I've always loved history. It was one of the very few subjects that I really enjoyed all throughout school. Of course, some teachers were better than others at making it exciting but I was always curious to learn about history and always found it interesting.
We learn history, to learn from it and not to make the same mistakes. Variations of this common expression are often heard when people talk about why history is important and while I believe that to be true, I also believe that we continue to ignore history's lessons.
When I went to Uni to complete my Bachelor in Contemporary Arts: Media Studies course, I chose history as my minor. This was not only because I enjoy reading history but because I believe that they're both connected.
In the study and reading of history it's absolutely essential to evaluate the sources critically to read between the lines and to get to the bottom of it all. History also teaches us that there is never one factor, one simple answer, there are always multiple factors at play.
I believe a similar approach and skills are needed when it comes to media studies. Journalists, like historians must gather information from various sources, assess critically those sources, evaluate what information has evidence to support it, what doesn't have evidence, where the holes are in stories, what the vested interest (if any) are and how they impact the credibility of a source, to cite a few, and get to the truth of a story.
With journalism evolving into reporting (reporting not being the same as journalism) and media concentration into big corporations encroaching critical and investigative journalism, it's clear that mainstream media is more interested in endless talk of this one said and that one said, than informing the public about what's really happening.
The misconception of fairness in reporting (insidious and dangerous as it is) comes from a profound misunderstanding of journalism and the responsibility of media. To be fair and impartial is not to give the same equal time and weight to two opposing sources, one of which has clear and sound evidence, while the other does not.
This is how we've ended up in the mess that we are when it comes to climate change for example. While the science is well and truly settled, and has been overwhelmingly clear for decades, the media have continuously given climate science deniers the same air time and weight as the scientists who have all the data and evidence.
It seems to me, that when good journalists have done their job and have warned the world, world leaders and vested interests have attacked them, discredited and persecuted them. Unfortunately, the media have very often followed suit and stayed silent in order not to rock the boat.
All this has come to mind with the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and a warning to the world that was not heard.
In August 1945 two nuclear bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, three days apart from each other. 140,000 people were killed in an instant in August 6 and 80,000 others in Nagasaki in August 9. The consequences of the nuclear radiation would kill and deeply affect the lives of countless others in the years after. For generations in fact.
The horror was unlike anything ever seen to that point and those two bombs are still the two single bombs ever dropped in history.
But dropping those two bombs was not inevitable. Japan was already close to being defeated, the war was coming to an end and a decision was made, a political calculation. As a result of Harry S. Truman's decision two cities were obliterated and all those civilians murdered in a flash of light.
Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist covering the war heard about the bombs and he decided to investigate. In 1945 the British newspaper Daily Express published an article with an ominous headline: The Atomic Plague: I write this as a warning to the world. That article, that warning to the world was written by the first westerner to visit Hiroshima. In the article he described the total devastation of the city and the effects of radiation, which was not really understood or known at the time but which invisibly killed people, animals and fish days after the blast.
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| The front page of the Daily Express with Burchett's warning to the world |
It's worth saying it again, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist was brave enough to cross enemy lines, take a Japanese train with Japanese civilians and soldiers and go to Hiroshima just days after the explosion of the bomb to find the truth and gather evidence.
He spoke to citizens of Hiroshima. He spoke to doctors dealing with the aftermath. Then he posted his article through a Japanese post office, not through the US Army as was usually done, because he knew they would most likely censor and suppress his article.
Burchett travelled then to Tokyo and confronted the US Army in the middle of a press conference. He described what they had done and what he had seen. He denounced their action and declared that a poison was killing everything days after the blast (he was talking about the radiation).
Little aside, more Australians need to know this! Burchett is the perfect example of a tenacious and principled journalist.
Predictably, Burchett's warning was not heeded. The US Army withdrew his press accreditation and he was threatened with expulsion from Japan. The hospitals Burchett had visited were declared out of bounds for the press, and a strong censorship of news by the army was instituted. The US and the Australian Government moved to further discredit Mr Burchett at every turn, and he was treated like a traitor. Consequently, Canberra refused Mr Burchett a passport and he had to live in exile until 1972.
Now the number of nuclear weapons and countries with nuclear weapons is on the rise again. The US continues to be the only country to use this monstrous nuclear bombs, but for how long?
There's a lot of western media concern about Iran's nuclear weapons, a country that was signatory to the non-proliferation treaty and that, right now has no nuclear weapons - though you wouldn't know this from mainstream media.
On the other hand, there's hardly any mention ever of Israel's nuclear weapons even though it's common knowledge that they've had them for more than four decades now. Credit to Matt Bevan on ABC News though, for his recent episode on this.
Burchett's warning was, clearly, uncomfortable to those in power and that's why it was dismissed. That's why he was attacked and persecuted.
Interestingly, we had a more recent example with Julian Assange who was treated in similar fashion. Wikileaks was not a terrorist organisation. It did not steal documents, it received them from anonymous sources. It did not publish everything it received and acted with responsibility to warn the world.
Wikileaks informed the US government of the documents prior to their release and asked which documents were too sensitive to be published, they received no answer. More than 15.000 documents deemed too sensitive to be published by Wikileaks' reporters and analysts were withheld. There was no crime committed, unless that is, the crime of investigative journalism.
Two Australian journalists who were persecuted and punished for reporting uncomfortable truths. So what do these stories tell us?
That throughout history when things haven't gone their way the people in power have always shot the messenger and refused to learn from history. That mainstream media has often been silent and gone along with those in power.
I still read history books and articles and read mainstream media regularly, but it's important to read with a critical mind.
Good journalism, still exists, mostly not in mainstream news organisations though. And, sadly, we still seem pretty determined to disregard lessons from history in order to commit the same atrocities and crimes again. Which, I must admit, drives me insane.
I don't have a clear answer at the end of all these words. Just some reflections. But here's another legendary Australian journalist, John Pilger, interviewing Wilfred Burchett. Really worth seeing.
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