The media’s role in reporting on terrorism – Dr Gavin Ellis

Paper presented at the Australia & New Zealand

Supreme & Federal Court Judges’ Conference

Christchurch 23 January 2023

 

The actions and reactions of the New Zealand media in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks and subsequent court proceedings demonstrate the value of institutional cooperation and mutual trust.

 That conclusion is drawn from two papers written in conjunction with my colleague, Dr Denis Muller of Melbourne University.  The first examined New Zealand and overseas coverage of the attacks themselves in 2019.[1] The second, published in the New Zealand Law Journal over the latter part of last year, related to the sentencing of Brenton Harrison Tarrant in 2020.[2] There may be a third paper following a coronial hearing and Tarrant’s appeal against conviction and sentence.[3]

However, I need to start by briefly discussing the nature of terrorism itself. It is a violent crime where the victims are not the end, but the means to an end. They are the means by which a message can be sent to the public in a way that cannot be ignored. French journalist Paul Brousse in 1877 coined the phrase Propaganda par le fait – propaganda by the deed. Continue reading “The media’s role in reporting on terrorism – Dr Gavin Ellis” →

Thank God for news media in a storm

The brave little shrubs are doing their valiant best to stay intact as a plant pot skids across our balcony in Cyclone Gabrielle’s first caress. With much worse yet to come I need to know what, where, and when.

I need information and, if I have to cut my way through a jungle of official sources, I will still be in the rain forest when Gabby takes me in her crushing embrace.

This, I tell myself, is precisely why we need news media. They draw together an overwhelming range of sources and condense information into a readily absorbed format. Then they keep updating and adding to the picture.

As I write this commentary on Monday, that picture is already changing. An hour ago, the rain was a fine drizzle and there was little wind. Now the rain is heavier, and the wind is coming in strong gusts. In another couple of hours I expect the freight train that Northland residents heard as Gabrielle passed through, and the driveway will be a cascade. Then the triangle of soil (that has already subsided by about 30 centimetres) may slide from the edge of the adjacent bush reserve into the stream below.

Continue reading “Thank God for news media in a storm” →

Text generators must not become killer robots

Disclosure: This commentary was written by me. It is not the product of a generative artificial intelligence programme. Any intelligence you may find here is from my own, admittedly limited, resources.

There is, however, the worrying prospect that it could have been produced by ChatGPT, a programme with alarmingly human-like text generating capabilities. In fact, some commentators have used it to produce parts of their columns to show how good it is at creating content virtually indistinguishable from their own words of wisdom.

Generative AI is good, but it isn’t that good. Last month the U.S. tech website CNET admitted that it had used it to create at least 75 stories, many of which were attributed to “CNET Money Staff”. Retrospective fact-checking found the stories riddled with errors that human reporters were unlikely to make.

That revelation has not halted media use of AI in its tracks. Sports Illustrated last week told the Wall Street Journal it was publishing AI-generated stories on men’s fitness tips, drawing on 17 years of archived stories in its own library. The caveat is that all of the stories are reviewed and fact-checked by flesh-and-blood journalists.

This sort of AI may not be perfect, although it is good enough to create alarm among university staff over student essay assignments. However, it is about to get better. Continue reading “Text generators must not become killer robots” →

Sentencing the Christchurch mosque terrorist

In the latter part of last year the New Zealand Law Journal published a four-part paper on ground-breaking processes introduced for the sentencing of the Christchurch mosque gunman in 2020.

The paper, which I co-authored with Dr Denis Muller of Melbourne University, found that high levels of institutional trust between New Zealand media organisations and the justice system were instrumental in denying the terrorist any opportunity to use the proceedings as a soapbox for white supremacist beliefs.

The paper has been subject to a six-month copyright stand-down period required by the New Zealand Law Journal’s publisher. That restriction no longer applies to Part 1 and you can access it below. The remaining parts will be posted at the beginning of March, April and May.

Justice, the media, and the Christchurch mosque terrorist Part 1