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Handbook of Global Media Ethics pp 783–801Cite as

Truth, Reconciliation and Global Ethics

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of media in the global phenomenon of national inquiries. It argues that a transformed, digital and globalized media landscape calls for a new approach to understanding the significance of commissions of inquiry. The chapter first surveys the networked nature of inquiry, from international truth commissions to inquiries addressing past injustice toward children. Informed by theories of listening, mediatization and journalism’s norms, the chapter takes Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013–17) as a case study to explore the impacts of a changing media environment on inquiries. The chapter argues that the open and boundless nature of contemporary media increases the responsibility of journalists and news organizations to challenge their everyday practices in reporting on these national conversations. A listening frame puts the onus on the journalist, as witness and communicator, to listen, amplify and respond to the experiences of the most marginalized of victims.

Keywords

  • National inquiries
  • Listening
  • Mediatization
  • Child sexual abuse
  • Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
  • Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
  • Australian journalism
  • Royal commissions

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Borsa, “Truth on Trial;” Laplante, “Media and Transitional Justice;” Niezen, “Truth and Indignation;” Garman, Antjie Krog and the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere; Bird and Garda, “Reporting the Truth Commission.”

  2. 2.

    Ward, Chap. 1 in this volume.

  3. 3.

    The Breaking Silences: Media and the Child Abuse Royal Commission is funded by the Australian Research Council (DP190101282). We wish to acknowledge the contributions to the project conceptualisation of Prof. Eli Skogerbø. In addition, we acknowledge the work for the chapter of Research Associates Megan Deas and Alanna Myers.

  4. 4.

    Wright et al. in Golding, “Sexual Abuse as the Core Transgression of Childhood Innocence,” 192.

  5. 5.

    The chapter is inspired by a panel at the 2020 International Communication Association titled “Reconciling Past Injustices: Media and National Inquiries as ‘Critical Conversations.’” The contributions of colleagues Anthea Garman from Rhodes University, South Africa, Donald Matheson from Canterbury University, New Zealand, and Eli Skogerbø, Tanja Dreher and Lisa Waller from the Breaking Silences project, led to a rich conversation about the global features, promises and failings of journalism’s role in the inquiry process. The panel called for a new way to conceptualize the role of media and journalism in the inquiry process.

  6. 6.

    Hayner, Unspeakable Truths.

  7. 7.

    Scudder, Beyond Empathy and Inclusion; Dreher “Listening Across Difference;” Macnamara, Organizational Listening.

  8. 8.

    Hjarvard, The Mediatization of Culture and Society.

  9. 9.

    Waller et al., “Media Hierarchies of Attention;” Garman, Antjie Krog and the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere; Callison and Young, Reckoning.

  10. 10.

    Hayner, Unspeakable Truths.

  11. 11.

    Hayner, Unspeakable Truths, 13.

  12. 12.

    Balint et al., “Justice Claims in Colonial Contexts.”

  13. 13.

    Balint et al., “Justice Claims in Colonial Contexts,” 76.

  14. 14.

    Balint et al., “Justice Claims in Colonial Contexts,” 10.

  15. 15.

    Hayner, Unspeakable Truths, 11.

  16. 16.

    Prasser and Tracey, Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries.

  17. 17.

    Garman, “Antjie Krog and the Post-Apartheid Public Sphere;” Bird and Garda, “Reporting the Truth Commission.”

  18. 18.

    Borsa, “Truth on Trial.”

  19. 19.

    Australian Law Reform Commission, Making Inquiries.

  20. 20.

    Prasser and Tracey, Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries.

  21. 21.

    Balint et al., “Justice Claims in Colonial Contexts,” 80.

  22. 22.

    Hodzic and Tolbert, “Media and Transitional Justice;” Laplante, “Media and Transitional Justice;” Laplante and Phenicie, “Media, Trials and Truth Commissions.”

  23. 23.

    Hodzic and Tolbert, “Media and Transitional Justice,” 1.

  24. 24.

    Prasser and Tracey, Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries.

  25. 25.

    Hayner, Unspeakable Truths.

  26. 26.

    Salter, “The Transitional Space of Public Inquiries,” 214, 217.

  27. 27.

    Borsa, “Truth on Trial.”

  28. 28.

    Laplante and Phenicie, “Media, Trials and Truth Commissions,” 208.

  29. 29.

    Dreher, “Listening Across Difference;” Bickford, The Dissonance of Democracy.

  30. 30.

    Curato, Democracy in a Time of Misery.

  31. 31.

    Laplante, “Media and Transitional Justice.”

  32. 32.

    Hodzic and Tolbert, 3.

  33. 33.

    Krabill, “Symbiosis,” 568.

  34. 34.

    Niezen, Truth and Indignation; Borsa, “Truth on Trial.”

  35. 35.

    Laplante, “Media and Transitional Justice.”

  36. 36.

    McCallum and Waller, The Dynamics of News and Indigenous Policy in Australia.

  37. 37.

    Hjarvard, The Mediatization of Culture and Society; Couldry and Hepp, The Mediated Construction of Reality.

  38. 38.

    McCallum and Waller, “The Dimensions of Mediatized Policy-Making.”

  39. 39.

    Brady, “Media Practices and Painful Pasts,” 128.

  40. 40.

    Wright, “Are We in an ‘Age of Inquiry’ into Institutional Child Abuse?”; Powell and Scanlon, Dark Secrets of Childhood.

  41. 41.

    Zelizer, “On the Shelf Life of Democracy;” McNair, News and Journalism in the UK.

  42. 42.

    Mellado, “Journalists’ Professional Roles and Role Performance.”

  43. 43.

    Kerr, “Royal Commissions and the Press,” 281.

  44. 44.

    Zelizer, “Finding Aids to the Past;” Peters “Witnessing.”

  45. 45.

    Tait, “Bearing Witness,” 1220.

  46. 46.

    Herfroy-Mischler, “When the Past Seeps into the Present,” 838, 826.

  47. 47.

    Callison and Young; Zelizer, “On the Shelf Life of Democracy;” Gans, Democracy and the News.

  48. 48.

    Wright and Swain, “Speaking the Unspeakable, Naming the Unnameable;” Wright, “Are We in an ‘Age of Inquiry’ into Institutional Child Abuse?”

  49. 49.

    Wright, “Are we in an ‘Age of Inquiry’?” Powell and Scanlon, Dark Secrets of Childhood.

  50. 50.

    Kitzinger, Framing Abuse.

  51. 51.

    Powell and Scanlon, Dark Secrets; see also Marr, “The Prince.”

  52. 52.

    Niezen, Truth and Indignation, 5.

  53. 53.

    Borsa, “Truth on Trial.”

  54. 54.

    Abuse in Care, “What is the Inquiry about?”

  55. 55.

    Muller, “Critical Mass”; Gearing, “How Social Media is helping Australian Journalists Uncover Stories Hidden in Plain Sight.”

  56. 56.

    Gillard in Golding, “Sexual Abuse as the Core Transgression of Childhood Innocence,” 194.

  57. 57.

    Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Vol. 1.

  58. 58.

    Waller et al., “Media Hierarchies of Attention.”

  59. 59.

    Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, [Website].

  60. 60.

    McClellan, “Bravehearts White Balloon Day.”

  61. 61.

    Macanamara, Organizational Listening.

  62. 62.

    Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Vol. 1.

  63. 63.

    Tippet, “Preparing for ‘a Tsunami of Trauma.’”

  64. 64.

    Tippet, “Preparing for ‘a Tsunami of Trauma.’”

  65. 65.

    Waller et al., “Media Hierarchies of Attention.”

  66. 66.

    The Guardian, “Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse ‘not fit for purpose;” The Guardian, “New Zealand Royal Commission.”

  67. 67.

    Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Vol. 5, 56.

  68. 68.

    Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Vol. 5, 55.

  69. 69.

    McCallum and Wa, “The Dimensions of Mediatized Policy-Making.”

  70. 70.

    Muller, “Critical Mass.”

  71. 71.

    Mellado, “Journalists’ Professional Roles,” 13.

  72. 72.

    Muller, “Critical Mass,” 125.

  73. 73.

    Dingle, “Whistleblower Peter Fox says Police should Apologise now to Victim.” ABC PM, 17 January, 2017.

  74. 74.

    Australian Broadcasting Corporation, PM, 22 October 2018.

  75. 75.

    Tippet, “Preparing for ‘a Tsunami of Trauma’.”

  76. 76.

    See for example, Mellado, “Journalists’ Professional Roles”; Vos, “Historical Perspectives on Journalistic Roles.”

  77. 77.

    Australian Broadcasting Corporation, PM.

  78. 78.

    Waller et al., “Media Hierarchies of Attention.”

  79. 79.

    Waller et al., “Media Hierarchies of Attention,” 3.

  80. 80.

    Macnamara, Organizational Listening.

  81. 81.

    Kerr, “Royal Commissions and the Press.”

  82. 82.

    Laplante, “Media and Transitional Justice.”

  83. 83.

    Mellado, “Journalists’ Professional Roles.”

  84. 84.

    Callison and Young, Reckoning.

  85. 85.

    Garman, Antjie Krog, 177.

  86. 86.

    Rao and Wasserman, “Global Media Ethics Revisited.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

    Kerry McCallum

  2. School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

    Lisa Waller

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  1. Kerry McCallum
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UBC Graduate School of Journalism, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Stephen J. A. Ward

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McCallum, K., Waller, L. (2021). Truth, Reconciliation and Global Ethics. In: Ward, S.J.A. (eds) Handbook of Global Media Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32103-5_40

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