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Treating the Sydney siege horror as real-time entertainment eroded our humanity

Date
The enormous number of floral tributes in Martin Place suggest this incident has brought home to us a horrible reality.

The enormous number of floral tributes in Martin Place suggest this incident has brought home to us a horrible reality. Photo: Cole Bennetts

Last week's horrific siege in Sydney should give us all pause for thought. The enormous number of floral tributes in Martin Place suggest this incident has brought home to us a horrible reality we were hoping to avoid.

Since there was no wall of flowers at the Pakistan High Commission in Canberra after the murder and maiming of hundreds of schoolchildren, we can assume that distance brings almost indifference, but closeness compassion. Proximity obviously heightens emotions, but I hope we are not a nation that only cares about ourselves.

Everyone lives with the risk of sudden, tragic and perhaps violent death. It happens on our roads all year and we barely notice. But this is different because, while it was an accident of timing as to who was in the cafe, the incident itself was no accident. This horror was deliberately inflicted by one human on others, to serve his own ends.

Two decent and innocent people have lost their lives, and their families and friends now face life without them. The proximity to Christmas will make each anniversary a little more poignant. Others were physically injured and all have been through a trauma that none of us can really imagine. Their families and friends will also feel the impact.

The rest of us have realised that terrorism comes in many forms. At one end of the spectrum are large-scale, dramatic events planned over a long period and executed with ruthless efficiency by groups; at the other end, there are lone wolves of varying degrees of competence.

We cannot yet know everything that was known at the time about the perpetrator, but that will become clear. The review set up by the Prime Minister will also tell us  the views different agencies had about this man's timein Australia.

Some have dismissed the perpetrator as a lone, disgruntled, alienated individual, as if that implies we ought not regard this as a terrorist attack. It seems to me that the people who, for example, decapitated a British soldier in the street could also be described as alienated and disgruntled, to say the least. Does it make it less of a terrorist attack because you are not taking instruction from another? In the Lindt cafe, I doubt that that distinction counted for much. Innocent people were taken at random into a siege scenario for a point to be made that in some way related to Islamic extremism.

From the outside, we could all take comfort in the calm and professional manner in which both NSW Police Commissioner Scipione and Deputy Commissioner Burn handled themselves and the media briefings. Ditto Prime Minister Abbott and NSW Premier Baird. The fact that there were no bombs discovered in other parts of the city and that this madman now appears to have acted alone in no way diminishes the leadership they showed. If they had said "Oh look, this is worrying, but he is a disturbed person acting alone so let's worry a bit less" there would have rightly been outrage. If it turned out the threats were correct, such casual early responses might have told us they were not up to the job. Criticism in hindsight is easy. Keeping calm and carrying on is not.

We should take a good look at ourselves after this nightmare. Why are so many drawn to watching coverage of something so horrific? More particularly, why were our TV screens filled with live coverage of the event as it unfolded?

People at their most vulnerable are entitled to our concern and respect. We don't show either when we film and watch looped repeats of hostages fleeing the worst circumstance they are likely to face in their lives. Surely this simply feeds the notion that if you do something horrific and grisly you will get enormous media attention.

Are we better off for seeing people in an horrifically frightening situation? I think not. My preference would be to allow filming, provided there was no operational interference, but for it not to go to air until the ordeal was over. An exception would be made if airing the coverage was part of a demand to which the authorities had acquiesced.

Some might say such a limitation would be inappropriate because "we have a right to know" or because of "freedom of the press". I support both those propositions, with a few caveats.

We do have a right to know, but it is questionable whether that right should extend to being able in real time to see how law enforcement is handling a continuing operation. We need a strong media to monitor how our governments and agencies are carrying out their duties. But monitoring a siege situation need not involve relaying it all instantaneously to us. There is always plenty of time after the event to assess what happened and offer praise or criticism.

Our voracious voyeurism doesn't end there. The loss of a loved one, a brother, lover, daughter or a wife, is surely the most tragic circumstance one has to face. With one exception, and that is facing the tragedy with the additional heartbreak of knowing you have to explain the loss to children of the deceased. That time for any family is the most deeply personal few hours of their life.

We are not more informed or better off in any way because media outlets have published a picture of Katrina Dawson's father and husband leaving the hospital, where a photographer was lying in wait. Is our desire to feel as if we are informed really more important than giving this family some privacy and space?

Shakespearean and Greek tragedies can teach us a lot about humanity. Watching others endure one doesn't. We are just vultures preying on the vulnerable. When horrific things happen and we use them as entertainment, we diminish ourselves.

Amanda Vanstone is a Fairfax columnist and was a minister in the Howard government.

171 comments so far

  • Excellent comment piece Amanda, I really agree with your sentiment and think this is a debate that we really need to have. Can we put the well being of the people in these horrific situations before our desire to see and read every detail immediately as it unfolds? The media coverage reflects our demand for instant gratification in all areas of our lives.

    Commenter
    Tired
    Date and time
    December 22, 2014, 1:07AM
    • Succinctly put Tired. I realise many people are giving accolades to one female reporter for her "amazing" job on the day, and that it would not have been an easy job on the day, however it felt voyeuristic and "showy" in a time when they were not or should not have been relevant. I also remember situations like a car crash in Melbourne in November 2012 where three young teenagers were killed driving a stolen car. Once it came out they were in DHS care and indigenous the story basically disappeared from the media, whereas many other crashes involving young people show pictures of the deceased in school formal dress etcetera and other lovely pictures for days on end and omit the fact they were not wearing seatbelts etcetera. The media needs equal respect for all associated, and sometime this means giving less, or at least less instrusive, attention to stories instead of more.

      Commenter
      JJ
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 7:03AM
    • Amanda I may not agree with your politics but I do agree with your humanity.
      Didn't these people suffer enough without having thrust in their faces every few seconds ?

      Commenter
      srg
      Location
      nambucca heads
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 7:21AM
    • I find myself agreeing totally with Amanda. Must be the silly season.

      Commenter
      Bernie
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 7:23AM
    • There was a chart of human misery relativities that hung in the newsroom of a certain 3rd rate Sydney metro TV station (?) last century that still seems to be the guide the hierarchy of stories today;
      100,000 people killed in earthquake in China/Turkey/ et al (no pictures available)
      is equal to:
      1,000 killed in sub-continental train crash (pictures available)
      is equal to:
      100 killed in a USA plane crash (white people involved)
      is equal to:
      10 killed in Qld flood (close to home and lots of pictures)
      is equal to:
      1 dead in car crash at Blacktown with lots of pictures and flashing lights etc

      The media motto remains: `if it bleeds it leads' and the closer to home to greater the priority.

      Commenter
      oldfart
      Location
      boondocks
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 7:38AM
    • I don't think the media got it wrong at all.

      If it had been mere entertainment, then why are thousands lining up to leave flowers in Martin Place every day.

      I think the media gave the public the opportunity to share this terrible event, as a community, that's why there's such an outpouring of grief. I think, as usual, Amanda is just on a negative nelly tangent.

      Commenter
      sarajane
      Location
      melbourne
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 8:53AM
    • JJ, I agree, why do we congratulate a journalist for doing their job. They are there to convey information. Not to become part of the story themselves.

      Commenter
      david
      Location
      melbourne
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 9:44AM
    • The Labor Government's 2010 White Paper on terrorism stated: “The scale of the problem will continue to depend on factors such as the size and make-up of local Muslim populations, including their ethnic and/or migrant origins, their geographical distribution and the success or otherwise of their integration into their host society.”

      http://www.dpmc.gov.au/publications/counter_terrorism/2_the_threat.cfm

      Waleed Aly would have us all give up in despair and do nothing, as he stated last week "we can't stop this".

      Commenter
      Sarah
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 9:54AM
    • I have never agreed with Amanda on anything but I too believed the media coverage was disgraceful to the extent the television was turned off. Did I hope for a good outcome, of course. Do I feel desperately sorry for the families of the dead Tori and Katrina, yes as well as for the other hostages. Do I feel the need to watch it unfold and then participate in some public offering of look at me I bought flowers too. Absolutely not.
      It was inappropriate and continues to be.

      Commenter
      Greg100
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 10:23AM
    • @Tired: "Excellent comment piece Amanda,"

      While I wouldn't go so far, I do think that Vanstone has a good central message here. The media coverage should have been stepped down a bit and the obsessive following of every development was an unhealthy reaction on the part of many.

      How did I handle it? I didn't know anyone involved in the affair, so my interest was in the ramifications for society as a whole, though I naturally had ordinary human concern for the people involved. What I did was to check about three or four times through the day for major developments, while also reading the background articles that appeared in The Age, checking for information that would throw light on the event. What I didn't do was hang onto the live feed and go searching all over the Internet for everything I could find.

      It's difficult to know what to do in the media, since there is always a premium on being the first with the news and, in the situation of a siege, where there are relatively frequent small developments, but the chance at any time of a major one, the pressure to run a live feed is pretty irresistable. I think it's incumbent on the public to make decisions on where to draw the line between healthy concern and unhealthy obsession.

      Commenter
      Greg Platt
      Location
      Brunswick
      Date and time
      December 22, 2014, 11:10AM

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