Shooting the messenger
The cliche 鈥榯he truth hurts鈥� seems to have hit nobody in our community harder last week than the outgoing New Mardi Gras board.
After spending several minutes at Saturday鈥檚 AGM lamenting the quagmire that was this year鈥檚 board election, former co-chair Nick Parker took the melodramatic step of berating this newspaper for printing just a handful of the backroom shenanigans unfolding as the election drew near.
Tabloid, he claimed. Gutter journalism. A low point for community news reporting.
The only adjective he failed to mention was the most important one 鈥� true. In fact at no point did Parker say our front page article last week, 鈥楧irty election tactics鈥�, was wrong. It seems he just didn鈥檛 like us telling the broader community what was going on.
That Parker decided to use his final speech to the membership to take a swipe at a community newspaper that has given New Mardi Gras more than $1 million in support in the last 10 years was disappointing.
But we鈥檙e no stranger to criticism from New Mardi Gras鈥檚 elected office bearers. We copped a flogging from some on the then board for telling you the truth about the party parade split just over 12 months ago.
And we have faced massive pressure 鈥� including the threat of legal action 鈥� to back down from our reporting on this year鈥檚 election.
鈥淚 also demand that you and your organisation cease and desist from reporting, giving opinion or otherwise publishing or promoting (explicitly or otherwise) that the election process is lacking integrity or is otherwise brought into disrepute,鈥� the lawyer鈥檚 letter demanded at the 11th hour last Friday.
What that lawyer and the New Mardi Gras board failed to acknowledge was this paper having an email from company secretary Peter Munro to candidates discussing those unattractive behaviours outlined in our article.
We made no allegations against any candidate 鈥� we merely reported the situation based on information provided to us. Munro chose not to answer our questions.
There was also a lack of acknowledgement for the continuous spam arriving in NMG members鈥� inboxes asking 鈥� begging 鈥� for those all-important proxies to ensure a position on the board.
And those emails didn鈥檛 just come from candidates themselves 鈥� a former chair also emailed some members and an SSO staff member received an email from the girlfriend of a NMG board member seeking his support for her lover.
Further, on Saturday afternoon as the NMG crowd grew tired, nine of the candidates seeking election made powerful references to the disgrace that was this year鈥檚 board election.
Steph Sands was probably the loudest, calling the electioneering a disgrace before promising to fix it up 鈥渆ven if we have to go to court鈥� 鈥� and promising it would be her last year as a candidate.
We here at SSO have thick skin 鈥� we are used to organisations like New Mardi Gras bringing pressure to try and force us to only print 鈥榞ood鈥� news stories 鈥� and by good we mean only those that present the organisation in a positive light.
But if the lead-up to Saturday鈥檚 New Mardi Gras election has taught us anything it is that our community is now in need, more than ever, of an independent, questioning newspaper that doesn鈥檛 bow to the every demand of all its media partners, and we will continue to be that voice.
Further, we hope the incoming New Mardi Gras board realises that no amount of PR spin, legal threats and finger-pointing can absolve any amount of wrongdoing.
For it is only after accepting this reality will it be able to shake off the mud and re-earn the trust of a community smarting from a series or circus-like commotions.
Go Scotty!
I have to say this was one of the most jarring things presented at the NMG AGM and seemed to not really be relevant in a discussion about NMG’s annual results and progress.
For the life of me I could not find one unfair or journalistically unethical word in last week’s SSO front page. Yes, it raised questions about this year’s NMG election – questions everyone connected to it has been raising. But what is wrong with a newspaper doing that exactly? Why spend 10 minutes berating SSO and trying to destroy their reputation? Especially when it’s clear NMG has an official partnership with a rival media organisation. It just seemed cheap and a bit of an insiped witch hunt.
In fact I felt an almost overwhelming urge to pick up the toys the NMG speaker had so dramatically thrown out the pram.
I am incredibly unimpressed with NMG. It seems to no longer be about the community at all, but more about the egos of a certain few that are running it.
They do not listen to their members or the broader community and have proven again and again that they will make stupid choices for all the wrong reasons. I mean splitting the parade and party for the sake of an American cruise ship, with a couple of thousand onboard, that was coming in at the wrong time and therefore putting out the tens of thousands of others…pathetic. And don’t start me on the fact that they deliberately cut Melbourne from the Parade broadcast and denied a Tasmanian entry, due to having sponsorship from Tourism NSW.
I think good on SSO for speaking the truth and do not let their bully tactics stop you. There are a huge amount of people out there that are disgruntled with their behaivour and they are deserving of no less than objective and constructive criticism and as the media you have a responsibility to deliver that.
They don’t pay your wages do they?!
Credit to the SSO for keeping the community informed. SSO has always reported with the utmost of integrity, and the utter disrepute that NMG has had in the community for several years only seems to get worse.
It is general dictators that try to stop free media reporting. Does NMG see the irony as an organisation that started about civil and political rights, to be trying to censure the media?
Well said! If our community news organisations only print “good” news and not the whole turth, would that not open up our community to criticism from the mainstream media and those that work agaisnt the GLBTIQ communities. I can see the headlines in a daily… “Gay media covers up the truth of whats really happening at Mardi Gras” You don’t see the mainstream media who sponsor major sporting brands only writing positive things about the NRL, AFL etc they report on everything that happens including the negitive.
Scott and SSO thank you for not being a re-hashing of a pr spin press release.