David Marr interviews Chris Hedges for Club Media Mainstream

A former Media Watch presenter recently attempted to lecture Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges on what his role as a journalist should be, and it was embarrassing, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.

IN MOST CLUBS, a level of exclusivity is implied and understood, even when not overtly enforced. You may be a guest at the Melbourne Cricket Club Members’ Dining Room, for instance, but show up without a jacket and tie and expulsion will be swift and unceremonious.

You can also travel to a Club Med resort and lounge by the pool undisturbed, but wander in without prepayment confirmation and, well, you know the drill.

The same is true for Club Media Mainstream. While its parameters are not as distinctly laid out, there are many unspoken rules and occasionally, members may break them, but only in very specific and predetermined cases.

For example, it was okay for journalist David Marr to be the lone voice of contention against the oft-unhinged tirades of the extreme Far-Right Gerard Henderson on Club Media Mainstream’s Insiders program. This dissension was pre-approved and occurred in a controlled environment. It was acceptable.

But for any member of what is understood to be Club Media’s brightest to speak out against the blatant mendacity of the Club itself, well, that’s unacceptable.

'But please, have the decency to remove the word press from your club.’

This is the case for Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who was due to be the guest-note speaker at the National Press Club this month. And then he wasn’t.

Hedges, who was scheduled to give an address entitled 'The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists', had this to say about the last-minute cancellation:

[The talk] was to focus on the amplification of Israeli lies in the press, which most reporters know are lies, betraying Palestinian colleagues who are slandered, targeted and killed by Israel.

 

But, perhaps inadvertently proving my point, the chief executive of the press club, Maurice Reilly, cancelled the event.

 

The announcement of my talk disappeared from the website. Reilly said “that in the interest of balancing out our program we will withdraw our offer.”

 

No doubt, the corporate sponsors and wealthy donors of the press club are pleased. No doubt, the club is able to slither away from its journalistic integrity. No doubt, it is spared the attacks that would come from allowing me to speak.

Hedges went on:

'But please, have the decency to remove the word press from your club.’

Thus, it must have come to the Club’s attention that Hedges had been a bit too outspoken for their liking. This is unacceptable.

Sure, the world’s press had told endless lies about the genocide in Gaza. Yes, the Palestinians were dying in greater numbers than during the bubonic plague while the media turned the other way, but to announce to the world that Club Media Mainstream have abandoned their Gaza colleagues, even though they have? Outrageous!

Hedges came to Australia, anyway, and gave the Edward Said Memorial Lecture, instead. Just prior to his address, he was a guest on ABC's Late Night Live with the aforementioned David Marr.

It would not be unreasonable to describe Marr’s interview style on this occasion as characterised by thinly veiled contempt, as he attempted to trap his guest with an embarrassing and clearly uninformed display, which only reinforced all of the points Hedges was making about Club Media’s lack of journalistic integrity.

In a pompuous, outraged tone, Marr fired questions and accusations at Hedges with the intensity of a sub-machine gun, which went something like this:

Well, when were you last in Gaza? People might think it was sooner.

 

Your points are really, really thin.

 

Are you just complaining about the headlines?

 

I find it extraordinary that you would say that the media’s reporting on Gaza hasn’t improved, isn’t braver and truer.

Then, Marr had a problem with a statement about a Reuters headline, which Hedges had cited as evidence of the betrayal of Gaza by Western media.

Hedges had written that the headline of a Reuters report of a bombing of a Gaza hospital in which 20 people – including six journalists – were assassinated, repeated the Israeli line that their real target had been a Hamas camera:

Marr was clearly incensed that Hedges would have the gall to question the publication, insisting Reuters had fulfilled its journalistic role.

Marr said:

“But two days later, Reuters reported that the supposed Hamas camera was probably a camera of theirs. So they did not accept the IDF line, they questioned it!“

Hedges explained:

“That’s the point, two days later. By putting it in the headline, you’re giving it a kind of credibility it shouldn’t have. The initial reports, which repeat Israeli lies are the ones that mask the truth.”

Marr continued, growing more agitated as he huffed:

"You’re very, very tough on Reuters – they went on to report it – but you cite it as a betrayal!"

Hedges replied:

"[Reuters] already knew it was their camera — they had given the coordinates of their film crew to the IDF."

Marr also had a problem with Hedges' criticising further headlines from CNN, Associated Press and others, referring to the same event with headlines such as, ‘Israel army says 6 “terrorists” killed in Monday’s strike on Gaza’.

Marr insisted:

“But the reports are sceptical, they explain!"

Hedges replied calmly:

“The initial report is the one that carries.”

'I used to run a show called Media Watch. It’s a unique show where we look at the sins of the media", said Marr, before launching into the following advice for Hedges:

"There have been lots of sins of the media, I agree with you, but I think your evidence of these sins … is really, really thin."

Finally, Marr makes the comment that sums up all that is wrong with Club Media Mainstream:

“Whether we like it or not, as journalists, we have to report the excuses made by groups like the IDF, don’t we? That’s our job.”

Somehow, even as he suffered this absurd question, Hedges managed to remain calm and measured, responding simply with:

“No, our job is to report the truth.”

Marr was invited to speak at an Honi Soit Student Journalism Conference earlier this year, but when the publication withdrew a News Corp journalist's invitation due to her stance on Palestine, Marr pulled out, admonishing them in an email in which he stated it was not 'his idea of how a good newspaper should behave.'

In an interview with Honi Soit, Hedges was asked about his interaction with Marr:

'Do you have any thoughts on that, and if [Marr] should be speaking to journalistic behaviour? 

Hedges replied:

I only have spent 30 minutes with David Marr, but those 30 minutes made it clear to me that he typifies all of those journalists who function as stenographers to power, who are primarily concerned about their own careers and who seek to discredit those of us who challenge dominant systems of authority, including within the media.
 

These people make a very good living as quote-unquote journalists, but I have no respect for them at all.
 

I said to him when I left, you’ve never done what I did. You’ve sat in studios like this. You’ve never been to places like Gaza. You’ve never been on the receiving end of Israeli assaults. You’ve never had to count the bodies. It’s a completely different form of journalism, as I tried to make clear tonight.

Hedges continued:

Those of us who do that kind of reporting battle not only the governments and the powerful, but we battle the majority of our own colleagues who slavishly serve those systems, because it’s good for them and it’s good for their news organisations.
 

But it’s not good for readers and viewers because they are obscuring, distorting and often openly discrediting the truth.

And that is Club Media Mainstream in a nutshell.

Follow managing editor Michelle Pini on Bluesky @michellepini.bsky.social and Independent Australia on Bluesky @independentaus.bsky.social, X/Twitter @independentaus and Facebook HERE.