Channel Nine’s decision yesterday to cave in to the bullying of the Victorian Government and Beyond Blue is deeply depressing. No doubt the network could see it was in a lose-lose situation.
Even if it were to win in the courts and have the injunction lifted which prevented it from broadcasting a 60 Minutes piece on the suicides of four teenagers in Geelong, it would be forever hostage to the accusation it had blood on its hands if any others from the school were to take the final solution.
Perhaps 60 Minutes had produced a sensitive piece which was destined to save lives by showing the youth of Geelong that there are ways out of that city that do not involve killing yourself.
Who knows how many lives that might otherwise have been saved will now be lost? If another teenager dies will we not be right to point the finger at Jeff Kennett and the Victorian government for stopping the show going to air? Will the blood not be on their hands?
Of course not. The idea is ludicrous. But no more ludicrous that the idea that 60 Minutes would be putting the youth of G-troit to the sword by screening the programme. But even if the troubled teens of Australia’s motor city were to off themselves en masse as a result of the broadcast that is no reason for the courts to intervene to stop it going to air.
When do-gooders and governments start asking courts to ban programmes they haven’t seen because they discuss matters they would prefer left alone we are entering dangerous waters. And it is deeply disturbing that the courts would entertain such ideas.
Beyond Blue wasn’t just trying to have this particular programme banned. It was seeking to prevent Channel Nine from broadcasting any report about the deaths of the Geelong teenagers. Never mind that 60 Minutes had the consent of the families of the dead kids – apparently the Victorian government and Beyond Blue believe they have the right to have them silenced.
One imagines the report would have been sensitive to the dangers of provoking copy cat acts as 60 Minutes has been pinged for their coverage of teen suicide before. In 2008 the Australian Communications and Media Authority slapped it on the wrist over a 2007 report called “Web of Darkness” which it thought dwelt unnecessarily on the method two Melbourne teenagers chose to exit this vale of tears.
Strangely however, despite the apparent irresponsibility of that report, no youths actually killed themselves in its aftermath.
If we are worried that as children they were especially vulnerable to a 60 Minutes report, then it was the responsibility of their parents to stop them watching it, and not the role of the courts to treat the rest of us as children.
If the Victorian government and Beyond Blue had got their way, how could any television station ever broadcast Romeo and Juliet ever again? That play is a far greater glamourisation of teen suicide than any 60 Minutes report from Geelong could ever be. How many schools are studying it, or planning to perform it? How can they be so irresponsible?
Before leaving this story it is worth for a minute pausing and reflecting on the role of “Australia’s Dr Phil” in this sorry episode. Michael Carr-Gregg was a keen a supporter of the suppression of the 60 Minutes report. Yet in 2007 he had happily taken part in “Web of Darkness”, indeed he had taken questions on-line about the subject.
Yesterday Channel Nine employees were musing unkindly over whether his change of heart might have had anything to do with his regular appearances on Channel Seven’s Sunrise programme.
So I asked Dr Carr-Gregg how the two programmes differed. He explained that he couldn’t discuss the most recent effort as he had signed a confidentiality agreement and that in the previous programme he had confined his remarks about teen suicide to the context of depression as a cause.
I got the impression Dr Carr-Gregg had been unimpressed with the way 60 Minutes had handled the subject last time and he said he was pleased with yesterday’s decision as “common sense”.
And his appearances on Sunrise do not seem to have stopped him calling on the network to apologise for a sketch last week on the Double Take show which made light of teen suicide.
Dr Carr-Gregg is a great one for banning things. In the past he has called for bans on camera phones in schools (later upgraded to a general ban on phones in schools), computers in children’s bedrooms, and some Barbie dolls.
He is also keen for websites and television programmes he disapproves of to be banned. Last year he suggested the government ban the website of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, which is run by the Church of Scientology. Last weekend he was keen to see the back of Double Take saying “I really don’t think this is the sort of material that should be broadcast at any time.”
If you want to stop your kid’s school from performing Romeo and Juliet, Dr Carr-Gregg is man to call.
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