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REVIEWS: THE MEDIA OF THE REPUBLIC REVIEWS
THE JACOBINS OF THE MEDIA
by Sam Roggeveen
Quadrant, May 1999
On the eve of the republican referendum, we have here an unapologetically Christian conservative attack on the forces driving Australian republicanism. The Media of the Republic is a political and moral tirade against the excesses of Enlightenment liberalism, an uncompromising diatribe against the media, and even in part a mystery. One hesitates to say ‘murder mystery’, but the author makes a convincing case that at the very least the media metaphorically (and maybe even literally) drove Diana, Princess of Wales, to her death.
The media’s coverage of the death of the princess serves as the vehicle for this book’s central argument, which is that an ideology the author calls ‘theoretic-republicanism’ is the primary destructive force in Australian public life. And while Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian is at the centre of the investigation, author Gerard Charles argues that theoretic-republicanism is the guiding ideology of the entire media and indeed of Australia’s ruling class as a whole.
The book takes the form of a detailed content analysis of The Australian in the week following Diana's death, with this narrative interrupted only by a chapter explaining the historical and philosophical underpinnings of theoretic-republicanism. Those acquainted with Edmund Burke’s attacks on the French Philosophes, and Michael Oakeshott’s anti-Rationalism will find this chapter familiar reading. The author argues that theoretic-republicanism stands in direct opposition to traditional Australian life.
But what does any of this have to do with the media’s coverage of the death of Diana? The author argues that the role of the media in furthering theoretic-republicanism’s agenda is crucial, and accuses them of nothing less than a relentless propaganda campaign against every element of traditionalism in Australia, including of course, the constitutional monarchy. At every turn the media falsely and even maliciously misrepresented the actions of various members of the royal family in order to paint a picture of a hidebound, stiff, uncaring institution which had lost its relevance to Australia.
The account given of the depths to which the media sunk whilst prosecuting this campaign is one of the highlights of The Media of the Republic. Gerard Charles mercilessly exposes what he calls ‘the gutless bastardry of the media’, the breathtaking lengths which they went to either deny or ignore their culpability in the stalking of Diana. In the aftermath of her death, members of the media protested that because Diana had manipulated them to further the aims of her charities, this thereby justified their persecution of her. The author dubs this the ‘You asked for it’ defence, which ignores the morally obvious point that dealing with the media on one level does not excuse intrusion on every level. Paparazzi are also quoted as arguing that celebrities should simply be more co-operative in the relentless quest for new photographs, which the author likens to ‘asking the rape victim to be done with the struggle and submit to being violated.’
The moral shamelessness of the media seems to know no bounds. Another line of defence is to accuse us, the public, of guilt by association: we consume the media product therefore we are all partly responsible for Diana’s death—though this defies the most basic moral reasoning. How can reading about or looking at an act make one complicit in the act itself?
Lastly there is the ever-convenient pose of democratic duty: the public’s right to know. ‘It is a measure of the prevailing moral blindness,’ says the author, ‘that so many commentators cannot get their heads around the fundamental proposition that media persecution of an individual is wrong in itself.’ If such outright condemnation sounds a little extreme, reflect on these issues again when, as the author predicts will soon happen, the photos taken of Diana and Dodi at the crash sight are bought and published by one of our women’s magazines.
But the spin doctors of Rupert Murdoch’s ‘Disgusting Empire’ need not have bothered constructing such rickety moral barricades anyway, for soon enough evidence of drunk driving on the part of Diana's chauffeur came to light, and in their own minds the media were off the hook. The author in fact devotes the entire last chapter to the crash itself, arguing that it was not Henri Paul’s drunkenness but the coordinated ambush tactics of the paparazzi which were really to blame. But it is a shame the book places so much emphasis on the crash, because although the case implicating the paparazzi is interesting it moves the reader away from the far more important issue of theoretic-republicanism. This is by far the strongest theme of the book, and it is undermined somewhat by leaving the reader with the impression that the author's entire argument is built on proving the culpability of the paparazzi in the crash, a case which he cannot, by his own admission, make.
So what of theoretic-republicanism? Is it really the governing ideology which informed all aspects of media coverage of Diana's death? Of course the book only looks at The Australian and has no pretensions to being a comprehensive literature review, yet Gerard Charles makes a compelling case that the bias he describes in this one newspaper is manifest throughout the media. One example will have to suffice here, concerning The Australian 's correspondent Juliet Herd. It is worth quoting in full, as it conveys all the crude prejudices, all the simple-minded bigotry of the theoretic-republican mind which the author is trying to convey.
Already the royal family can be seen to have closed ranks around the boys, taking them to church at Balmoral on the morning of their mother's death—showing them that duty is the royal way of overcoming grief. But the boys will also need to be given the chance to express their loss through tears and talk and Charles, despite his stiff reserve at times, is likely to encourage them to release their anger in private.
Throughout the book, the author’s response to comments like these is of exasperation and even disbelief. That any citizen of an ostensibly Christian country like Australia can display such breathtaking ignorance about the comfort which religious ceremony can provide in times of grief, dismissing it airily as a matter of royal duty, is for the author a testament to how far this country has declined.
The reference to Prince Charles’ ‘stiff reserve’ is indicative of another deeply-held media conviction, namely that the heir to the throne is a cold, starched, emotionally detached eccentric, deserving only of mockery. To the media, Prince Charles’ reserved demeanour in the days following Diana’s death was completely inexplicable: ‘the more Prince Charles remained in control of himself, the more the media made him out to be stuffy, feelingless, emotionally crippled, and so on.’ For the author though, Prince Charles represents a lost ideal of manhood; upright, composed and dignified, yet capable at important times of displaying genuine love and affection for his sons.
At times the book gets a little carried away in its condemnation of the ‘feral male’ who has replaced this man of traditional virtues. Nevertheless, The Media of the Republic completely convinced me that the media’s cynical ridiculing of Prince Charles is symptomatic of their hostility to the values he represents. I still am convinced of this, and yet the recent media frenzy surrounding the retirement of [Australian cricket captain] Mark Taylor caused me to reflect on this matter in a new light.
In the early stages of Australia’s last [cricket] tour to England, at a point in his professional life when he was being put under almost unbearable scrutiny and pressure by a relentless media, when the prevalent male sporting culture would have told him that this was the time to lash out, Taylor maintained his self-control. Taylor’s stoicism and quiet dignity represent a definitively Australian equivalent to the ‘manliness’ which the author so admires in Prince Charles. Yet far from being mocked by the media for his steadfastness (as Charles constantly is), Taylor received nothing less than a media beatification after announcing his retirement. Figures such as football champion Ted Whitten and Catholic political identity B. A. Santamaria, who in very different ways both represented traditional Australian life, were also paid touching, heartfelt tributes by the media when they died.
No doubt the author would reply that such examples represent the remnants of traditional Australia rather than a sign of its robust health, and although I have no doubt that the dogma described in this book as theoretic-republicanism is the dominant one in the media, the Taylor case raises doubts over whether it is quite so pervasive as the author argues. In a similar vein Gerard Charles implies that the bias he describes is determined by the very highest echelons of the media empires, and that individual journalists simply bow to their editorial masters in putting a particular ideological spin on a story. Once again I doubt that the rot is quite this deep, and in any case it undermines the author’s own assumption about the liberal anti-authoritarianism of these very same journalists.
But these occasional instances of exaggeration might be excused as attempts to try to goad critics into a debate, and if this is the case then good luck to those critics, for the author comes well armed. I remember an SBS interview a few years back in which this magazine’s literary editor, Les Murray, said that the victory of the republic would be a victory for the politically correct. We could certainly quibble about the term ‘political correctness’ (it is difficult to know what it means any more) but I remember thinking at the time that Murray was on to something, and after reading this book I know exactly what he meant. The Media of the Republic is a dagger to the heart of Australian republicanism.
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