Chapter 8

1 Is this a trick question? Story "a" is the obvious choice. It allows the same scope for interviews and in depth coverage, and stock photos can be used of the main players in the story, and photos of actual affidavits can be faxed or printed out for use as evidence or in photos [hard to believe, but photos of documents are often used in such stories, or particular lines are highlighted and photographed. Also, even buildings, boring as they are, they to are used in photos next to stories, like parliament house, or corporate headquarters, or council buildings] why create pressure for yourself unnecessarily? The only advantage of going in person is candid photos, but these can be arranged while the writer is engaged in the office. These days there is very little need to take the time intensive option of personally attending various locations as it is not only a waste of time, but can be costly and labour intensive too.
2. Yes, if the story was interesting enough. Many great stories were half done on the journalists own time. It can also provide its own rewards, if done for the right reasons. A perfect example is people like Brian Toohey or Marianne Wilkinson or Wendy Bacon, journalists who at some stage devoted themselves at no small cost to cover vitally important topics of police corruption and its role in organised crime in NSW in the early eighties. These were brave people, who put in the effort to achieve great things, including meaningful reform. Many were personally threatened, called at home and at work, there were even some instances of attempted attacks on journalists in this state. Indeed, Juanita Neilsen was a publisher herself who disappeared when investigating corrupt deals among developers and public officials. People devote themselves to such investigation because it's worth it, at a personal level and for society, and often makes compelling, absolutely great stories. But it must be interesting and persuasive enough to pursue, because many journalists have also devoted themselves to campaigns that degenerated into vendettas or "bleep fights" with other prominent individuals. [The journalist Bob Bottom is one example of a person who may have gone overboard in terms of activism and jumping on the bandwagon of organised crime reporting. Some say he was just a show pony].
3. Again, yes. Sometimes particular topics are just too important to split down company lines, there are several examples. Michael Brissenden and two other journalists from other organisations cooperated to expose the Costello "off the record comments" as a way to back each other up, and the ABC is cooperating with several other news groups in a "right to know" coalition regarding freedom of information restrictions, so although that is not about a "story" as such it proves that cooperation is sometimes necessary, important to achieve something better than just a personal "scoop". People would have seen some press conferences where journalists have worked together despite having different employers, when they feel it is vital to the public interest that they do so. By "giving up" the best question, I assume this means revealing it to others, still, journalists have done more than that. Some even show each other evidence if they feel that doing so they can cooperate to piece together disparate facts into a coherent picture.
This is very risky, but sometimes pays off. It must be remembered though, journalism is a cut throat business, and many journalists will steal your story, and they don't even need your help!
So, only take such risks with people who have integrity and can be trusted, and only if the situation really requires it. This is rarely the case, but if it is necessary to cooperate, there is no real harm in losing one advantage in order to achieve some collective gain.
4 The people own government held information. Governments are given the gift of power by voters, not by heavenly mandate. Certainly governments should be allowed to discuss some policy without fear that every suggestion made could be later used against them, governments should be entitled to privately entertain or canvass their options. It is better for democracy if not all policy suggestions are all made public immediately. However, statistical data, official policy and factual documents held by the government are always the property of the people, who have a right to know what is done in their name. I did my presentation about this. There are a list of exempted items, such as those affecting diplomacy, federal state relations, personal details of citizens and legal or medical or other privileged material, or some financial affairs or transactions of the crown, or national security and defense. They are all exempted. But if the government was to cut veteran's pensions, as was exposed by two convicted journalists from Melbourne, or if Welfare to Work is hurting people with disabilities, or if Workchoices is having some known impact on employment or wage patterns, the people of our country are entitled to know what the government knows. The government has the tools of information gathering, and the instrument of policy and regulation, these are privileges that are not the exclusive and private right of current governments. Freedom of information protocol, despite the platitudes of ministers and the friendly sounding names of legislation like "Open Government bill 2000" has been utterly corrupted at all levels of Australian government, but especially the federal level.
The public are treated like a docile pet that does not need to know, indeed it is claimed it is not in the public interest that we know of the effects of Workchoices. That is why several news groups including Fairfax, the ABC and others have joined a coalition to raise awareness of the restrictions placed on official documents to which the public should be granted access. The people are the sole sovereign democratic power, we do not live in a dictatorship we own the information, governments are just temporary custodians, they have no right to delay or deny or prevent access to knowledge of what they do, as all their action is granted to them by the people.
5 The best way to decide is to first choose what the major angle of interest is that the story holds. Then decide who are the main players in the story. Then simply see which session has the major players, and which session covers the topics that are most prominent and current/timely in the minds of the audience. Then simply choose the session that offers the best overlap, avoid the major players discussing petty or boring matters, and avoid the good topics being discussed by unknowns or people irrelevant to the readers. The best overlap is to find the most prominent people discussing topics of importance or interest.

If all else fails, just do the old Jana Wendt trick, and make the famous national figures appear ridiculous with photos of them falling asleep, accompanied by a brief humorous article explaining how boring the whole conference was.