Reptiles and shysters

Littlemore peddles loosely-stitched thesis to Fink … Human Rights Commission beds down with Rio Tinto … Sound and fury from a Murdoch editor, signifying nothing … Styles v Clutz - parties issue peachy settlement sentiments … State media invaded by Poland 

Mistaken notionsDid you get to hear about Stuart (Keys) Littlemore's efforts before Ray Finkelstein's inquiry into the print media? 

Keys was peddling his old line that journos need to be regulated, with the prospect of being struck-off if they are naughty - just like chiropodists, dentists and lawyers.  

It's a reheated version of the thesis found in the remaindered tract The Media and ME, and it's based on his mistaken notion that reptiles of the press are itching to be regarded as members of a "professional" class. 

It's nonsense. Journalists are perfectly content to be members of a craft, into which entry is free and formal qualifications not essential. 

A key plank to Keys' thesis, so to speak, is that the discipline of defamation actions has gone out the window because damages awards are too low, so the reptiles need to be kept in line with an enforceable disciplinary regime. 

To hammer home his point he recited to Fink a series of rotten journalistic lapses, all by TV reporters. 

As we know television is already regulated by ACMA, at which point Keys' submission started to go wobbly. 

He has also been under the delusion that his old TV show Media Watch was a "regulator", claiming it was the only thing that journalists feared. 

In fact, the opposite is the case. Most hacks regarded it as a badge of honour to be pinged by the comical sneerer. 

Under Littlemore the program focussed on spelling mistakes and silly captions and the usual commercial TV excesses. 

In his 10 years in the saddle the show hardly ever broke a significant story, with the exception of Barcelona Tonight - for which the research was provided by an eagle-eyed Spanish speaking barrister in Sydney. 

One more tiny thing; Keys seems to be in a muddle about who is self regulated and who is not. 

Journalists are not an entirely self-regulating tribe because the courts also have a big say about journalistic behavior. 

The only entirely self-regulating outfit left on the planet is the legal profession. 

That's enough of these little things. As a London friend of mine would say, "the man's a crasher". 

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Panguna Copper Mine: Rio Tinto now into "soft PR"The Australian Human Rights Commission stages its annual knees-up on Friday Dec. 9 at the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney. 

Medals and other gongs will be handed out amid feasting and speechifying. 

What is fascinating is that the HRC this year has arranged for mining company Rio Tinto to stump-up the sponsorship for the grand prize - the Human Rights Medal. 

As far as Rio is concerned this is what's known in the trade as "soft PR" - like having Philip Morris fund a lung cancer research centre. 

Radio Atticus has the story about Rio and the HRC here. 

If allegations of war crimes and genocide are anything to go by the mining giant will need to do something more radical than fling loose change at a medals' ceremony. 

A US appeals court in San Francisco has reversed a lower court's dismissal of claims by about 10,000 residents of Bougainville where Rio Tinto, in its earlier manifestation of CRA, operated the notorious Panguna copper mine. 

The Bougainvillians claimed the mine polluted the island and forced them to work in "slave-like" conditions. 

In 1988 workers began to sabotage the mine and the PNG government, backed by Rio, imposed a blockade on the island. By 1997 the ensuing struggle resulted in 10,000 civilian deaths. 

Writing for the 9th Circuit, Judge Mary Schroeder said the complainants' allegations that the company's "worldwide modus operandi" was to treat indigenous non-Caucasians as "expendable" justified restoring the genocide claim to the case. 

The allegation that Rio Tinto acted for its own ends in inducing the PNG government to murder civilians justified restoring the war crimes claim. 

The case has been brought under the Alien Tort Statute, which the US Supreme Court, whose reach is subject to US Supreme Court review. 

It will be a huge relief to everyone at the $100-a-plate HRC din-dins that there's some heart-warming stuff on Rio Tinto's website about respect for others, social well-being and providing a safe and healthy workplace, etc, etc.  

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Mitchell: editor who threatens to sueIt was a year ago that the thin-skinned editor-in-chief of The Australian, Herr Mitchell, reached for his lawyers (Blake Dawson) to issue demands for a retraction and the threat of defamation proceedings against a Canberra academic Julie Posetti. 

Posetti lectures in journalism at Canberra University and in November 2010 attended a journalism education conference in Sydney. 

One of the speakers at the chinwag was Asa Wahlquist, who had been a reporter at The Australian. 

Wahlquist told the attendees that when it came to stories about climate change, life on the paper was very difficult.

It was, "debilitating … it was absolutely excruciating. It was torture". 

Posetti tweeted bits of Wahlquist's remarks to her 9,000 or so followers, including this: 

"Chris Mitchell has gone down the eco-fascist line … in the lead-up to the election the editor-in-chief was increasingly telling me what to write."

After a heavy communication from Holt Street, Wahlquist backed off and recanted her statements. 

Unfortunately, a tape was later released of her remarks, which shows quite explicitly that Posetti's Tweets were a substantially accurate reflection of what had been said at the conference. 

Despite having an entire newspaper at his disposal to trumpet anything he wanted, Mitchell went for Posetti, with this letter from Blakes that among other things incorrectly claimed there was no defence for her defamatory Tweeting. 

Posetti refused to grovel, and for the next 12 months the editor didn't activate his threat to sue her. The year is now up and the great editor is out of time. 

His contention is that The Australian has been even-handed on climate change - the opinion pages are open to all points of view but the editorial line is that carbon emissions are man made and the paper supports the scientific consensus. 

As Robert Manne put it in his Quarterly Essay "Bad News":  

"This is an outright falsehood." 

Manne added: 

"What The Australian has contributed on climate change under Chris Mitchell's watch is a truly frightful hotchpotch of ideological prejudice and intellectual muddle." 

For a year Posetti was silenced by threats by a Murdoch editor. By now we recognise this as a familiar pattern. 

Something for Fink to probe. 

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Chrysanthou and Styles: barrister, client and readerWe're delighted to report that Bridgette Styles' sex discrimination and defamation case against Clayton Utz and one of its associates, Luis Izzo, is now settled.  

This was a gruesome affair that had been bogged down in interlocutory manoeuvres for months. 

Michael McHugh QC worked wonders at a mediation ceremony and very soon sense prevailed. 

Frankly, it had to prevail. Styles was reading at the bar with the barrister on her case, Sue Chrysanthou. 

If, for instance, there had been adverse judicial comments about Styles at any stage of the proceedings this would not have been helpful career-wise. 

For it's part Clutz was well out of it. 

Part of the case involved Ms Styles being taunted in emails sent by employees, by suggestive remarks after work in pubs and by photographs of "the Italian Stallion", pasted on walls adjacent to her office. 

Following the settlement, a judgment that had been redacted has been unredacted and released on Monday by Justice Lucy McCallum. 

Paragraphs 132-138 and 142-146 are the ones that have been restored, because the defamation jury trial will now not happen. 

Stallion and Styles

In rejecting some of Styles' pleadings the judge dealt with strange remarks made to the plaintiff at her Clayton Utz job interview, and an "unseemly" email exchange between employees (including Izzo). 

McCallum said: 

"The emails are no advertisement for male sensitivity; their author evidently no feminist. In one of the emails, Mr Izzo speaks of 'crazy single chicks' who 'just need a good **** to get them back to normal'. 

It is difficult to decide whether it is more surprising that the remarks were made at all (after a century of feminism) or that a lawyer recorded them in an email (after over seven centuries of subpoenas)." 

She went on to say: 

"I do not see how the partners of Clayton Utz ought reasonably to have prevented such correspondence." 

We beg to differ. Joe Catanzariti, the head of the workplace group at the law shop, or someone else in authority, should have come down hard on anything that amounted to harassment, bullying or belittling. That should have been ingrained as part of the "culture" of the place. 

As it turned out, the person sustaining the most damage in the saga is the Italian Stallion. 

The joint statement released by Styles and Clutz on Friday (Nov. 25) was full of effusions. 

Clutz's chief executive partner Darryl McDonut said:  

"I am pleased we were able to reach settlement with Ms Styles. 

During her time at the firm, Ms Styles demonstrated that she has a very good legal skills. 

We wish her well in her legal career." 

It was all peachy, except nothing warm or remorseful from Izzo. 

BTW, Uncle Joe Catanzariti has been elected president of the Law Council of Australia for 2013. 

Apparently, the national body has lined up all its presidents until 2017, when the current chief wallah at the NSW law society S. Westgarth, steps onto the lawyers' gilded throne in Canberra. 

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The speculation machine is in overdrive with news that Spigsy Spigelman will be appointed chairman of the ABC when the king of comb-overs, Maurice Newman, bails out in January. 

The ABC board is full of ambitious thrusters, because (with the exception of managing director Mark Scott) they all have their hands up to be Aunty's chairperson, even Julianne Schultz (prof of public culture) and Jane Bennett (former MD of Ashgrove Cheese). 

If Spigs gets the gig it will make it a clean sweep of public broadcasters chaired by well-connected Poles. 

His old chum Joe Skrzynski became chairman of SBS in December last year. 

A Polish Corridor of state broadcasters.