Retirement may mean an end to university meetings and marking student projects but it doesn't mean an end to journalism for Professor Wendy Bacon. In fact, leaving the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism simply means she is about to re-enter the world of independent reporting. She is maintaining her role with the Pacific Media Centre advisory board and has been appointed as the first From The Frontline editor of Pacific Journalism Review.
ABC Media Report interview with Wendy Bacon on August 17, 2012
Reflections from Wendy:
Richard Adey from the ABC Radio National’s Media Report interviewed me last week about leaving the University of Technology (UTS) after 21 years.
Here are a few links relevant to some points in the interview.
Not getting admitted to practice law:
Here is an article which I wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald about my unsuccessful fight to get admitted to practice law.
Mackie versus Consolidated Press Court case:
I mentioned the unionist Pat Mackie. Here is a short entry on Wikipedia which provides some background on Mackie and mentions the 1972 defamation case against Frank Packer’s Daily Telegraph which had viciously attacked him during the 1964 Mount Isa Mines dispute. Pat Mackie was represented by Jim Staples and Mary Gaudron who went on to be the first woman to sit on the High Court of Australia.
The press attack on Mackie was typical of the strident anti-unionism of Frank Packer’s paper. Staples ran the case by trying to expose the falsity of the media attack by calling many witnesses who could explain what the dispute was about to the jury. I was present in the court when the jury came back with their verdict of $30,000 damages. Some of them actually embraced Mackie.
At the time, the reporting of the case was very limited so I produced my own report in a 4 page tabloid newspaper. This was my first serious journalism after the period in which I helped edit Tharunka and Thor.
City Squatter:
I mentioned the City Squatter, this was a one issue publication produced by the group that occupied Victoria Street, King Cross in 1974. Here is a background article by my fellow friends and activists, Ian Milliss and Teresa Brennan. Liz Fell and I researched the background on the properties in Kings Cross to identify the interests who were pushing for the development. This was the first time I did this sort of investigative journalism.
Little Red School Book:
The Little Red School Book by two Danish teachers was published in Australia in 1972. The group around the Thor published a tabloid version which we distributed free to school kids in Sydney. Here is a YouTube clip from the documentary The book that changed the world.
After this, an anthropology lecturer Peter White and myself were invited to go on Channel Nine to be interviewed by Mike Willesee. I was later refused a visa to the United States because I had caused a ‘national furore’ television and was banned from going on live television by the Broadcasting Control Board.
- From Wendy Bacon's blog
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
DEMOCRACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Professor Wendy Bacon discusses the impact and ethics of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks with UTS Newsroom.
Wendy Bacon's page at Pacific Journalism Review
Wendy Bacon at the Pacific Media Centre
Pacific Media Centre
