recent incidents of media misconduct, episodes do occasionally focus on a single issue of particular importance (for instance, media coverage of a recent election).

Episodes and presenters

Series		Episodes	Originally aired
			Series premiere	Series final
	1	N/A	8 May 1989 (1989-05-08)	4 December 1989 (1989-12-04)
	2	N/A	12 February 1990 (1990-02-12)	12 November 1990 (1990-11-12)
	3	N/A	11 February 1991 (1991-02-11)	18 November 1991 (1991-11-18)
	4	N/A	10 February 1992 (1992-02-10)	9 November 1992 (1992-11-09)
	5	N/A	8 February 1993 (1993-02-08)	15 November 1993 (1993-11-15)
	6	N/A	14 February 1994 (1994-02-14)	14 November 1994 (1994-11-14)
	7	N/A	13 February 1995 (1995-02-13)	13 November 1995 (1995-11-13)
	8	N/A	12 February 1996 (1996-02-12)	11 November 1996 (1996-11-11)
	9	N/A	10 February 1997 (1997-02-10)	10 November 1997 (1997-11-10)
	10	35	9 March 1998 (1998-03-09)	2 November 1998 (1998-11-02)
	11	35	15 March 1999 (1999-03-15)	8 November 1999 (1999-11-08)
	12	39	7 February 2000 (2000-02-07)	6 November 2000 (2000-11-06)
	13	32	8 April 2002 (2002-04-08)	11 November 2002 (2002-11-11)
	14	39	10 February 2003 (2003-02-10)	3 November 2003 (2003-11-03)
	15	41	9 February 2004 (2004-02-09)	15 November 2004 (2004-11-15)
	16	36	7 March 2005 (2005-03-07)	7 November 2005 (2005-11-07)
	17	38	13 February 2006 (2006-02-13)	30 October 2006 (2006-10-30)
	18	37	26 February 2007 (2007-02-26)	12 November 2007 (2007-11-12)
	19	39	18 February 2008 (2008-02-18)	10 November 2008 (2008-11-10)
	20	40	9 February 2009 (2009-02-09)	9 November 2009 (2009-11-09)
	21	40	8 February 2010 (2010-02-08)	8 November 2010 (2010-11-08)
	22	39	7 February 2011 (2011-02-07)	7 November 2011 (2011-11-07)

At the end of the 2004 season, David Marr announced his intention to step down and return to mainstream journalism, and former Four Corners reporter Liz Jackson became host for 2005; at the end of the 2005 season Jackson returned to Four Corners. Monica Attard hosted the program in 2006 and 2007,. Jonathan Holmes is the current presenter.

• Stuart Littlemore (1989–97)
• Richard Ackland (1998–99)
• Paul Barry (2000),(2010)
• David Marr (2002–04)
• Liz Jackson (2005)
• Monica Attard (2006–07)
• Jonathan Holmes (since 2008)

In June 2010, the ABC announced that former host Paul Barry would be returning as Media Watch's temporary host for three months while Holmes took long service leave. Barry's tenure ran from August to November of that year. Holmes returned when the show did in 2011.

Notable pieces

"Cash for comment"

Main article: Cash for comment affair

In 1999, the program revealed that influential talkback radio hosts Alan Jones and John Laws had been paid to provide favourable on-air comment about companies such as Qantas, Optus, Foxtel and Mirvac, without disclosing these arrangements to listeners. It also persistently criticised the then Australian Broadcasting Authority (superseded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in 2005) as impotent or unwilling to regulate broadcast media, and to properly scrutinise figures such as Jones and Laws. The revelations won Media Watch staffers Richard Ackland, Deborah Richards and Anne Connolly two Walkley Awards: the Gold Walkley, and the Walkley for TV Current Affairs Reporting (Less Than 10 Minutes). In 2004, Media Watch played a major part in forcing the resignation of ABA head David Flint, after it was discovered that Flint had sent Jones admiring and effusive letters at a time when the ABA was investigating Jones concerning further cash for comment allegations. The reports won Media Watch another Walkley, TV Current Affairs Reporting (Less Than 20 Minutes) to staffers David Marr, Peter McEvoy and Sally Virgoe.

60 Minutes 1995 massacre at Srebrenica story

Australian 60 Minutes reporter Richard Carleton sued Media Watch over allegations of plagiarism. The judge found that the allegations were untrue but declined to award any damages. The ABC World Today reported on 18 December 2002: "The veteran reporter was horrified to see Media Watch accuse him of plagiarising a BBC documentary on the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica for his Channel Nine program. But today a judge ruled that even though the program did defame Mr Richard Carleton and two colleagues, it was fair comment and no damages were awarded."

"Defusing an explosive story"

Seven Network reporter Mike Duffy was reported to have launched legal action for defamation against Media Watch in September 2010 over claims his report on a lack of security at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India was a "shocking beat-up". This case is understood to still before the courts as of 16 February 2011.

Cancellation and return

This ability to generate controversy led to the temporary cancellation of the show. In 2000, host Paul Barry was controversially sacked and in 2001, the program itself was axed by Jonathon Shier, the head of the ABC. However, in early 2002, after Shier was himself sacked in equally controversial circumstances, the show returned with Marr as the new host. Whilst Media Watch was off air, Stuart Littlemore returned to the ABC to host Littlemore, a media program that ran for 13 episodes between March and May 2001.

Reception

The show's presenters have taken some pride in the vehemence of the criticism it attracts; at one point, the opening credits were made up of a montage of such criticisms, prominently featuring a description of original presenter Stuart Littlemore as a 'pompous git'. In 2002, the then-editor of The Daily Telegraph, Campbell Reid, sent host David Marr a dead fish; a replica of it is now awarded as the Campbell Reid Perpetual Trophy for the Brazen Recycling of Other People's Work. Known as "The Barra" and bearing the motto Carpe Verbatim, it is awarded annually for bad journalism and particularly plagiarism (a practice for which Reid was frequently criticised).

No media organisation is entirely safe from Media Watch, and it has criticised its own network, the ABC. When David Marr was host from 2002 to 2004, the show often criticised Marr's employer John Fairfax Holdings.^{[citation needed]} David Salter, a former executive producer of Media Watch, has suggested that it is "unwilling to subject Michael Brissenden, a journalist in the ABC's news and current affairs department, to the same level of ethical scrutiny it applies to others." Robert Manne, a supporter of the show, also believes it has historically had a left wing bias.

The Australian, which is regularly criticised by Media Watch, has been a long term counter-critic of the show. In August 2007 it editorialised that Media Watch "lacks journalistic integrity and conducts its affairs along the lines of an insiders' club that pushes its ideological prejudice at taxpayers' expense".

In June 2007, Media Watch strongly criticised The Daily Telegraph, among others, for failing to censor racist comments on their website forums, but then failed to censor strongly anti-Semitic comments on its own web forum. The ABC later launched an internal inquiry into Media Watch's reliance on IslamicSydney, "an Islamic website that peddle[s] anti-Semitic and jihadi messages", for this story.

External links

• Official website
• Media Watch at the Internet Movie Database
• Media Watch at TV.com