The public broadcaster fails to look out the f%$&ing window

20 January 2021

In case you haven’t noticed, game hunting is not everybody’s cup of tea. There are people who really, really don’t like it and want it stopped. We vehemently disagree with these people, we think that they are misguided and often narrow minded and even hypocritical – but we live in a fantastic open and peaceful democracy where we are allowed to have different points of view.

We expect groups like The Animal Justice Party, Animals Australia and even, regrettably, the RSPCA to use all of the tools at their disposal to prosecute their agenda. We expect them to play fast and loose with the truth, we expect them to more or less outright lie. We expect that because these people tend to honestly believe that their cause is righteous, and when someone believes that they are righteous they can justify more or less any behavior in the prosecution of their cause.

What we don’t expect (or at least don’t accept) is the mainstream media uncritically helping these people. Professional journalists are ostensibly bound by a code of ethics – they are supposed to commit themselves and their work to “honesty, fairness, independence and respect for the rights of others”. They are supposed to “report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts”. When it comes to the ABC this actually moves beyond such shaky things as principles and moral integrity and into areas of legal obligations and the proper use of a public resource.

A famous adage for journalists is “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the f%$&ing window and find out which is true”

An article published today by the ABC’s Victorian State Political Reporter, Richard Willingham seriously misses the mark. At best it was terribly lazy reporting, accepting mistruths on face value because they conformed to his own cultural bias – a failure to look out the proverbial window.

Mr. Willingham might not have penned the headline of the article – but it does carry his byline.

“Calls for Victorian duck hunting ban take off after survey finds most hunters fail bird identification test”

It is completely false and misleading. The voluntary survey being reported on was in no way a “bird identification test” – neither the reports owners nor its authors made any such assertion and it would be impossible for a reasonable person to read the report and draw such a conclusion.

If a prospective duck hunter fails the Waterfowl Identification Test they don’t get to go out and hunt – plain and simple.

The reality is that without being able to see the questions relied upon to draw the broad conclusions outlined in the “Summary report of hunters knowledge survey findings” it is impossible to judge to what degree any knowledge gaps are real or, for that matter, consequential for safe and sustainable hunting.

Had Mr. Willingham had gone for balance, had he telephoned any number of readily available contact people from major hunting organisations or hunting retailers he would have been told this quite clearly. Had he bothered to spend five minutes or so on Google verifying the facts (looked out the f%$&ing window) he would no doubt have discovered it for himself. 

On a positive note, the article does quote the new Victorian Agriculture Minister re-affirming the Government’s support for licenced duck hunting “The Government has no plans to ban duck hunting” the Minister reportedly said. “It’s both mine and the GMA’s expectation that hunters abide by the conditions attached to their licence, and act safely and responsibly at all times when hunting”.

We’re not naïve, but we do expect much better from the fourth estate – particularly the segment of it which is funded from the public purse.