Pell – The final verdict

ANN SANDERS: We begin the morning news with a stunning developments from the High Court. Cardinal George Pell's convictions have been quashed, those guilty verdicts replaced with acquittal. He's spent the past 405 days inside Victoria’s Barwon Prison. Today he will walk free. 

- Seven Morning News, 7 April, 2020

Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch. 

And tonight we look at the man who’s divided the nation. And ask if it’s true that the ABC conducted a witch hunt against him.

Once Australia’s most powerful Catholic, Cardinal Pell was released from jail two weeks ago, following the High Court’s unanimous finding that there was:

MARK BURROWS: ... “A significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof.”

- Nine News, 7 April, 2020

Since that seven-nil victory, Pell’s supporters have been noisily celebrating his freedom and condemning those who judged him guilty.

Longtime defender Miranda Devine, writing in The Daily Telegraph, dubbed him a “good priest who has suffered a terrible injustice”, and proclaimed:  

This was Australia’s Dreyfus Affair, an egregious miscarriage of justice that has savaged the reputation of this country’s legal system around the world.

- The Daily Telegraph, 8 April, 2020

Pell’s supporters, who mostly write for News Corp or The Spectator and are often Catholic, blame the ABC, the media, the Victorian courts and Victoria Police for Pell’s conviction.

And last week in an exclusive interview on Sky News, Andrew Bolt, invited the cardinal to join the condemnation:  

ANDREW BOLT: It was the ABC, our national broadcaster, vilified Pell for years, whipped up an anti-Pell hysteria ...

Does the ABC’s role in your persecution concern you?

GEORGE PELL: Yes it does. Because, I mean, it's partly financed by Catholic taxes. I believe in free speech, I acknowledge the right of those who differ from me to state their views. But, in a national broadcaster to have an overwhelming presentation of one view and only one view, I think that's a betrayal of the national interest.

- The Bolt Report, Sky News, 14 April, 2020

The claim that the ABC’s reporting was relentlessly one-sided and grossly unfair has been made by numerous News Corp TV hosts and columnists.

And even by The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly, who charged the ABC with, quote, running a “sustained campaign against Pell” and added:

There was a climate of opinion against him that was irredeemably hostile. Much of this was cultivated by the media spearheaded by the ABC.

- The Australian, 11 April, 2020

The Australian’s Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan also weighed in, accusing the national broadcaster of behaving like China’s Red Guards and claiming: 

… the ABC has become a relentless behemoth of unaccountable and vindictive power that persecutes designated enemies in a grievously unfair and unprofessional way.

- The Australian, 16 April, 2020

And on Sky, The Australian’s Chris Kenny joined the chorus: 

CHRIS KENNY: … the whole saga was nurtured, encouraged and vindictively promoted by our national broadcaster...

- The Kenny Report, Sky News, 8 April, 2020

Also on Sky, Andrew Bolt encouraged his regular guest, Gerard Henderson, to chime in: 

ANDREW BOLT: How serious has it been, how critical has it been in jailing Pell in this grotesque miscarriage of justice? 

GERARD HENDERSON: Well I think it’s been critical. You’ve had a media pile-on led by the ABC but not only the ABC, but they led it, going on for a decade.

- The Bolt Report, Sky News, 7 April, 2020

And back in The Australian, the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, Greg Craven, was another to go on the attack:

The ABC — supposedly our “most trusted” source of news –— was and remains particularly virulent.

- The Australian, 8 April, 2020

Having previously gone on ABC News to ask: 

GREG CRAVEN: … the question I have for you is, how much guilt does the ABC feel, having made sure that this victim has gone through years of hell, only to be hurled down, when the case should never have been brought.

- ABC News Channel, 7 April, 2020

And all that is just a sample of News Corp’s criticism, which was echoed in The Spectator, edited by Sky’s Rowan Dean.

So, are the attacks fair? And should the ABC be so savagely condemned? Or is this just another barrage in the endless culture wars? 

Well, for starters, let me say the ABC was absolutely right to report the allegations against Pell and to take them seriously. And it would have been scandalous not to do so.

Not least because at least seven different people claimed to be victims of abuse by the Cardinal in at least three different places in three different decades.  

And while it’s important to say none of those allegations has been upheld by a court, the ABC was surely right to investigate them.

As George Pell told the royal commission:

GEORGE PELL: My own position is that you never disbelieve a complaint. But then it has to be assessed as to see just whether it is valid and true and plausible.

- Revelation, ABC, 2 April, 2020

Following Cardinal Pell’s acquittal, the ABC’s Editorial Director Craig McMurtrie quoted those words in this article denying any witch hunt. And added:

That is what ABC journalists have been doing and will continue to do.

- ABC News, 11 April, 2020

But, did the ABC assume Pell’s guilt, or give sufficient weight to the idea he might be innocent? 

And before answering that, let’s remember it was Andrew Bolt’s own paper, the Herald Sun, that actually broke the story back in February 2016 like this: 

POLICE PROBE PELL

EXCLUSIVE

TOP-SECRET INVESTIGATION INTO SEX ABUSE CLAIMS AGAINST CARDINAL 

- The Herald Sun, 20 February, 2016 

And here is the reporter, Lucie Morris-Marr, recounting the shock of breaking that story:

LUCIE MORRIS-MARR: … when I walked into the office of the editor of the Herald Sun he could hardly speak either and they realised the weight of it and the gravity of the story ...

- The Religion & Ethics Report, ABC RN, 21 August, 2019

And Melbourne’s top-selling tabloid has continued to push hard on Pell. Not least with this claim last week of a new Victorian police investigation after the High Court decision. 

So it’s not just the ABC making the running.  

The ABC first covered the allegations in detail five months after the Herald Sun, in a 7.30 special report by Louise Milligan which featured two alleged victims from Ballarat in the 1970s who had complained to the police.

The ABC told us in a statement last week:

The [7.30] story ... was subject to the most rigorous scrutiny and oversight. Months of work was done by experienced journalists to verify, check and corroborate allegations to the greatest extent possible. 

... in addition … the program was subject to exhaustive review by senior ABC management and legal counsel.

- Email, ABC spokesperson, 18 April, 2020

7.30 reminded viewers that Cardinal Pell was entitled to the presumption of innocence. 

It also invited him to have his say. And, when he declined, it featured this strong denial:

SPOKESPERSON: “... claims that he sexually abused anyone, in any place, at any time in his life are totally untrue and completely wrong. He denies the allegations absolutely and says that they, and any acceptance of them by the ABC, are nothing more than a scandalous smear campaign which appears to be championed by the ABC.”

- 7.30, ABC, 27 July, 2016

Around one year later, in June 2017, Victoria Police charged Cardinal Pell with historic child sex offences, and a lengthy media blackout ensued — enforced by powerful suppression orders — which made discussion of the case impossible.

That blackout wasn’t lifted until February 2019, when one set of charges against him was dropped and a verdict of guilty was revealed on the other. 

Media Watch pointed out at the time that Pell might appeal.

We also highlighted articles in The Guardian and The Age questioning the safety of the verdict. And we warned that all the week’s screaming headlines, quote, “may need scrubbing out”.

There was, however, no such caution from Louise Milligan and Four Corners, which did not canvass any of Pell’s defence from the trial — in my view it should have done — and which lined up witnesses condemning Pell:

ANDREW LA GRECA: For it to happen to the little boys is just ... They preach about God, they preach about love, love thy neighbour and that’s ... They took away lives. They took away innocence.

- Four Corners, ABC, 4 March, 2019

But ABC’s 7.30 did canvass the possibility that the verdict was wrong and Pell was innocent, interviewing Father Frank Brennan — who’d followed the case closely — about improbabilities in the prosecution case:

FRANK BRENNAN: … the jury has found Cardinal Pell guilty and that, in a trial, where it seemed to me there were quite a number of improbabilities in relation to the evidence, but nonetheless, 12 conscientious Australian citizens off the street have said we're convinced beyond reasonable doubt that this happened.

- 7.30, ABC, 26 February, 2019

Father Brennan went on to tell 7.30 in detail why he thought Pell could not have committed the crime. And he made similar comments on radio.

And he was not alone. The ABC told us more than 80 different voices were used by ABC programs, 36 of which, it says, were impartial, while 13 were from the Catholic Church.

And it added:     

Several prominent people who could be described as either supporters of Cardinal Pell or representatives of the Catholic Church were interviewed or appeared on panel discussions: Father Frank Brennan … Francis Sullivan (twice); Archbishop Peter Comensoli (twice …); Greg Sheridan; Paul Collins; and Terry Laidler. Comments from Professor Greg Craven and Tony Abbott were also included in the package leading PM that day, along with Cardinal Pell’s statement.

- Email, ABC spokesperson, 18 April, 2020

Other prominent supporters of Pell, says the ABC, were asked to comment but declined.

Six months later, when the Victorian Court of Appeal dismissed Pell’s first appeal, lawyer Richard Beasley appeared on The Drum and again raised doubts:

RICHARD BEASLEY: … the dissent by Justice Weinberg, I think, is quite compelling and I also had a sense of unease reading the majority judgment ...

… both sets of judgments go through what was called by Walker the 13 obstacles to finding guilt. And I just find, as a totality, a sense of unease that a reasonable doubt wasn’t found.

- The Drum, ABC, 21 August, 2019

And while he may have been outnumbered, he was not alone.

Kathryn Greiner and Lyle Shelton also spoke up for the Cardinal. And Melbourne’s Bishop Elliott, who’s been a close friend of Pell for 50 years, told 7.30 he believed he was innocent. 

Again, according to the ABC, several other Pell supporters declined to comment:  

Unsuccessful requests for interviews included Professor Greg Craven, Archbishop Mark Coleridge and Archbishop Peter Comensoli.

- Email, ABC spokesperson, 18 April, 2020

So, was the ABC’s coverage relentlessly one-sided?

In a word, no, it was not. Unlike those criticisms from News Corp.   

And let’s not forget that Louise Milligan and her producer Andy Burns won the Melbourne Press Club’s 2016 Golden Quill Award for that 7.30 special. While Milligan’s book Cardinal was also highly acclaimed, winning the 2017 Walkley Book Award and the Law Reporting Award from Sydney’s Sir Owen Dixon Chambers.

So Milligan’s reporting was praised by lawyers and journalists alike.  

Last week, she responded personally to The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan, who has blamed her for Pell’s wrongful conviction, tweeting:

To frame this as a concoction of my book or the ABC is a profound insult to 12 men & women who sat through weeks of evidence, to 2 eminent appeal court justices, to the OPP, to Victoria Police officers who daily see the impact of child abuse perpetrated by your Church.

- Twitter, @milliganreports, 16 April, 2020

It’s also worth noting that The Australian — whose columnists are so busy attacking Milligan and the ABC  — is no stranger to trial by media.  

Its crime podcast Teacher's Pet, which won the Gold Walkley for Hedley Thomas in 2018 and has been downloaded 10 million times, was massively promoted by The Australian for months on end. 

And Thomas did not give his target the presumption of innocence:

HEDLEY THOMAS: I think everything points to Chris Dawson … [BLEEP] 

- 60 Minutes, Channel Nine, 10 September, 2018

We can’t play you the full grab. It would be in contempt of court.

But even if News Corp’s ABC haters are blind to their own hypocrisy, the ABC should not escape criticism altogether. 

Having given so much time to Pell’s accusers since 2016, 7.30 should surely have devoted more than six minutes to his final acquittal.

And comments like this from Barrie Cassidy and Quentin Dempster after the High Court decision suggest that some past or present ABC titans still want to believe Pell is guilty: 

The High Court has found there was not enough evidence to convict. It did not find him innocent.

- Twitter, @barriecassidy, 7 April, 2020

Pell “innocent” headlines @australian. Also His Holiness @Pontifex uses the word “innocent” in a Tweet. This is a misrepresentation.

- Twitter, @QuentinDempster, 8 April, 2020

Technically that may be right

But the principle of our legal system is you’re innocent until proven guilty. And after a unanimous seven-nil verdict from the High Court, you surely can’t argue that Pell is not innocent of the charges.  

So, what are the lessons for the media from all of this? How should it report on historical sex offences, when the alleged abuse took place many years ago, unwitnessed, in dark, silent corners? 

Does the public have a right to know that police are investigating? In my view, yes. 

Do the alleged victims have a right to be heard and taken seriously? Yes again. 

But the media must be cautious, careful, rigorous and fair. As Professor of Journalism Margaret Simons asks in The Guardian:

Should the media campaign against individuals and mount the case for the prosecution? I would say no, but I would also say that they bear a vital responsibility to bring serious allegations to public attention ... 

The lines are blurry, the judgments difficult. 

- The Guardian, 15 April, 2020

They are indeed.

And did the ABC get their judgements on Pell 100 per cent right? Probably not.

Was it a witch hunt and a dark day for journalism? I for one do not think so. 

But this was a case that divided the nation.