KEY POINTS:
My extended family nicknamed me "tape recorder" when I was a kid, on account of a rather charming tendency to listen in on their sensitive conversations and then regurgitate them, word for word, at the most inopportune moments. Evidently, my recall was faultless.
If only the same could
have been said for my ability to choose my audience, perhaps my reports would not have been followed, as they invariably were, by embarrassed explanations and relationship-mending.
After a while, for the sake of harmonious family relations, the adults learned to check for The Tape Recorder before talking, which put an end to my early career as a reporter of family secrets.
If I'd been older, I might've argued the benefits of open, honest communication in families - of being upfront and letting it all hang out there - as I've been wont to do in the years since, even when it's been painfully obvious that the perceived benefits of telling the "truth" don't always outweigh the consequences. The truth can hurt and divide as often as it sets people free.
Of course, this is not a consideration that we in the media have to trouble our heads with. We can publish just about anything we like, with very few limitations, thanks to our inalienable right to freedom of expression, and The Public Interest.
Ah, the public interest. We're all about the public's right to know, though if, along the way, it helps sells more newspapers or pull in more viewers, we wouldn't complain.
About the only thing that gets in the way these days are those pesky court orders suppressing information for the sake of a fair trial - though as the Fairfax stable showed last week, even that can be sacrificed at the altar of The Public's Right To Know, which, like "national security" on the other side of the free speech divide, covers a multitude of sins.
But what is the public interest? And just how far does the public's right to know extend? It's not always easy to tell.
Chief Justice Eichelbaum tried to clarify matters in a 1995 decision by pointing to the "distinction between matters properly within the public interest, in the sense of being of legitimate concern to the public, and those which are merely interesting to the public on a human level - between what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest to be known".
Was the public interested in knowing the leaked police evidence that led to the so-called "terror raids" of last month? The editors of the Dominion Post and the Press sure thought so. "The public has the right to make its own judgement on the police's credibility," said the editorial justifying the decision to publish , "and to do that it needs as much information as possible, within the bounds of the law and within the bounds of fairness to all those involved."
So, did police credibility outweigh any considerations of fairness to the Urewera 16? Certainly it was in the police's interests for the files to be made public.
They've had their share of PR disasters in recent times, and with their methods and judgement maligned by supporters of those arrested - and vindication through court trials many months away - they needed a win in the court of public opinion.
Despite the threat of prosecution, publication was also undoubtedly in the interests of Fairfax, which was being hailed by many commentators as a fearless champion of media freedom and the public's right to know, despite the threat of prosecution.
But is the public interest best served when the media assumes the role of the courts, with none of the rules and constraints to protect the rights of those who, thus far, haven't been found guilty of any crimes? Should we worry about legal niceties like "innocent until proven guilty"?
It's stretching belief to claim that publication was within the bounds of the law, or that it was fair to all those involved. It plainly wasn't. TV3, in possession of the leaked police files the week before, had referred to parts of them in its news bulletin and been warned off a more detailed exposition by Crown Law.
Yes, the publication put an end to speculation about what led to the police action, and yes, our curiosity has been satisfied - at least in part. But most people were on the police side anyway, according to several polls, and many would have had little difficulty taking the Solicitor General, David Collins, at his word when he backed the police action and described the evidence they'd gathered as "very disturbing".
After all that, we're still left with only part of the jigsaw; the part that advantages the police case. In a trial, one usually gets the defence side of the story, and some context.
I don't have any sympathy for people who'd plot murder and mayhem as easily as a few of those arrested seem to have done. But even they deserve fair treatment, if not for their sakes, then at least for ours.
