[LINK] It's Queensland - (sorry to Qlders)

[Richard Chirgwin]

(An aside. Journalists don't want to know this, or the IT journos 
anyway. I've discussed this on a Website and in an invitation-only 
e-mail list; I get the "don't make eye contact" treatment, as if calling 
a lawyer is a really strange concept.)

On 19/05/11 2:17 PM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> At 01:45 PM 19/05/2011, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>> Trying to (a) invent a new crime on the spot, (b) slip under the radar
>> because the person you're interviewing is 20 years old and doesn't know
>> how to do the police, and (c) acting this way because you've already
>> made a mistake - well, "as a taxpayer", I expect the police to be
>> competent, and to do their jobs within the law, neither of which appear
>> to be the case here.
> Someone at Fairfax didn't do their cub training - either Ben or the
> company, who knows which. I was shocked when I read that transcript.
> With all the hullabaloo over protecting source material, he screwed
> up the first principal of journalism. Perhaps he's not a trained
> journalist, but a techo who could write?
He's 20, previously ZDNet and ITNews, before that a blogger. An 
autodidact in media terms - but ther *should* be a media law 101 
anywhere you have journalists.

> Anyone know? Stil? He's
> awfully young, and obviously inexperienced. He obviously doesn't read
> newspapers as it pertains to current events in his industry. AND he's
> Gen Y, so he probably doesn't watch enough TV to even be aware of
> common knowledge of the protective principles of journalism or at a
> minimum, never trusting the police to tell you the truth. They lie.
> Period. One keeps one's mouth shut until a lawyer is present, even if
> it's one appointed by the court. In this case, all he had to do was
> pick up the phone. They told him his rights. He should have exercised them.
Yep. But where the police will say "you may have a lawyer present", a 
proper training would have taught him "you must have a lawyer present".

I think the lawyer who told me this was Bruce Burke, who does a fair 
amount of media stuff: "if the police want to talk to you about a story, 
you're already in trouble".

In Ben's position, there's an information asymmetry at the outset. The 
police know what they want to find out, and you don't. So you cannot 
know what's safe to answer and what's not.
> The police took advantage of that. They should be ashamed of
> themselves. But I really doubt they will be. As I put in the subject
> line, It's Queensland.
They took advantage indeed. Even at the point where they said "we're 
going to arrest you", a lawyer would have said "Fine. Lay the charge. My 
client is keeping his property until the morning, when you can explain 
the charge to a magistrate. Otherwise, if you want the iPad now, go to a 
magistrate and get a warrant." Except, of course, that with a lawyer 
present things wouldn't have gotten to that pass in the first place.

Cheers,
RC
> Jan
>
>
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
> blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
>
> Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or
> sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
> ~Madeline L'Engle, writer
>
> _ __________________ _
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>