The court of public opinion creates winners and losers. In Insight episode Trial by Media, Kumi Taguchi talks to those whose lives have been irrevocably shaped by the media and public discourse. Watch on
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Trial By Media
episode • Insight • Current Affairs • 51m
episode • Insight • Current Affairs • 51m
Khalid Baker was an 18-year-old champion boxer with a promising future which was shattered when he was jailed for murder.
Albert Snowball, 22, died during a warehouse party in Melbourne in 2005 after he fell from a window during a fight.
Baker was jailed for 13 years over the death, despite a co-accused person known as LM telling police that it was in fact him who pushed Snowball.
When he heard the judge read his sentence, Baker said he was shocked.
"I was just trying to think, 'how am I going to survive'?" he told SBS Insight.
"I just had to stop and say: 'what do I have to do to make sure that people hear my story'?"
Baker said his case was mentioned in some media coverage at the time due to a focus on fights and one-punch incidents.
He felt the coverage didn't accurately tell his story and presented a racialised tone.
"People only just wanted to see what the media was only pushing.
"Black versus white."
Khalid Baker (left) fighting Filimoni Naliva Jr in Sydney in 2022. Source: AAP / Mark Evans
"I just assumed that the truth will come out and I'll go home," he said.
"But it didn't. It didn't go like that."
'Lesson in what not to do'
Colleen Gwynne was the chief investigator on the Peter Falconio case that gripped Australia and the UK after gunman Bradley Murdoch attacked the British backpacker and his girlfriend Joanne Lees in a remote part of the Northern Territory in 2001. Murdoch is now serving a life sentence for Falconio's murder.
At the time, only Lees managed to escape.
An undated file photo of murdered backpacker Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees. Falconio's body has never been found. Source: AAP / PA/Alamy
The initial press conferences with Joanne was, "a lesson in what not to do", with Lees' credibility as a witness undermined, Gwynne said.
"One of the things I had to do was find her some clothes and I sent someone who really didn't understand about the media strategy and how to present this case, considering the attention was pretty significant. So, the shirt she was wearing said 'cheeky monkey'.
"That became a little bit of a joke for something that was so serious."
Colleen Gwynne, the chief investigator on the Peter Falconio case, says controlling the media narrative during a criminal investigation is a delicate balance of releasing enough information but not too much. Source: Supplied
"They become suspicious. And then it's all about trying to discredit the victim – trying to find a story that is different to what the police are portraying … and that's what happened."
The "media circus" around Lees was so intense that police put her under guard for weeks.
Joanne Lees reads a statement at the Alice Springs police station about the search for her missing boyfriend Peter Falconio in July 2001. Source: AAP / AP
"That's when you would hope the media would rely on their own standards and not compromise an investigation or a judicial process by releasing information.
"But we all know that's not the case."
People can be 'doubly punished'
As a former NSW magistrate and the current dean of law at Southern Cross University, Professor David Heilpern has witnessed the impact of media reporting on small crimes.
He presided over cases in regional and rural areas for over 20 years.
"What's left of country media tends to sit in the back of the court on list days and, as a result, people are doubly punished. They're punished by the court and then, even worse, they're punished because their photo, their names and their perhaps very minor crimes are then broadcast and published right across their communities," Heilpern said.
When the media identifies people who have gone before a court, the impact on their life can be devastating, he added.
"I saw quite a few cases where suicide was the result of media attention on what would otherwise be [an] insignificant, minor criminal," Heilpern told Insight.
"Where do people go, if they can't show their face in the country town [where] they've lived their whole lives? What do they do? And for many people, that means leaving or dying."
Even in cases where a conviction was not recorded, people still greatly suffered, Heilpern said.
"It could still be reported with all the details of the case, in particular leanings towards propagating anger against the person charged rather than a fair reporting of the result," he said.
The former magistrate would like to see people be anonymous when they go before the court, particularly for minor cases, in order to protect them from unfair treatment.
'Shocking failures' in the system
Journalist Hedley Thomas is known for his podcast, The Teacher's Pet, which investigated the 1982 murder of Sydney mother Lynette Dawson.
Thomas said public attention from the podcast contributed to the ongoing new police investigation that resulted in Christopher Michael Dawson being sentenced to 24 years in jail for the murder of his former wife, Lynette.
Chris Dawson arrives at the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney in 2022, accused of murdering his wife Lynette, who disappeared in 1982. He was found guilty. Source: AAP / Dean Lewins
"I think that once people listened to the shocking failures of the system and of police over many years in Lynn's case, they couldn't help but realise that this was one that should have been prosecuted, as two coroners had previously recommended."
Thomas said media coverage is essential for ensuring deterrence and "better accountability in the criminal justice system".
But he warned that journalists must be vigilant and remain independent when dealing with police matters.
"The collaboration of police with journalists contributes to terrible injustice, and is an enormous risk for journalists and for very innocent people when police, through innuendo and leaks, and just the trailing of false allegations, try to enlist journalists, to put pressure on someone that the police believe may have committed a crime," Thomas said.
"The risk being that the cops haven't done their job properly in the first place, and they're hoping to flush something out. But it's a real gamble. And if journalists fall into that trap of becoming almost a tool for police for a tactical purpose that hasn't been properly thought through, then we're all poorer for it."
Khalid Baker was released from prison in 2018 and has continued the fight to clear his name.
Khalid Baker says media coverage around his case may encourage people to speak out. Source: SBS
"A lot of people who know things who haven't … wanted to say things.
"But things like me coming on the media will trigger something within themselves to come out and speak out," he said.
"Hopefully, in the future, everything will come out and the truth will set me free.
And for more stories head to , hosted by Kumi Taguchi. From sex and relationships to health, wealth, and grief Insightful offers deeper dives into the lives and first person stories of former guests from the acclaimed TV show, Insight.
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22/02/202401:00
