Most of us have spent the last few weeks watching the news and reading the papers, moved and horrified by the inferno that engulfed our state and the thousands of victims suffering unimaginable fear and loss because of it.

Thank God we all knew what was happening so quickly. In the media age we have minute by minute updates to our phones, computers and TVs; within hours the whole country was glued to one screen or another, watching the horror unfold and finding out what we could do to help

And it worked, didn’t it? We all stepped up and dug deep. Over $140 million in donations; for the first time since 9/11 the blood bank is full; the Salvation Army stores are overflowing with donated clothing; the Dear Leader has promised that rural Victoria will be rebuilt and Brumby has convened a Royal Commission to ensure the circumstances that contributed to the magnitude of the tragedy are investigated and not allowed to happen again.

It can’t be denied that this massive and rapid response would not have happened without the huge media coverage and the face of human suffering they showed us, so it’s a good thing, right? The end justifies the means and a few cracked eggs don’t matter if you end up with a vast, feel-good omelette.

Unless you happen to be one of the eggs, of course, in which case it might not be so warm and fuzzy.

Fairly early in the week after the fires we were hearing a number of people expressing outrage at the methods used by reporters looking for the ‘human interest’ angle. We hadn’t seen much of it ourselves at that stage, mainly, I think, because we don’t watch commercial TV news (I swore off it after the Boxing Day Tsunami when I saw footage of a woman who had just discovered the body of her baby girl in the water. She was on her knees, screaming in agony and a reporter had a microphone close up under her nose to make sure they recorded every sound).

Then we started hearing stories filtering back through the two or three degrees that separate most of us from the people on the frontline of the fires. Reporters chasing distraught teenagers who had just been told that their friends are dead to ask for a comment. TV helicopters going into dangerous areas, so desperately needed resources had to be allocated to chase them out for their own safety. Camera crews calling fire fighters arseholes for refusing to allow them to film in front of fires the CFA were trying to extinguish. Reporters rubbing ash on their clothes and faces to look more ‘authentic’ for the live cross. Shocked survivors begging reporters to leave them alone but being forced into giving ‘just a quick comment’ before being allowed to retreat to the comfort of the friends and family they had left.

It would be reassuring to believe that these were the exceptions rather than the rule, or that they were just rumours exaggerated because people needed a focus for their anger. Sadly, the grief porn and the self-aggrandising, insensitive and intrusive so-called journalism pouring out of our TV screens and newspapers was impossible to ignore or dismiss. Even the ABC and The Australian, who should know better, were proudly showing hysterical exploitation of tragedy as examples of their superior journalism skills.

Two days after the Kinglake fires Heather Ewart, a deservedly respected journalist, recorded the following interview for the 7.30 report:

STEVE GUILFOYLE: My truck hasn't burnt, it melted.

HEATHER EWART: He is still deeply in shock and finds himself being comforted by his 12-year-old son, Jake.

JAKE GUILFOYLE, SON: You alright, Dad?

STEVE GUILFOYLE: Yeah, I'm alright, mate.

JAKE GUILFOYLE: You're shakin'?

STEVE GUILFOYLE: No, I'm just cold. Just nerves.

HEATHER EWART: Steve Guilfoyle knows he's lost his house, like so many others here. Now they're just desperate for information about friends, neighbours and family members who may have perished trying to save their homes. At a meeting at the relief centre last night, this was the most detail they could get from authorities.

POLICE OFFICER: There's been some deceased persons located, at this particular point in time police and disaster victim identification teams are in attendance. It may be several days before residents are allowed back into Marysville.

HEATHER EWART: While this shocked some at the meeting, others had already been bracing for the worst.

STEVE GUILFOYLE: Well we done a count this morning of people that we know have gone and we got to 15. But, ah, yeah, that's what we know amongst ourselves, who never made it. We got to 15 this morning, and nobody really wanted to discuss it anymore.

HEATHER EWART: Jake, how are you holding up?

JAKE GUILFOYLE: Alright.

STEVE GUILFOYLE: He's proppin' me up.

HEATHER EWART: Have you got a few mates who might be missing?

JAKE GUILFOYLE: Um, yeah: one.

STEVE GUILFOYLE: The two kids who go to school on the bus with you.

JAKE GUILFOYLE: Oh, yeah, three.

In addition to everything else Jake lost, he had to try to comfort his shocked and tearful father while watching helplessly as Ms Ewart probed a little deeper into his pain. It’s a good thing she was there to remind this 12 year old boy that it was at least three of his friends who had died, because, in the maelstrom of horror around him, he appeared to have blanked it out for a moment.

Then The Australian published an article identifying by name two people whose death had not yet been confirmed by police. The article went on to imply that their neighbour claimed that he survived when they didn’t only because he was prepared and they weren’t (not true and not what he actually meant) and finished by providing grisly details of the manner of their death that were later confirmed by police as being untrue. The children those people left behind read that article and I can’t even begin to imagine how much pain that must have caused them.

The Herald Sun’s ghoulish front cover entitled “Our Littlest Victims” on Thursday 12th Feb, showing photos of small children killed in the fires was the worst example of grief porn that I saw, but was by no means the only one.

I could fill a few more pages with more examples of the media charging across a line most people wouldn’t dream of even approaching, but apart from reducing me to a state of incoherent rage, that’s not going to achieve very much.

The real question, I think, is how do we stop the media exploiting victims of disaster, while still allowing them to report the full effects to the rest of the world?

The solution is not to restrict coverage of disasters to dry facts or to embargo any interview with people directly affected. Richard Stubbs, who did a lot of interviews with bushfire survivors for ABC 774 radio, made the point that there are actually a lot of people who want to tell their story. Part of their healing is to be heard, to feel that others are sharing their experiences and that they are not alone in their suffering. The interviews that I heard him do were honest and touching, but mainly consisted of him giving people a place to speak; no intrusive or insensitive questions about how many friends were dead or how terrifying the fires were, he let them speak for themselves and reveal as much as they felt comfortable with. Surely this isn’t too high a standard to set for every journalist in a disaster situation?

However, I think it is worth considering that it may be asking too much of individual journalists to make the right judgement call every time. The pressure, the emotion and the adrenaline of being in the middle of a disaster is inevitably going to throw some people. Particularly given that the directive from their home studios is not to give space and consideration to the victims, but to make sure they get the best human interest story in time for the six o’clock news and make damn sure you get it before those bastards from channel 9 do. The head office pressure to find the story, no matter what you have to do to get it, is the source of the problem and it’s there because they believe that’s what their audience wants.

And therein, I believe, lies the solution. Change from the top down, not castigating the individual reporters for their transgressions, but making the studios aware that their audience does NOT want to see grief stricken victims being violated on their TV screens. They do NOT want to read exploitative or, worse, inaccurate articles with their morning coffee. We ABSOLUTELY do NOT want the media interfering with the emergency workers who are risking their lives trying to fix the actual problem.

The vast resources of modern digital communication means that the general public now has a way of communicating back to the media outlets. Every TV station, radio program, newspaper and magazine has a website and space for people to discuss and comment on individual reports or programs. This is where we need to fight back.

Instead of just turning off the TV in disgust, or snorting in outrage and throwing cups at the radio, take the time to send them an email, vote on a forum or write a comment. If there is enough of this kind of feedback then the pressure on the frontline journalists is to NOT cut open the wounded in front of us. If public opinion is strong enough then the profit incentive will work in favour of those who have already suffered enough, rather than against them.

The digital age is an era of two way communication, not one-way one-to-many information pathways. Use it. Speak up. Shout, rant and stamp your feet. Be outraged and vocal. Get involved and, as Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world, because the next disaster is just around the corner and next time it could be you, your child, your brother or your friend trying to dodge the microphone we didn’t take away from the guy shoving it in their face.

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