JN1001 Annotated Bibliography – Police Corruption, Fitzgerald Inquiry Part One

JN1001 Annotated Bibliography – Police Corruption, Fitzgerald Inquiry

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands (Oscar Wilde).” Throughout this Annotated Bibliography, the discussion will present the news stories of Police Corruption in particular the infamous Fitzgerald Inquiry. By using television, print, web and academic text, this newsworthy story of the 1980’s is similar across all media forms yet values of the story vary. Four Corners, The Brisbane Times, Wikipedia, and Rodney Tiffen cover this news story of Police Corruption.

Tiffen, Rodney. Scandals: media, politics and corruption in Contemporary Australia. University of New South Wales Press, 1999. Print.

Rodney Tiffen illustrates how the public as an audience to political, royal and personality scandals unfold in the media. Furthermore, how these scandals are sometimes misleading and often untrue, capture the publics’ eye and unfortunately allow the public to assume that “they all do it” (Rodney Tiffen 1999). Professor Rodney Tiffen teachers and researches Mass Media and Australian Politics, also Tiffen has authored many publications that relate to these topics (University of Sydney 2013). Due to this an audience can assume that Rodney Tiffen is a creditable source for this book ‘Scandals: Media, Politics and Corruption in Cotemporary Australia’. This book shows the reader that Australian journalism needs to tell the audience a ‘newsworthy’ story through using news values: Drama, allows the audience to feel as though it is a interesting topic and Visual Attractiveness, draws the audience in (Golding and Elliot, 1979). Newspaper agenda, Selling copies, and celebrity (O’neil and Harcup 2001); Also a form of ‘churnalism’ is displayed, where journalist use a source of information only to sell their story instead of ‘digging deep’ to find the ‘truth’ in the story. But also needs to represent a sense of truth. The Following are three different mediums of Journalism that use the Fitzgerald Inquiry as their subject.

Chris Masters. Four Corners - “Moonlight State.” ABC, 1987.Web/ Television. 10/04/2013.

Chris Masters’ Four Corners newsperson reports on ‘moonlight state’, Masters interviewed John Stopford a witness to the Fitzgerald inquiry who informs masters that he paid off the Queensland Police to run his prostitution ring and further incidents regarding Queensland Police corruption. The award winning journalist Chris Masters’ corresponds his work on this report with Phil Dickie from the Courier Mail. Additionally, Masters has authored many peer-reviewed books that outline different news stories he has covered. (Unknown 2008) Television as a medium is widely perceived as the biggest way in which the public receives their news, due to this ABC found a great way to get their message across regarding the Fitzgerald Inquiry on the show Four Corners.

Due to the ABC being a non-for profit and government funded organization, allows the audiences to be unsure with what Four Corners presents as the ‘truth’, this is due to their government influences. Four Corners has used the three phase structure to their report, with its hook being Police corruption alone, the story tells the background first, the lead up second and the current Fitzgerald Report last, by using this method Four Corners allow the audience to feel as if they are being told a story without feeling as though they are being told something fabricated or not interesting.