Response to Sally Neighbour's email

Dear Sally

A feature film of mine screened at the Sydney Film Festival many years ago was voted the 3^rdworst film of the festival. It was  a painful experience for me, but criticism of our work is an integral part of the role we have chosen to play in the 4^thEstate. This was long before it became customary, as it now is, alas,  to label critics as  ‘haters’ and hence dismiss their criticisms rather than address them. 

Your labelling of my email to you as ‘hate mail’ seems to have been made impulsively, as were your “Putin’s bitch” and “Zombie supporter” tweets. Such a label would not bother me too much if it were not now on record in the ABC archives. I know from experience that unless corrected, as a result of a challenge from myself, at some point in the future the ‘hate mail’ epithet could well be used as a weapon against me.  “James, you are on record as having sent hate mail to Sally Neighbour and we have no intention of communicating with you on this matter.” This is how any future criticism I might make of the ABC could be dismissed.

Please, Sally, point out one paragraph, one sentence, one phrase or even one word in my email to you which justifies your ‘hate mail’ epithet. If you cannot do so, please acknowledge in writing that I have not sent you ‘hate mail’.

As far as the 4 Corners Assange programs are concerned, the horse has now bolted and critical feedback is only of value if it assists the ABC in making a truly balanced program about Assange in the future.

If I had been Executive Producer of the two 4 Corners Assange programs and presented with two ‘fine cuts’ of the programs that were put to air, I would have made the following notes and asked the following questions of the director and editor:

Michael Brissenden says in voice over, “We ask the question, is Julian Assange a Hero or a Villain”. Is this the most important question to ask? Could it be that the focus on Assange’s personality, his character, his status as a celebrity and icon, whilst a great hook with which to capture the audience’s attention, runs the risk of deflecting attention away from the more important question: “Should  the British and Australian governments allow Julian Assange to be extradited to the United States to face the very real possibility of dying in prison?”

A few notes about the “Collateral murders’ references to weapons included in the Ep One.

“There’s more of them walking by and one of them has a weapon,”we hear, over a shot of men in the street. “He’s got a weapon too,” we hear a little later. In the absence of any context, the viewer could be forgiven for thinking that these might be dangerous armed men. This is a war, they are the enemy, and perhaps they pose a genuine threat to…someone. Who? The stage has been set. Within the limited context you have provided, killing these men comes across as extreme, callous,  but not necessarily as a war crime. Fair enough. However…

Just before the men are shot from the helicopter, graphics identify two individuals:“Namir about to shoulder camera”and “Saeed talking on the phone”Who are these men, the audience will ponder? Why are they so identified? Why are they not identified in voice over as two Reuters journalists, in danger of being executed by US military personnel who mistake a camera for a gun? 

Daniel Domscheit-Berg says, “All hell breaks loose and it just gets worse from there.” Indeed, it does get worse. Much worse. Why have you chosen not to reveal just how much worse it got? Why have you chosen not to show the two rescuers, clearly unarmed, being murdered in cold blood as they move wounded men into a van containing two children. The children are injured and the decision to take them to a US hospital is abandoned. The soldiers take the children to an Iraqi hospital where, it can be presumed, they will receive a lower standard of medical care. 

On the basis of what you have included audience members could be forgiven that the men in the street were armed combatants and so valid targets for execution. This argument cannot be made for the killing of unarmed rescuers and the wounding of the children. It is a war crime. Why have you left it out? Is it because it raises questions that you don’t want to ask? Questions that don’t fit neatly into the central question laid out in the title? Hero or Villain. Questions like,“Why were the children not provided with the very best medical care the US could provide?”, “Did the children recover from their wounds?”and “Why have none of the perpetrators of this war crime been charged?”  

Was the question ever asked of journalists Scott Shane and Alan Rusbridger: “What are the ramifications of this execution of journalists for other journalists working in combat zones?” If so, I am sure audience members would love to know what their answers were.

A broader question is: “Do you not think the execution of  journalists by the US military, with no charges laid against those guilty of war crime, is worthy of deeper investigation? Of greater importance than the 35 or so minutes devoted to ‘Russiagate’?”

The segue from “Collateral murders” to Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s comment to camera about Assange that, “Everyone wanted to know who this digital disruptor was,”diverts audience attention away from the significance and ramifications of the collateral murders, onto Assange’s personality and celebrity status. Is this intentional? 

In the building of a case that Wikileaks colluded with Russia during the 2016 elections to get Trump elected, in Episode Two, the word ‘alleged’ is not used once? Is this intentional? Is it good journalism to rely, unquestioningly, on US intelligence assessments as evidence of Assange’s guilt?

You have allowed Neera Tandem, Scott Shane and Hillary Clinton to brand Assange as a  Russian agent without presenting any evidence in support these allegations. Do you have supporting evidence? If so, why is it not included? Was Assange given  an opportunity to respond to these allegations? If it was not possible to obtain a response from Assange, given his incarceration in the UK, was Jennifer Robinson given an opportunity to respond on his behalf? If so, I think, in the interests of balance, that you need to include her response.

Inclusion of the references to Assange being a "useful idiot","in bed"with the Russians”,that he is a "tool of the Russian state",and that Julian "had a blind spot when it came to Russia",in the absence of any deeper investigation into the truth or otherwise of such allegations will leave 4 Corners open to accusations of lack of balance; of bias. Please take another look at this.

Of what relevance are the Roger Stone and Randy Cretico stories?

Why are Nils Melzer and his ‘torture report’ not mentioned? Was he invited to participate in the programs?

Why is reference being made to Assange’s phone conversation with Donald Trump Junior, but the fact that Assange had asked for Trump Senior’s Tax Returns left out?

Are there any senior Australian public figures who approached 4 Corners and offered to articulate their change of attitude to Assange for the programs, whose offers were rebuffed?

This is not an exhaustive list of my questions or observations for the editor and director but will suffice. 

If I were to make a documentary about you, Sally, of your investigative journalistic work over the years, and focused on the question: “Sally Neighbour – Hero or Villain”would this be the right or the fair question to use as the starting point for an assessment of your work? With the title alone, be tilting the scales towards ‘villain’? Would such a title be fair? It might not matter if the program were a fair assessment of your work but the parameters established by the title could well impel me to include only that which spoke to the title.

The following is not a hypothetical note for the editor and director, but a question for you.

Daniel Domscheit-Berg refers to Assange’s “Curious eyes never run dry in my experience,”text message as “Really fucked up”,and says to camera, “We were milking the source and this is not something that we should not have been doing; that Julian should not have been doing.”

Have you ever, Sally, during your many years as an investigative journalist, communicated with a source who has given you a lot of useful classified-as-secret information from a whistle-blower that you believed to be in the public interest to reveal? If so, have you ever said to this person, “What more can you tell me?”Or words to that effect. Is this not part and parcel of your job? If I included in my hypothetical documentary, a former ABC colleague of yours saying, “Sally was milking the source and this is not something that she should have been doing, making the fucked up comment about how a curious eye never runs dry.” Would you think that this was good and fair journalism on my part? Good documentary filmmaking?

As far as I can tell (please correct me if I am wrong) the ABC has not reported on the judgment of Judge Koeltl this past week:

JUDGE KOELTL:“If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC’s political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them ‘secret’ and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet.  But that would impermissibly elevate a purely private privacy interest to override the First Amendment interest in the publication of matters of the highest public concern. The DNC’s published internal communications allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election. This type of information is plainly of the type entitled to the strongest protection that the First Amendment offers."

Have you any idea why the ABC has remained silent on this important breaking news? Can you not see that by its silence the ABC is in very real danger of appearing biased against Assange, even if this is not the case?

Regardless of what any of us thinks of Assange’s personality, his character and his publishing modus operandi, he has, for more than a decade now, been performing the same journalistic and publishing tasks we all do – those of us working in the 4^thEstate and committed to ‘speaking truth to power’.

I have no desire, as you suggest I could, to “contact the ABC’s department of Audience and Consumer Affairs, which is independent of the News division.” The advent of email and the proliferation of avenues of complaint in every sector of our lives has, sadly, reduced face to face contact between people who have different points of view, leading to unnecessary and fruitless conflict. I would much rather meet with you and chat about all this over a cup of coffee than for either of us to feel that we are on opposing media teams.

cheers

James

Letter from Sally Neighbour, Executive Producer of Assange 4 Corners broadcasts

Dear James, 

I am writing in response to your email earlier today, regarding our two-part program on Julian Assange.

Assange is an extremely polarising figure. This is evidenced by the hate mail – such as yours – that we have received from both sides of the debate since the programs were aired. Those who dislike Assange have accused us of being ‘lapdogs and propagandists’ for Assange. Those, like yourself, who support him have accused us of seeking to destroy him.

Four Corners spent more than three months on these programs, because we believed that the prosecution of Julian Assange is an extremely important story, which warrants very close examination. Our program was not intended as either a hagiography or a hatchet job. It was intended as a meticulously accurate, scrupulously researched and forensically detailed investigation of precisely what Assange is alleged by his accusers to have done. I believe it was that. It also carefully explored the legal and ethical issues surrounding his prosecution, the motivations of the Trump administration, and the dangers to press freedom and the public’s right to know, posed by his prosecution.

Your complaint deals principally with our use of the ‘Collateral Murder’ video, so I will address that in detail.

The first of our two stories opened with the Collateral Murder video. We ran a full two minutes and ten seconds of the video, which you would appreciate – as a documentary-maker yourself – is a very long excerpt to include in a 45-minute program. We aired some of the most horrific sections of the video, including the sections where the US servicemen can be heard deliberately targeting their civilian victims with instructions such as ‘Let’s shoot. Light ‘em all up. Come on, fire. Keep shootin’. Keep shootin’, laughing about it, and later commenting ‘Look at those dead bastards’.

The commentary by reporter Michael Brissenden during the airing of the video included: “(The) classified US military footage… revealed a shocking event during the war in Iraq”; and “The callous behaviour of the US troops exposed the brutality of the conflict to the world.” This was followed by interview excerpts outlining the global impact of the release of the footage, including a quote from Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsonn, saying “That video has since of course become iconic as testimony of the Iraq War. It’s like the napalm girl of the Vietnam War. It tells a bigger story than the video.”

Your suggestion that Four Corners ‘censored’ the video to distort the story in a way positive to the US or negative to Assange is both nonsensical and offensive. The sections of the video that we used were chosen by the producer and editor (not myself) to have maximum impact, and – combined with the commentary – to fully convey the horror of the event. I believe they did so. The fact that we didn’t air the sections you referred to is immaterial, and to suggest it reflects an attempt by us to distort the story is bizarre and totally at odds with the reality of what we showed.

You ask in your email why we did not question Hillary Clinton about the Collateral Murder video. Hillary Clinton was not available for an interview with Four Corners for the Assange programs. The excerpts of Hillary Clinton that we used were from an earlier interview in 2017. She was not asked in that interview about the Collateral Murder video because the interview was focused on different topics.

In response to your four questions: Yes, of course we would broadcast evidence of US war crimes if we had it. No, of course we would not censor it in the way you suggest. No, we would not decide not to broadcast it for fear of extradition to the US. In response to your final question: Julian Assange is currently in a high security British prison and not contactable by journalists. We interviewed his Australian lawyer Jen Robinson, his US lawyer Barry Pollack and Wikileaks Editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsonn, to ensure we obtained Julian’s side of the story. 

You refer to my tweets as evidence that I am biassed against Assange and in favour of Clinton. This is false and offensive. I have explained repeatedly that the re-tweet from two years ago was done accidentally, and that as soon as I realised I had done it, I deleted it and apologised. My twitter reference to the ‘Zombie followers’ was done in jest, because I thought that the reference was ludicrous and an indication of the ridiculously polarised debate over Assange. I am surprised that anyone would take it seriously. 

I will not dignify your concluding insults with a reply, as they are rude, ill-informed and offensive. I am accustomed to having to deal with complaints about our programs, as they are frequently controversial and provocative. Thankfully, most of the complaints I have to deal with are not as nasty and personal as yours.

If you are not satisfied with my response, please feel free to contact the ABC’s department of Audience and Consumer Affairs, which is independent of the News division.

Yours sincerely,