Danby’s diatribe: The AJN responds
Last week, Michael Danby launched an extraordinary public attack on The AJN in a letter sent to his constituents in Melbourne Ports. The letter not only disparaged the newspaper and individual journalists, but was also littered with factual inaccuracies. The AJN urged Michael to send a new letter correcting the errors, however he did not respond. That being the case, AJN editor Zeddy Lawrence sets the record straight.
Michael claims that an article about Syria written by himself, Carl Ungerer and Peter Khalil that appeared in The Age on June 3 was “offered but not published by The AJN”.
In fact, that article was never offered to The AJN. Two-and-a-half weeks earlier, on the afternoon of Monday, May 16, a different article on Syria, was emailed to The AJN by Michael’s office. (This was submitted under Michael’s name alone, not Ungerer’s or Khalil’s.) His office was informed that there was no room in that week’s newspaper but that we would endeavour to run it the following week. Rather than accept that response, a heated email exchange ensued. Even in the midst of the row, I asked our international editor if he could include the article the following week. However, during our email exchange Michael wrote “my article is of course withdrawn and I will distribute it directly to your readers”.
Michael claims “Despite great efforts by me, the Jewish News failed to report” insights into Julia Gillard’s positive stances on Israel as highlighted in a Four Corners program on February 7.
Notwithstanding the fact that Julia Gillard’s strong record on Israel and the Jewish community has been covered regularly and at length by The AJN, the week after Four Corners aired, we ran a full-page feature on the Prime Minister, titled “Israel on her mind”, which focused on this very topic (18/02). With regards to Gillard’s stance on Israel as a student leader cited by the program and referred to by Michael in his letter, The AJN had in fact covered the story on July 23, 2010, in an article that appeared on page three of the paper, and that included quotes from a spokesperson for Gillard. The story was also repeated in the “Israel on her mind” feature. Gillard’s support of Israel during the Gaza conflict, which Michael referred to, has also been well chronicled over the months in The AJN. Further, it is worth noting that The AJN was the very first newspaper Gillard spoke to upon becoming Prime Minister last year, after we contacted her over that week’s allegations regarding her relationship with Ubertas. As for Michael’s “great efforts” to get us to report something we patently had reported previously and did report again, these consisted of one email including extracts from the program and asking if I’d seen it, and another in which he gave a couple of personal quotes saying the program confirmed her attitude to Israel.
Michael claims the newspaper ignored his “challenge to the editor … that this information was of more interest than full pages on ‘Are dinosaurs kosher?’ or ‘Was Jack the Ripper Jewish?’.
This is incorrect on a number of counts. The challenge he refers to had nothing to do with the Julia Gillard interview, which was broadcast three months before the dinosaurs article and four months before the Jack the Ripper article. The challenge was confined solely to his Syria article, which his office was informed we were hoping to run, and the dinosaurs article and the Jack the Ripper feature had not yet been published Second, the challenge, was not “ignored”. It was addressed in two emails to Michael in which I explained that the dinosaurs article, which he had dismissed as a frivolity, had every right to be in the paper. First, the article was just one page out of 44 pages. Note that 10 of those pages were devoted to local/national news and six were devoted to international news. Add letters, opinions, sports, religious and arts pages in to the mix – and the balance can hardly be seen to be veering towards “infotainment” or “very unserious”, as he claims. In point of fact, the dinosaurs article and the Jack the Ripper article were actually very serious, and not “frivolities” as Michael claimed in an email to me. The former sought to examine how Judaism, which dates the world as less than 6000 years old, can be reconciled with evidence of dinosaurs existing millions of years ago. The latter offered a rare historical insight into the anti-Semitism that permeated Britain and the British establishment in the late 19th century. Finally on this point, as I tried to explain to Michael, as a community newspaper we have to cater to a lot of different interests and age groups within the community. Our readers are not, and cannot be expected to be, solely interested in topics that interest him. We have to offer a variety. In any case, a casual glance through any issue of the paper reveals that matters of political, communal or religious interest far outweigh anything that could be termed “infotainment” or “unserious”.
Michael claims we have “downplayed positive developments and, indeed serious reporting about national politics in Canberra”.
This ignores extensive coverage given to the elections last year (indeed, as part of our coverage we organised a public debate in which Michael took part), exclusive interviews with Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Ron Boswell, Josh Frydenberg, Mark Dreyfus, Stephen Smith, Kelly O’Dwyer and Julie Bishop, to name just a few who come to mind, exclusive columns written for the paper by the likes of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, and countless other articles every week relating to political developments of interest to the community, ranging from Israel to Iran and from school security to shechita. It should also be noted that prominent coverage, exclusive columns and interviews and other such articles relating to state politics are also a regular staple of the paper.
“Censored,” screams the top line on page two of Michael’s letter referring to a letter he sent to the newspaper which was not published.
For the record, it should be noted that the letter was emailed directly to a journalist and not to the correct address. It states quite clearly on the letters page “Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication.” This, of course, is a procedural issue and we should not get hung up on it. However, not including a letter does not amount to censorship – it amounts to not including a letter. As with any newspaper, there is only a limited amount of space each week, and as with all stories, judgments must be made as to what is and isn’t included. No guarantee is given that letters will be published and no letter writer has an automatic right to have their letter published. That applies to Michael Danby just as it applies to Mrs Cohen from Caulfield or Mr Levy from Balaclava. Further, when the story Michael was emailing about was published in The AJN, he was approached for a comment. While there was not room for all of his response in the article, the key element of relevance in this instance was included. While we have published letters by Michael, and will continue to do so, let us not forget that the letters page offers members of the public the chance to have their say and cannot be reserved for those who already have a platform in this and other media outlets.
Michael accuses The AJN of being “increasingly Sydney focused”.
Certainly, the Sydney edition is increasingly Sydney focused but this is the first time I have ever heard this criticism levied against the Melbourne edition and I would ask him to provide evidence. The Melbourne issue is very clearly dominated by stories of interest to the Melbourne community. Sydney stories are included when they are thought to be relevant to Jews in both states, for example Marrickville Council’s support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. Indeed it seems contradictory for Michael to complain about us being increasingly Sydney focused in the specific context of us not including his letter about the Greens in Marrickville.
Michael claims we may be “unwittingly assisting the anti-Israel Greens”.
From the dawn of the Marrickville boycott, we have run countless articles, op eds and editorials attacking this iniquitous policy. Indeed, even before the Marrickville boycott and long before other newspapers took an interest in the BDS campaign locally, we ran pieces questioning the Greens stance on Israel and highlighting the dangers of BDS. Further, our coverage has always included comments from senior politicians across the spectrum and community leaders disavowing the policy and the Greens in general for their extremism. And it is a credit to our coverage that other publications have picked up on stories that we have run. Finally, given that Michael is quoted or mentioned in no fewer than two stories in this week’s AJN and that he regularly features in our pages, and given the facts here, I would urge any reader of his letter who infers that we have some kind of axe to grind or that we censor the Member for Melbourne Ports to think again. In the meantime, it should be noted that we have twice invited Michael to meet us to clear the air. After ignoring the first invitation, he accepted the second but sadly for both parties that was after he had sent out his damaging letter. The facts now established, we again extend an invitation to Michael to meet us, so we can lay this affair to rest and focus our energies on how we can work together on matters of mutual interest, namely the Jewish community and Israel.
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