00:00Music
00:18An Australian man is under arrest in Thailand,
00:21suspected of murdering a teenage girl and dumping her body.
00:25Simon Carman was taken into custody at Bangkok International Airport
00:29after the 17-year-old's body was found in a suitcase.
00:33Hello, I'm Linton Besser. Welcome to Media Watch.
00:36And first, tonight, we turn to the horrific crime story
00:40that has dominated the news all week,
00:42the grisly murder of a 17-year-old Thai girl.
00:46A gruesome discovery in long grass.
00:49Give me a minute. Give me a minute.
00:51Bye, bye.
00:53Inside the suitcase, the body of a 17-year-old girl
00:57dumped beside a railway track in Patea,
01:00one of Thailand's popular coastal cities.
01:03Thai police allege Tunchanok Don Homla was strangled to death
01:07by an Australian truck driver named Simon Peter Carman.
01:11The most awful detail of this most awful crime taking centre stage.
01:16A 17-year-old Thai girl's body inside a suitcase.
01:20He emerges dragging a suitcase.
01:23Pulling a heavy suitcase.
01:25The girl's family stricken.
01:28The grieving parents of Thai teen Tunchanok Don Homla
01:31confronted by her horrific death,
01:34demanding justice for their daughter outside a police station.
01:40I am deeply saddened.
01:42Our eyes are swollen from crying.
01:46Their suffering can only have been sharpened, surely,
01:49by the media's steady transformation of Tunchanok Don Homla
01:54from a teenager into a...
01:56Body in suitcase.
01:58Body in the bag.
01:59Girl in suitcase.
02:01And as details of the police inquiry dried up,
02:05the desperation of some mastheads to keep readers clicking
02:08had them turning to the morbid but often mundane life
02:12of her alleged killer.
02:14The Daily Mail quoting unnamed friends describing him as a weirdo
02:19who'd never had a girlfriend.
02:21News Corp revealing his squalid digs.
02:24Their unnamed sources describing his relationship with sex workers.
02:28Sometimes he'd just ask them to clean his room.
02:31And his battle of the bulge.
02:33We used to call him Big Boy.
02:35He lost a lot of weight, at least 30 kilos.
02:37Maybe more.
02:38While the West Australian was taking readers inside his lonely life
02:41and his decision to travel to Thailand for back surgery,
02:45a former neighbour reminiscing of his walking the dog.
02:49And most appallingly, perhaps, wheeling in a forensics expert
02:54who noted the failure of the accused to think it through,
02:58explaining the suitcase presented a fantastic opportunity,
03:03much easier, after all, than making a body disappear in cement,
03:07though there was another option, a wheelie bin.
03:10And wondering aloud if the man's television habits had done him in.
03:15Maybe he was thinking that places like Thailand
03:17don't have a forensic investigation team.
03:20They say, we have CSI Las Vegas, but we don't have CSI Thailand.
03:25The media's professional code of conduct requires journalists
03:28to respect private grief and gives them the right
03:32to resist the compulsion to intrude,
03:35which one former journalist, now academic,
03:38believes was breached by...
03:40A macabre fascination with the detail,
03:42which dehumanises the victim of the crime
03:45and is insensitive to her family.
03:47Professor Andrea Carson also bemoaned the...
03:51Long history of treating crime in international jurisdictions
03:55with less editorial sensitivity.
03:57Indeed, the ABC itself overstepped the mark,
04:01removing this paragraph of gory detail
04:04after complaints to the ABC's ombudsman
04:07and acknowledging it wasn't necessary in the first place.
04:10None of News Corp, the West Australian,
04:13Nine Entertainment and the Daily Mail
04:15wanted to discuss their treatment of the murder.
04:17And none, best we can tell, bothered to attend the girls' interment,
04:22as the ABC did last Thursday.
04:25Candles are lit, water poured,
04:27as the family of Tanjanok Don Homla bid her one final farewell.
04:32She told me she was going and would be back soon.
04:36I loved her more than I love myself.
04:39Though Nine did send a reporter to her home village over the weekend,
04:43filing television reports and a feature article
04:46which included moving interviews with the girls' family.
04:50Of course, we understand why these publishers went big
04:54on this shocking crime,
04:55but in their thirst for audience numbers,
04:58some of them crossed the line into gratuitousness
05:01and showed too little regard for the victim and her grieving family.
05:07And now to the red earth and metal riches
05:10of Australia's far north-west,
05:12where the big Australian has wheeled out for the cameras
05:15a new generation of Tonka trucks.
05:19Recharging WA's mining sector.
05:23Electrifying a mining operation is an ambitious goal,
05:27but it's a goal that we are committed to solving.
05:30Two battery electric hole trucks are being put to the test
05:34in one of the world's most demanding mining environments,
05:38Two weeks ago, BHP loaded journalists and politicians
05:42into two planes and flew them to the Pilbara
05:45to show off a crucial plank
05:47in the company's 21st century decarbonisation plan.
05:51Monster haul trucks powered not by dirty diesel,
05:56but clean and green electric batteries.
05:58Scoring a dream run from the TVs from dusk till dawn.
06:02All helping shape what could be the future of WA iron ore mining.
06:07This wee celebration by the West Australian.
06:11Fast charge towards a new age of electrics.
06:14And even a pat on the back from the WA Premier,
06:17who joined in the fun.
06:19Check this out.
06:20This is an absolutely massive caterpillar battery electric truck
06:23for hauling iron ore.
06:25A feat of modern engineering.
06:26But those who consumed seven, nine and the West Australians' description
06:31of BHP's low emissions nirvana weren't given the full picture.
06:36Because none of them told their audience this.
06:39World's biggest miner, BHP, backtracks on climate action
06:43with key projects put on ice, leaked documents reveal.
06:47Yes, the company's dirty laundry leaked last month to The Guardian
06:52and ABC's Four Corners, revealing that rather than pushing full steam ahead
06:57with ambitious plans to decarbonise,
07:01BHP had in fact put key Australian initiatives on the back burner,
07:05while investing hundreds of millions of dollars
07:08to buy a fleet of 62 new diesel trucks
07:11for the very mine to which it had flown the media.
07:15Internal company documents show it faced a critical choice.
07:20Leave open the option of going electric
07:23or locking diesel at one of its biggest mines.
07:27Once you've delayed the whole electrification
07:30of the haul truck fleet,
07:31you then throw up in the air
07:34the whole renewable energy plan for the Pilbara.
07:39Which the ABC's local journo, Alistair Bates,
07:43put to Slattery on the day.
07:45If you phase out those 62 diesel car capital trucks,
07:49early, if this trial's successful.
07:52So that's too early to talk to the specifics on that.
07:54Which Seven nodded to.
07:56These are still a long way off replacing diesel fleets.
08:00But which was omitted by Nine and the West.
08:04The Four Corners expose fouled what had been three years
08:08of careful planning inside BHP
08:11to keep the public thinking its decarbonisation strategy
08:15was on track, prompting the company to throw the kitchen sink
08:19at the impending PR crisis.
08:22Booking half-page ads three days before Four Corners went to air
08:26across major newspapers,
08:28pushing the somewhat misleading claim BHP
08:31was reducing emissions by 36%,
08:34as Four Corners explained.
08:36These emissions cuts
08:38are actually for BHP's global operations,
08:43not its Australian operations alone.
08:46And we know that some of these big cuts to their emissions
08:50have come from their Chilean copper mines.
08:54And also giving another Nine News crew
08:57a tour of its new electric locomotive.
09:00This blue engine marks a step forward in BHP's green future.
09:06A fully electric, battery-operated locomotive.
09:10BHP's general manager of rail on hand to field the tough questions.
09:14But why blue?
09:15There's a lot of rules around what colours you can paint a train.
09:19Later, so thrilled with the outcome,
09:21she celebrated on social media how great it all was.
09:25Perhaps relieved Nine never discovered,
09:27or at least never reported, what Four Corners was about to reveal.
09:32It's delayed any rollout until 2035,
09:35according to our leaked documents.
09:37We asked Nine, Seven and the West
09:40about their various failures to hold BHP's feet to the fire,
09:44but all of them exercised that other PR strategy
09:47of saying not a word.
09:49We also asked BHP whether it had allowed the press
09:52to mislead the public about the true status of its decarbonisation
09:56and whether it exploits journalists in need of a story.
10:01A spokesperson told us...
10:03The simple answer to both your questions is no.
10:06Of course, there's nothing wrong with putting a big, shiny truck
10:09on the television and in the pages of your newspaper,
10:12but it wouldn't hurt to offer your audience
10:15just a wee look under the bonnet too.
10:19And now to the Big Apple,
10:21where a little-known footballer
10:22and an even more obscure songstress tied the knot.
10:26We have some breaking news
10:28that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are, in fact, married.
10:33I'm going to have to leave you
10:35because it is getting quite intense out here.
10:36The press had indeed been left out in the cold,
10:40or the rain at least,
10:42not just on the night but for days leading up to the event,
10:45forced to speculate on the installation of blockout curtains,
10:49wondering as to the content of packages being loaded off trucks
10:52and becoming sweetly acquainted with tradesmen
10:56filing in and out of the rumoured wedding venue,
10:59the rather humble Madison Square Garden.
11:02A worker, when asked by CNN if he had anything he could share,
11:06responded,
11:07No, I like my job.
11:09Confirmation finally arriving
11:11in the form of a leaked police memo.
11:13The memo was titled
11:15Then, when the big day rolled around
11:19on the July 4 weekend, no less,
11:21and with the press safely corralled into pens,
11:25those at home were able to take part in the festivities
11:28via this seven-hour live feed on Reuters.
11:31Highlights including street traffic,
11:34security,
11:36the erection of more barricades,
11:38and a queue of black SUVs disappearing behind black curtains.
11:43Not to be outdone,
11:44Fox also ran a live feed for 12 straight hours,
11:49including riveting shots of its reporter checking his phone.
11:52The tedium punctuated now and then by the odd tuxedoed celebrity
11:57dutifully ignoring the cameras
11:59before this moment when the blessed nuptials
12:02were finally announced via Jumbotron.
12:05Oh, wait, oh my...
12:07Tom, I've got to show you this.
12:08I'm actually a little bit speechless right now.
12:11This is insane!
12:12More insane, perhaps,
12:13the sheer manpower called up to report the event.
12:17The New York Times marshalling two dozen journalists
12:20for its coverage,
12:21the same-sized contingent it deploys for the Oscars,
12:25the newspaper's weddings editor,
12:27and yes, that is a real job,
12:29justifying the journalistic heft like this.
12:32When public figures get married,
12:34we're interested in what those celebrations reveal about fame.
12:38And yet, despite all these resources...
12:41What happened inside is still only being pieced together
12:45with blurry photographs and sightings of things
12:48that went into Madison Square Garden last week.
12:51Boxes of lobster meat from Maine
12:53and boneless chicken breast,
12:55French fries and thick-cut onion rings.
12:58Lobster Thermador was, however, far from the only expense.
13:02Who will pay for the security put on by New York's finest
13:05remains unclear.
13:07It's all of the NYPD officers
13:10that have been dispatched.
13:15You see that?
13:16None of the media management, meanwhile,
13:19really should come as a surprise.
13:22The pop superstar having long displayed a knack
13:25for shepherding the fourth estate to just where she wants it.
13:29One social scientist explaining...
13:31Part of this mastery is about ensuring people have enough content
13:35to feel like they have some access to her,
13:37but not so much to ever feel fully satisfied.
13:41Another expert who delivers a university course on Taylor Swift,
13:45would you believe it, told the BBC...
13:48The Tavis interactions over the last two years of their relationship
13:53has been this very interesting mix of seeming incredibly intimate,
13:58but always still keeping us at arm's length.
14:02Most remarkable of all,
14:04Taylor and Travis managed to upstage another American diva
14:08trying to celebrate not a wedding, but a birthday.
14:11The official celebration of the country's birthday,
14:14the Great American State Fair, has drawn thin crowds.
14:18Instead, all eyes are turned to New York's Madison Square Garden.
14:22Which perhaps the White House sensed,
14:24mocking up its own message onto the garden's jumbotrons,
14:28a not-at-all Orwellian reminder to the world.
14:31Proof positive, perhaps, that Trump was,
14:34on this important weekend,
14:36a mere supporting actor, with...
14:38Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey
14:40at the crossroads of media and cultural power.
14:43It would be easy to dismiss this
14:45as the showbiz-ification of serious news,
14:48but that would be to deeply under-measure
14:50what this event says about popular culture and even politics.
14:54And what does it say about the media, at least?
14:56It is more than willing to play its part
14:59in boosting yet further the Tay-Tay currency,
15:02helping the poor bride on her path to greater glory still
15:06when she offers those exclusive photos on her own terms.
15:11And that's all from us tonight.
15:12Be sure to check us out on ABC iView,
15:15as well as YouTube, Facebook and also Reddit.
15:17You can find full statements on our website
15:19and don't forget to send us your tips.
15:22See you next week.
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