STRAIGHT SHOOTING BY GRAHAM PARK, SHOOTERS UNION
The accountants
The media don’t like it when you try to hold them accountable – which is why we must
It has become very clear the mainstream media in Australia do not, collectively speaking, like it when the shooting community tries to hold them to account.
Usually this takes the form of watching our complaints about outright misinformation or falsehoods being published in major media outlets getting chucked straight into the bin. It’s very clear the issue goes well beyond that.
We collectively experienced one of the most egregious examples of this attitude not long ago when Tasmanian Police Minister, Felix Ellis shut down offensive, victim-blaming questions from a journalist who suggested that more guns in the community would lead to more violent home invasions from criminals looking to steal those guns.
Mr Ellis rightly pointed out the question was inappropriate victim-blaming, and that the focus needed to be on the criminals committing the crimes.
Instead of acknowledging the question was over the line, we saw hand-wringing articles on the ABC and other commentary saying Mr Ellis was wrong to have “attacked” the journalist, and for not clamping down on some of the more colourful comments on the Minister’s Facebook page about the issue.
We believe Mr Ellis was right to call out the line of questioning he did. No journalist has ever, to the best of our knowledge, asked questions following a violent car theft along the lines of “well, if there weren’t so many cars in the community, wouldn’t that mean events like this are more likely to occur?”
Comments on stories relating to recreational hunting are often full of people saying hunters should be killed themselves, or otherwise denigrating hunters and wishing harm upon them in various forms.
We never see the mainstream media rushing to cry “unacceptable!” over that or writing lamenting Op-ed pieces about how anti-hunting activists need to chill out. We certainly don’t see them lamenting moderation shortcomings which allow those comments to remain visible on articles or social media sites.
It’s important to reiterate that people making threats against an individual journalist is completely unacceptable and absolutely not something we support or condone. Journalists often need to ask difficult or uncomfortable questions as part of their job – but they, and the media more generally, are not immune from rebuke or criticism when they over-step the mark with those questions.
It’s also very important to acknowledge there are media outlets out there doing good work and reporting fairly on firearm issues. You’re reading one of them right now, but there are others – particularly Queensland Country Life and its sister paper The North Queensland Register, as well as The Land in NSW.
The bigger issue is there’s simply no accountability for media outlets who do the wrong thing. The outlets themselves don’t care and the print media watchdogs – the Australian Press Council and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance – are completely toothless.
None of the media outlets appear to give a hoot if the Press Council finds they did something wrong, and the MEAA cannot act against journalists who are not members. Credit is due to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) who regulate TV and radio broadcasting and do have power behind them – we’ve found them to be very fair in their investigations and treating complaints seriously, regardless of how they ultimately rule on the matter.
We aren’t going to stop criticising (and complaining through the official channels about) anti-gun media bias or misinformation – but if you’re wondering why nothing seems to change, it’s because the media themselves have no reason to change their behaviour. 
Graham Park is the President of Shooters Union Australia.