When public support for Schapelle Corby was running at 90%, and her case was seriously damaging Australian/Indonesian relations, the Howard Government commissioned the media to conduct the most shameful smear campaign ever waged against an Australian family, a campaign which continues to this day.
Not only have most journalists failed to properly investigate and report on the facts of this case, notable exceptions being Kathryn Bonella and Tony Wilson, many have blatantly lied. Additionally, members of the public, supposedly credible informants and others with a ‘story’ to tell, have been paid large sums of money to lie, and their lies have then been reported.
On the 26th May 2005 we had Matthew Moore’s “Aussie Gold” story which implied that Australian marijuana was readily available in Bali and much sought after by Westerners. This was, and still is, a total lie. No Australian marijuana has ever been taken to Bali, before or since Schapelle’s arrest, and as such, there is no Australian marijuana to be found on the streets up there.
On the 10th December 2005 we had the Malcolm McCauley photos seizure story, from which it was claimed that Schapelle had prior connections to drug dealers. Although these photos were taken inside Kerobokan Prison with McCauley there as a tourist, and the story later retracted, the damage had been done. 5 weeks later Schapelle’s sentence, which had been reduced to 15 years on appeal, was reinstated to 20 years.
On the 12th February 2007 we had the infamous Jodie Power interview on Channel 7’s Today Tonight show, claiming that the entire Corby family were drug dealers and drug smugglers.
This was later followed up by the Natalie Pearson claim that Schapelle had gone to Centrelink a month before she went to Bali to apply for a pension for drug-related psychological problems. These claims were all proven false, in Australian courts.
On the 7th December 2007 we had the claims by former heroin addict Kim Moore that associates of Schapelle were involved in an amphetamine smuggling operation from Australia to Bali, taking drugs up there 4 times a year. This too was a total lie.
On the 3rd March this year we had the ACA show on Channel 9 claiming that Schapelle and her sister Mercedes had been caught on camera eating out in a Balinese restaurant. This story was completely false and the woman who interviewed Rosleigh admitted before the interview that she knew the people in the photos were not of Schapelle and her sister. She claimed they were doing a story to denounce the photo shoot.
On the 22nd and 24th June we had the airing of “Schapelle Corby - The Hidden Truth” on Channel 9. The show did immeasurable damage to the Corby’s, leading many people to believe, mistakenly, that Schapelle's brothers were responsible for putting the drugs in her boogie-board bag, and yet, the same show aired on HBO in the US just a month later, entitled “Ganja Queen”, brought large scale support flooding in. We have since established that the two shows were considerably different in their composition.
On the 5th July we had the claims of, once again Kim Moore, and Michael Corby Snr’s cousin Allan Trembath, that Schapelle’s father had been involved in the drug smuggling trade for 3 decades and was responsible for the drugs being in Schapelle’s bag. That Trembath is a former psychiatric patient and an alcoholic was not mentioned. Furthermore, the story is simply not true.
Most recently, on the 13th July, we had the claims of drug dealer Malcolm McCauley that he had supplied Schapelle’s father with the drugs found in her bag. Not only have McCauley’s claims been laughed off as total nonsense by the South Australian Police, and serious doubts about McCauley’s sanity been made, his claims are also totally at odds with what he was saying in January 2006 after the photos of him and Schapelle were discovered.
No family in Australia has been subjected to such extraordinary scrutiny. Every minute detail of their lives and associates, from former next-door neighbours to ex-best friends, and persons they were once photographed with, has been exposed and examined. And yet, every allegation, and those I have just described are only the main ones, has been found to lack substance.
Indeed, if we were to believe even a small number of the allegations made against Schapelle, her father, mother, sister Mercedes and brothers, it beggars belief that they could have been involved in the drug trade for so long without even a single charge, let alone a conviction, being brought against any one of them. And this after being subjected to the most intensive media and police scrutiny imaginable.
Since then, we have seen the media attempting to trivialize the horror of Schapelle's incarceration, giving Australians the impression that she is not doing it so hard, so why worry about her. We have also seen them attempting to downplay the seriousness of her mental illness, even suggesting that she is faking it in the hope of being released, which is simply untrue. Her mental illness is genuine, I witnessed it myself when I visited her last, in December 2009.
This use of the media by our government as a propaganda machine, rather than as a medium for keeping us properly informed about what is going on both nationally and internationally, is an alarming development, with serious implications for the future of democracy in Australia. It takes away our right to make ‘informed’ choices when voting in an election.
Not only have most journalists failed to properly investigate and report on the facts of this case, notable exceptions being Kathryn Bonella and Tony Wilson, many have blatantly lied. Additionally, members of the public, supposedly credible informants and others with a ‘story’ to tell, have been paid large sums of money to lie, and their lies have then been reported.
On the 26th May 2005 we had Matthew Moore’s “Aussie Gold” story which implied that Australian marijuana was readily available in Bali and much sought after by Westerners. This was, and still is, a total lie. No Australian marijuana has ever been taken to Bali, before or since Schapelle’s arrest, and as such, there is no Australian marijuana to be found on the streets up there.
On the 10th December 2005 we had the Malcolm McCauley photos seizure story, from which it was claimed that Schapelle had prior connections to drug dealers. Although these photos were taken inside Kerobokan Prison with McCauley there as a tourist, and the story later retracted, the damage had been done. 5 weeks later Schapelle’s sentence, which had been reduced to 15 years on appeal, was reinstated to 20 years.
On the 12th February 2007 we had the infamous Jodie Power interview on Channel 7’s Today Tonight show, claiming that the entire Corby family were drug dealers and drug smugglers.
This was later followed up by the Natalie Pearson claim that Schapelle had gone to Centrelink a month before she went to Bali to apply for a pension for drug-related psychological problems. These claims were all proven false, in Australian courts.
On the 7th December 2007 we had the claims by former heroin addict Kim Moore that associates of Schapelle were involved in an amphetamine smuggling operation from Australia to Bali, taking drugs up there 4 times a year. This too was a total lie.
On the 3rd March this year we had the ACA show on Channel 9 claiming that Schapelle and her sister Mercedes had been caught on camera eating out in a Balinese restaurant. This story was completely false and the woman who interviewed Rosleigh admitted before the interview that she knew the people in the photos were not of Schapelle and her sister. She claimed they were doing a story to denounce the photo shoot.
On the 22nd and 24th June we had the airing of “Schapelle Corby - The Hidden Truth” on Channel 9. The show did immeasurable damage to the Corby’s, leading many people to believe, mistakenly, that Schapelle's brothers were responsible for putting the drugs in her boogie-board bag, and yet, the same show aired on HBO in the US just a month later, entitled “Ganja Queen”, brought large scale support flooding in. We have since established that the two shows were considerably different in their composition.
On the 5th July we had the claims of, once again Kim Moore, and Michael Corby Snr’s cousin Allan Trembath, that Schapelle’s father had been involved in the drug smuggling trade for 3 decades and was responsible for the drugs being in Schapelle’s bag. That Trembath is a former psychiatric patient and an alcoholic was not mentioned. Furthermore, the story is simply not true.
Most recently, on the 13th July, we had the claims of drug dealer Malcolm McCauley that he had supplied Schapelle’s father with the drugs found in her bag. Not only have McCauley’s claims been laughed off as total nonsense by the South Australian Police, and serious doubts about McCauley’s sanity been made, his claims are also totally at odds with what he was saying in January 2006 after the photos of him and Schapelle were discovered.
No family in Australia has been subjected to such extraordinary scrutiny. Every minute detail of their lives and associates, from former next-door neighbours to ex-best friends, and persons they were once photographed with, has been exposed and examined. And yet, every allegation, and those I have just described are only the main ones, has been found to lack substance.
Indeed, if we were to believe even a small number of the allegations made against Schapelle, her father, mother, sister Mercedes and brothers, it beggars belief that they could have been involved in the drug trade for so long without even a single charge, let alone a conviction, being brought against any one of them. And this after being subjected to the most intensive media and police scrutiny imaginable.
Since then, we have seen the media attempting to trivialize the horror of Schapelle's incarceration, giving Australians the impression that she is not doing it so hard, so why worry about her. We have also seen them attempting to downplay the seriousness of her mental illness, even suggesting that she is faking it in the hope of being released, which is simply untrue. Her mental illness is genuine, I witnessed it myself when I visited her last, in December 2009.
This use of the media by our government as a propaganda machine, rather than as a medium for keeping us properly informed about what is going on both nationally and internationally, is an alarming development, with serious implications for the future of democracy in Australia. It takes away our right to make ‘informed’ choices when voting in an election.
If the media can so successfully turn 90% support for Schapelle Corby, and belief in her innocence, into 90% against, and not just against, but actual hatred for the woman, not to mention belief in her guilt, how else can, and will, they be used in the future to manipulate people’s thinking?
Add to this the proposed internet filter, which will limit our ability to independently verify or debunk the propaganda that we are fed, and the government will be able to get us to believe whatever they want us to believe. Their opinion management of the masses will be complete.
