Part One: Janet Albrechtsens Good News from Iraq

"We stand by our argument that The Australian's columnist Janet Albrechtsen misrepresented the nature and source of 'Good News from Iraq'." ABC producer Peter McEvoy, to James Taranto, Editor of OpinionJournal.com, 11 May 2005.

The insinuation of "misrepresentation" indeed was the clear theme of the Albrechtsen item on 9 May 2005 broadcast of ABC television's Media Watch program. In an item headed "Wall Street Journalism or blog?", presenter Liz Jackson focussed on two short sentences from Albrechtsen's 4 May 2005 column in The Australian:

Terrorists "must detest The Wall Street Journal. Each fortnight the paper's website (www.wsj.com) includes a round up of good news from Iraq."

The Source of Good News from Iraq

What Albrechtsen's column got wrong was the precise web address at which the The Wall Street Journal publishes the round-up of good news from Iraq. Rather than wsj.com, the Iraq good news round-up is published on www.OpinionJournal.com, the website of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. This is arguably the most influential editorial or oped page in the English-speaking world. Certainly it is more influential in the world of ideas and opinion than The Wall Street Journal's news pages. Albrechtsen's argument gained no strength by referring to wsj.com rather than OpinionJournal.com. Both are websites of The Wall Street Journal. OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto, who also works for the print version of The Wall Street Journal, described the error in referring to the newspaper's wrong website as "honest, and very small". Taranto said Albrechtson's column "misidentifies" which Wall Street Journal site carried the good news round up from Iraq but was "not substantially inaccurate". "OpinionJournal is part of what we call the WSJ.com network", he said. For the purposes of Albrechtsen's column, OpinionJournal is a no less "prestigious" (to use Jackson's word) source than wsj.com.

On the 9 May broadcast, Jackson mocked the "27 pages of good news, from the prestigious Wall Street Journal? We wanted to know more ... but couldn't find it on their web site". She added: "Good News from Iraq is not published on the highly respected Wall Street Journal website ..." She referred to OpinionJournal.com as a "sister site", a "spin-off site" or a "Dow Jones website". Jackson did not make it clear that OpinionJournal.com is a Wall Street Journal website. At best, the relationship between wsj.com and OpinionJournal.com was left muddied by the 9 May broadcast.

Perhaps the muddiness was because Media Watch itself was not sure. Media Watch producer Peter McEvoy later told Taranto that the program "did attempt on many occasions to clarify the precise relationship between The WSJ and OpinionJournal.com" but its emails and telephone calls to parent company Dow Jones and The WSJ news desk in New York yielded no information before it went to air. However, Media Watch does not appear to have attempted to contact OpinionJournal.com. "Instead," suggested Taranto, "Media Watch jumped to the erroneous conclusion that Good News from Iraq is not published on the highly respected Wall Street Journal website. Since the goal was to make another journalist's honest mistake look like a deliberate misrepresentation, one cannot credit Media Watch with acting in good faith." In a response to Taranto, ABC producer McEvoy said Media Watch did not say that "OpinionJournal.com is not published by The Wall Street Journal".

The Nature of Good News from Iraq

The Media Watch suggestion of Albrechtsen's "misrepresention" of "Good News from Iraq" goes to Albrechtsen's reference to "a round-up of good news from Iraq" included on The Wall Street Journal website. As it turns out, that is exactly what "Good News from Iraq" is: a round-up of good news from Iraq. As McEvoy put it to Taranto, it's a "cull of media reports and media releases highlighting the good news from Iraq ..."

On the 9 May broadcast, Media Watch made some additional points:

# The round-up was not produced by a Wall Street journalist but by a self-described Brisbane "blogger", Arthur Chrenkofff, who is now on the staff of a Queensland Liberal Senator.

# The blogger does no independent reporting but rather trawls the internet for good news from Iraq.

# The blogger was not paid by The Wall Street Journal and his work was published without editing by OpinionJournal.com.

But Albrechtsen made no representation about who compiled the round-up of Iraq good news. All she wrote was that The Wall Street Journal website included a round-up of good news from Iraq - no more, no less. The Media Watch point that the round-up is compiled by a "blogger" may be interesting, but in no way supports any "misrepresentation" by Albrechtsen. Nor do the other points that the round-up was compiled from the internet and was not paid for, nor edited by, The Wall Street Journal.

In the event, Media Watch has admitted that The Wall Street Journal in fact does pay for and edit the good news round-up. It was wrong on these points.

The non-correction

On its 16 May 2005 broadcast, Media Watch was faced with having to correct its obvious specific errors about Good News from Iraq without obviously backing away from its claim against Albrechtsen of "misrepresentation". Ironically, given its own errors, the result was an item called "Blogging credibility".

Jackson said: "As we pointed out the Good News isn't published on the Wall Street Journal's primary web site, but on a sister site, OpinionJournal.com." Note how Media Watch has clung to the vague "sister site" description used the previous week. There was no attempt to clarify for viewers that wsj.com and OpinionJournal are both websites of The Wall Street Journal. Viewers were not clearly informed that OpinionJournal was published by The Wall Street Journal or that it was the web site of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. There was no mention that the OpinionJournal.com editor had concluded that Albrechtsen's "misidentification" was "not substantially inaccurate".

Jackson explained that Media Watch previously had reported what the blogger had told the program: that he was not paid for its work and that OpinionJournal did not edit his work. She said the blogger "now admits he lied". The program quoted the blogger: "I do apologise. I should have told you the truth". Jackson said: "We've noted and corrected our website".

But there would be no obvious backing away from the Albrechtsen attack by Media Watch. Jackson said: "We stand by our story. Janet Albrechtsen's column gave Arthur's blog a journalistic credibility it doesn't deserve, and our own experience with Arthur's credibility only confirms that view".

Remember that Albrechtsen merely said that The Wall Street Journal's website carries a regular round-up of good news from Iraq, but cited wsj.com rather than OpinionJournal.com. Only those who closely followed the various off-air exchanges would have noticed that "misrepresentation" been toned down. Now, Albrechtsen was guilty of the lesser crime of having given the round-up of Iraq good news "a journalistic credibility it doesn't deserve". But all Albrechtsen did was refer to a "round-up" - a compilation of media articles and media releases - of good news on Iraq published online by The Wall Street Journal. Note that Media Watch has been careful not to challenge the journalistic credibility of The Wall Street Journal - in part by not making it clear on air that The Wall Street Journal does in fact publish, pay for and edit the round-up referred to by Albrechtsen.

Proper journalism

The Media Watch case against Albrechtsen finds only one small error in her column. That is the misidentification of the precise Wall Street Journal website that publishes Good News from Iraq. Proper journalistic procedure would at the least have put this issue to Albrechtsen to allow her to respond before going to air. Media Watch did not do this. Before broadcast, Media Watch put four written questions to Albrechtsen - first, about the headline to the column; second, whether she realised that the good news round-up was compiled by a "blogger"; third, whether she should have told readers that fact; and fourth, whether Albrechtsen should prefer such a "blog" to the reports of journalists on the ground. It failed to even allow Albrechtsen the opportunity to point out that Good News from Iraq in fact is published by the Wall Street Journal on its OnlineJournal.com site - a fact that still has not been clearly conveyed to Media Watch viewers.

The documentation is set out on www.abc.net.au/mediawatch

Part Two Tomorrow