Media Misrepresentation and Emotive Writing

Media Misrepresentation and Emotive Writing COOKING UP DRAMA When reporting on an issue as serious as methamphetamines, its important not to lose your head, writes Matt Cramb Wheres the statistician? Image: ABC AUSTRALIA IS UNDER SIEGE, or at least, thats how ABCs 2017 docu-drama series Ice Wars frames the ever-lurking issue of crystal meth; against dramatic music and flashing imagery of so called ice dens and their denizens, cooks and ice monsters. This hyperbolic name-calling helps nobody, especially not those already embroiled in the stigma surrounding methamphetamines, serving only to further polarise pundits. This leads to similarly overly-authoritative articles such as that from Harm Reduction Australia (HRA), published on February 12, five days after the first episode aired. In their Huffington Post article, titled The ABCs Ice Wars Is Exploiting Vulnerable Addicts, HRA calls for the entire series to be pulled from the network due to a segment following the life of a schizophrenic man addicted to ice. Both texts were written poised to make a positive difference in the community, but are loaded with murky pathos and blinding octane action which topples their ambitions. Information is set into the background, with emotion taking centre stage. It remains to be seen whether this appeal to emotion will propel a stronger community response against the drug, but without the armaments of solid facts to equip it, such a response cannot hold. The Riot Squad, complete with perfectly-angled dashcam. Image: ABC Ice Wars Appeal to Emotion Professor Nicole Lee summed it up when she wrote, Most of what is reported in [Ice Wars] is not incorrect, but it lacks nuance and context. For example, when Ice Wars reports a figure of 1.3 million for Australians who have tried ice, it passes this exaggeration off as a shocking revelation, following with, friends and members of your family would have to have tried ice. This is a perfect example of the shows extreme lack of effort to reconcile facts with on-screen action, over-representing the most shocking and dramatic aspects of Australias campaign (not war, mind you) against ice. Not only is the figure quoted above actually lower, as the Australian Drug Strategy Household Survey conducted in late 2015 reported closer to 850,000 Australians who had used crystal methamphetamine, it doesnt accurately represent the number of regular users at all. Per Lees figures, part of her article on the topic titled Ice Wars Message is Overblown and Unhelpful, a miniscule 0.25% of the population over 14 years uses methamphetamines regularly. Despite the evidence, Australians are prone to overestimating the scale of ice use, found an online survey conducted by the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre (NCPIC). They reported that almost 50% of survey respondents thought 30-100% of Australians had tried ice, with only 14% correctly estimating the figure. The misinformation and misrepresentation left throughout ABCs Ice Wars can only serve to further decrease this figure. Ice Wars, in this regard, is more Highway Patrol than hard-hitting documentary. And the NCPIC, who were responsible for bringing this information to light, despite their usual focus on cannabis? Defunded in December of 2016, the Department of Health citing the release of the National Ice Action Strategy as a major contributing factor. Where is Cannabis Wars, seeing as over 8.3 million Australians have tried the drug? Surely at this figure, friends and members of your family would have to have tried cannabis? Professor Jan Copeland, the former director of the now-defunded NCPIC, said of the research; The most worrying aspect of this is that it normalises ice use in the minds of those who may be thinking of trying it. Ice Wars glosses over these vital statistics, instead foregrounding the more photogenic drug raids and silencing all the above sources. Emotional quotes such as, You lose your soul. You lose everything, are given more time and focus than all of the research conducted on this topic in recent years. Shaky and over-exposed camera angles of barred house fronts with an overlaid narrator talking about the dangers of ice addiction may be more aesthetically appealing, but when Ice Wars employs this and similar visual techniques to heighten the tension and drama and backgrounds crucial information, it does nothing to advance the cause they are championing. It definitely shows something when a hazmat-suited police officer counting numbers off while sorting evidence baggies is better television than an explanation as to what those numbers actually mean. Attempts at fearmongering fall flat trying to leap over the gaps presented in this supposedly educational series. Very interestingly, one of the visual techniques the show uses to fearmonger are several eye-in-the-sky camera angles taken via drone to present an authoritative documentary tone, a tone Harm Reduction Australia unwittingly emulates in their own article. Theres a lot of myths about methamphetamine. Image: ABC The ABCs Ice Wars Is Exploiting Vulnerable Addicts Appeal to Authority Boldly emblazoned, just underneath the catchy head- and by-line of the Huffington Post article, The ABCs Ice Wars Is Exploiting Vulnerable Addicts, are the names and qualifications of the two authors, Gino Vumbaca and Tony Trimingham, president and vice-president of Harm Reduction Australia respectively. For context, Harm Reduction Australia is an organisation dedicated to increasing practices in Australian drug policy which focus more on lessening the impact of drug use in cases where the user is unable or unwilling to stop [using]. Their article, or at least the article co-penned by their president, condemns the ABCs brief focus on an ice user and schizophrenic. When they begin their article with the phrase; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦we believe there is no option but to call for the rest of the series to be halted from broadcastingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ its unclear whether the we is Vumbaca Trimingham or HRA itself. Later, they attest that It is the policy of NSW Healthà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦, and end their article with a quote from Dr Marianne Jauncey, quick to point out her position as Director of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre. The quote itself is largely irrelevant to the rest of the article, exploring a tangent they only lightly touched upon; the issue of misrepresentation. Theres a lot of myths about methamphetamine, she is quoted as saying. Perhaps it is fitting that this quote is used to conclude an article written by people intentionally and artificially exaggerating their status, because stapling her quote to the end of the article does exactly that. This contradiction is exemplified in the following quote: The public have no reason not to believe this [information provided by the ABC] is true given the authoritative nature of the source from which it came. However, it is simply untrueà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Simultaneously rebuking the ABC for an authoritative tone while adopting that very same tone further highlights the emphasis and citations leveraged by Vumbaca Trimingham to promote their ideology. The article discredits sources which discuss statistics, such as ABC Breakfast who claims that it takes 18 months to get off methamphetamine, while heroin only takes 10 days, which while in context was appropriate to Vumbaca Triminghams point, also effectively silences all data surrounding the issue. The ABC series appears to be failing badly on reporting the evidence, posits the article, after itself claiming, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦investment in treatment and support provides far better economic, health and social outcomes than policing, courts and prisonsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ while omitting all evidence. The audience is not given baseline knowledge on the issue but is led to believe the text is an authority on said issue, only muddying the waters further. Granted, this may have been done deliberately to promote Vumbaca Triminghams organisational agenda or to draw in a more engaged audience. However, it does nothing to help their contention or the ice user whose plight they bemoan. Interviews with these people, those directly involved in the science and numbers, would have been much appreciated. Image: ABC Both texts are filled with their own flaws and misrepresentations, including Ice Wars use of emotion over reason, and Harm Reduction Australias authoritative tension, but both silence or omit important data and statistics to their detriment. By coaxing and corralling specific emotional responses from the audience, the texts hinder the change they are trying to action. While they are trying to help, without preparing their audiences with accurate facts and relevant data, the issue will become more nebulous and difficult to tackle. And its already bad enough. Bibliography: Author/s Unknown 2016, National Drug Strategy 2016-2025, Intergovernmental Committee on Drugs, accessed 22/2/17, http://www.nationaldrugstrategy.gov.au/internet/drugstrategy/Publishing.nsf/content/73E3AD4C708D5726CA257ED000050625/$File/draftnds.pdf Author/s Unknown 2017, Harm Reduction Australia, Harm Reduction Australia, accessed 20/2/17, http://www.harmreductionaustralia.org.au/ Author/s Unknown 2017, Whoops!, National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, accessed 22/2/17, https://ncpic.org.au/ Fogarty, S 2016, Cannabis addiction support centre to close doors after government cuts funding, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, accessed 22/2/17, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-04/cannabis-support-centre-to-close-after-funding-cut/7994558 Ice Wars 2017, television program, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney, 8 February Lee, N 2017, Ice Wars message is overblown and unhelpful, The Conversation, accessed 20/2/17, http://theconversation.com/ice-wars-message-is-overblown-and-unhelpful-72719 National Drug Alcohol Research Centre 2015, Australians are overestimating meth use, University of New South Wales, accessed 22/2/17, https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/news/australians-are-overestimating-meth-use Trimingham, T Vumbaca, G 2017, The ABCs Ice Wars Is Exploiting Vulnerable Addicts, Huffingon Post, accessed 20/2/17, http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/tony-trimingham/the-abcs-ice-wars-is-exploiting-vulnerable-addicts/