Last night's Media Watch had one of those jaw-dropping moments that make sitting through their quiet news weeks worthwhile.
They broadcast footage of a Nine News cameraman taunting an Australian Muslim who was accused of no crime and calling him a "fucking terrorist".
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If you have time (five minutes and 36 seconds to be precise), then watch the item. It's currently on YouTube (embedded here) or you can nip across to the Media Watch website and see it there.
As you'll see, it was that relatively common court steps camera confrontation between media and the accused.
By the way, that can be hard. I did my time in the UK as a court reporter, so saw plenty of examples where a snapper or camera guy got given a hard time when they were genuinely just doing their job.
Your brief as a TV cameraman or stills photographer is to get a shot of the accused's face. If you can get enough footage to cover the length of the report so the same few seconds don't have to be replayed again and again, then so much the better. (The best method, by the way, is to get your shot before they spot you).
Sometimes the photographer or cameraman won't have been in the court room themselves, so won't know which of the group to shoot, so they'll get everyone who leaves the building. Indeed, I've had a camera put in my face. It can be discombobulating to say the least. And that was before I got my beard.
But this went way beyond that.
For starters, this incident looked very much like provocation in order to get a reaction. As the ABC's raw footage showed, it continued long after the cameraman had his face shot.
The key moment though is what happened next – when he started provoking the accused's father.
This is where the cameraman perhaps deserves a small amount of understanding. Either way, what he did next was unacceptable. But it is not clear whether he did it because he was angry, or because he was simply cynically trying to provoke a better on-screen shot.
I suspect it may be a bit of both. As some of the ABC transcript goes:
Gad Amr (the accused's father): Please! Please guys. Please. I don't want to push anyone. Please. I said please.
Simon Fuller: You don't push people, mate.
Gad Amr: Please. I say please. I say please.
Simon Fuller: You don't push people.
Gad Amr: I say please.
Simon Fuller: You don't push people.
It looks to me like the cameraman had lost his cool. It went on for some time before the cameraman appeared (and it's not clear on the tape) to tell the two men to fuck off. That led to the following exchange:
Gad Amr: You say to him fuck off. You say to him fuck off? You say to him to fuck off?
Simon Fuller: The camera's rolling.
Gad Amr: You bloody idiot.
Simon Fuller: The camera's rolling.
Gad Amr: You idiot. I don't care you say to whoever, you idiot.
Omar (the accused) Amr: Fuck him, mate. He's a fuck knuckle.
Simon Fuller: You fucking terrorist.
Viewing that on TV last night was one of those rare occasions where you actually feel cold fury at something you've just seen on television. And happiness that the moment was captured, otherwise I'm sure there would have been few consequences.
(It marks a pretty stellar debut for new Media Watch executive producer Lin Buckfield by the way. Correction: she hasn't started yet.)
And potentially there will be many consequences. For starters, to the reputation of Nine News (who appear to have suspended him). For those that want to see it that way, they won't see it as the inarticulate blurt of an angry individual, they'll see it as evidence of a racist agenda. For the many good journalists working there, that's harsh. This is one of those "If Kerry Packer was still alive…" moments.
But also for anyone in the media, which has a bad enough reputation as it is, this is just another brick in the wall of why we have such a low level of public trust.
But the consequences may be worse for the cameraman. As I say, it's hard to see how a news organisation will be able to trust him in a high pressure situation. And it's not beyond the realsm of possibility that police will take an interest in the incident.
Yet it's the sort of phrase that can creep in as highly thoughtless banter. Last year, The Punch editor David Penberthy said something similar about cricketer Bilal Shafayat in what he later described as a "stupid and offensive joke". Crass and offensive as it was, those who read his columns would not see him as a racist.
But this felt far nastier, as it was a case of the cameraman seeming to make the most of the power imbalance between the media and those they report on.
I think we'll hear more about this.
(April 14 update: it has now been reported that the cameraman has been dismissed by Nine)
Related:
- TV cameraman in terror row – smh.com.au
- Nine cameraman lynched on Twitter: I'm not a racist – Crikey
- Outrage over Channel Nine cameraman's 'terrorist' slur – The Age
- Channel Nine cameraman in strife – 3AW
- Nine Cameraman sacked for terrorist slur – Herald Sun
Sent from James' iPhone
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