MEDIA SCRUTINY

This webpage menu header ‘MEDIA SCRUTINY‘ on this website, is an account of the media reporting on Australian prisoner Mr Julian Knight.   It is extensive, since its sells more newpapers and advertising, especially since most of the writing is sensationalist.    We don’t embellish most of the media articles as being ‘news reporting’ nor ‘journalism’.  Most are ‘opinions’, ‘bias’, and slurs by opinionated ‘columnists’ and newspaper editors with a contemptible yet ignorant prejudice against Mr Knight.

The most vitriolic and hateful being Melbourne 3AW shock jock Neil Mitchell and Melbourne TV Channel Nine’s George Donikian, both aged 72 (in 2024) and retired from media campaigning.  The two should right a joint book in their retirement on Duntroon Bastardisation and investigate how it caused Hoddle Street.

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about yet refuse to investigate.”

~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

The following is supposedly the journalistic ethical standards set by the leading media industry body in Australia.

MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics

Respect for truth and the public’s right to information are fundamental principles of journalism. Journalists search, disclose, record, question, entertain, comment and remember. They inform citizens and animate democracy. They scrutinise power, but also exercise it, and should be responsible and accountable.

MEAA members engaged in journalism commit themselves to:

Honesty 
Fairness 
Independence 
Respect for the rights of others

Journalists will educate themselves about ethics and apply the following standards:

  1. Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts.  Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis.  Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply.
  2. Do not place unnecessary emphasis on personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, family relationships, religious belief, or physical or intellectual disability.
  3. Aim to attribute information to its source. Where a source seeks anonymity, do not agree without first considering the source’s motives and any alternative attributable source. Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances.
  4. Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence.
  5. Disclose conflicts of interest that affect, or could be seen to affect, the accuracy, fairness or independence of your journalism. Do not improperly use a journalistic position for personal gain.
  6. Do not allow advertising or other commercial considerations to undermine accuracy, fairness or independence.
  7. Do your utmost to ensure disclosure of any direct or indirect payment made for interviews, pictures, information or stories.
  8. Use fair, responsible and honest means to obtain material. Identify yourself and your employer before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast. Never exploit a person’s vulnerability or ignorance of media practice.
  9. Present pictures and sound which are true and accurate. Any manipulation likely to mislead should be disclosed.
  10. Do not plagiarise.
  11. Respect private grief and personal privacy. Journalists have the right to resist compulsion to intrude.
  12. Do your utmost to achieve fair correction of errors.

Guidance Clause: Basic values often need interpretation and sometimes come into conflict. Ethical journalism requires conscientious decision-making in context. Only substantial advancement of the public interest or risk of substantial harm to people allows any standard to be overridden.”

 

SOURCE:   MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance,  https://www.meaa.org/meaa-media/code-of-ethics/

What a load of wholesome goodness tripe!   This website is not required to, and does not seek to adhere to, such moral claptrap.   Julian Knight is entitled to say what he wants.

In 2012, at the request of the Victorian Parole Board, forensic psychiatrist Prof Paul Mullen as expert witness wrote of prisoner Julian Knight:

“The combination of youth, immature rage at the world’s unfairness, suicidal despair, grandiosity, fixation on weapons, fantasies of self sacrifice are unlikely to be repeated.”   

So, Mr Knight poses no risk of harm to people.

Yet this was reported by the vitriolic Herald Sun 25th October 2012 of News Corps under the following editorial heading”  Julian Knight a risk of re-offending, experts warn” and lead clause: “Read the Knight dossier: THE risk of Hoddle Street murderer Julian Knight re-offending remains, experts assessing his parole find.”

Clearly, the opposite of what the expert stated.

Ethical journalism is non-existent at News Corp.  This makes the MEAA a toothless tiger and its code of ethics hollow words.  Self-regulation is always a joke and a cop out by government in its duty to enact appropriate legislation and then dutifully enforce it.

 

[In Julian Knight’s own words:]

“Media Reports

I have attached photocopies of two press reports which contain accounts of my time at Duntroon:

  1. ‘The Julian Knight Story: How rejection turned Knight into a murderer‘, by Keith Moor, The Herald, Friday 4 November 1988, page 1
  2. ‘An obsession with firearms, a short course in rejection, a sniper stalks‘, by Paul Conroy, The Age, Friday 11 November 1988, page 21.
  3. I have also attached a report of public comments made by forensic psychologist Tim WATSON-MUNRO at a conference in Hobart during 12-13 November 1988 (‘Bastardisation under fire’ by David McKnight, in The Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 14th November 1988, page 10) (see Attachments 9-11)
  4. On 14 December 1988, the ABC broadcasted its TV documentary ‘Hoddle Street‘ produced by David MORGAN and Mark RUSE, and narrated by Jonathan HOLMES.  This documentary included excerpts from an interview with the Commandant of RMC, Major-General Murray BLAKE.  It also included commentary on my time at Duntroon by Tim WATSON-MUNRO and Dr David SIME.  As mentioned above, Major-General BLAKE conceded in his interview that I had been subjected to two acts of ‘bastardization’ whilst at RMC.  Both Mr WATSON-MUNRO and Dr SIME were critical of the Army’s handling of my discharge in light of the circumstances surrounding my discharge.  I have been informed that it is possible to purchase a copy of the “Hoddle Street” documentary from ABC Programme Sales.

Since my sentencing in 1988, details of my service at Duntroon have appeared in Dr Darren MOORE’s history of Duntroon (Darren C. Moore, ‘Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-2001’, RMC of A, Canberra, 2001, at pages 153-156), and on Wikipedia (www.en.wikipedia.org/wikilJulian Knight).   I have attached extracts from both of these sources (Attachments 12 & 13).  Dr MOORE’s book also contains a section on bastardization at Duntroon (pages 385-386) which accords almost exactly with the situation I found myself in at the college.  The only difference from the description given by Dr MOORE is that the bastardization myself and other selected 3rd Class cadets were subjected to was inter-not intra-class [that is between the Duntroon officer cadet class levels 1,2 3, not within a single cadet class].

Of the 128 staff cadets listed as being members of the 1/87 Class at RMC [i.e the Januray 1987 intake], one was killed in a car accident on 16 August 1987 (Staff Cadet Doug BARTLE CSC No 5225), [R.I.P.] and 31 never graduated (a failure rate of 24%).  A number of those cadets who resigned were serving soldiers or NCOs [non-commissioned Army officers] who returned to their [Army] units.”

[SOURCE:  The above is an extract in a series of Julian KNIGHT’s records as part of his 97-page ‘Personal Account’ of his 6-month relentless persecution at RMC Duntroon submitted to the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce dated 26 November 2013, pp.91-92].

Selected Media Videos on Hoddle Street Shootings of 1987:

 

 

 

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