Image: New Matilda
By Situation Theatre 16/08/2016
If you’re going to be an advocate, at least have the decency to do it for the government.
Phew. I was worried there for a second that the thousands of leaked incident reports about systemic physical and sexual abuses of children in Australia’s offshore concentration camps were going to overshadow the disappointing performance of the Australian swim team.
Thanks to minimal coverage of the Nauru files from a wide range of commercial outlets, the hearts of Australians bled for the Campbell sisters but not for tortured children.
Let’s be frank about this.
The kind of advocacy the Guardian has engaged in over the last week is the real disgrace here.
Appearing on the Drum last week, Nick Cater derided the work of Paul Farrell on the Nauru Files by saying "that to me isn't journalism, that's advocacy."
Another respected columnist for The Australian said “I’m so sick of so called journalists at the Guardian advocating for the basic human rights of children based on close scrutiny of official government documents. If you’re going to advocate, at least do it based on conservative ideology with no concern for how that ideology affects the lives of people who don’t look like you.”