Timely injection of balance

The media's addiction to sensationalism might have derailed Sydney's safe injecting room trial, but so far the coverage has been low-key and fair, writes Daniel Hoare.

"Are you chasing?" has long been the hushed catchcry of drug dealers peddling their mind altering products along the pavements of Sydney's Kings Cross. But recently the phrase took on a new meaning when the media descended on the area chasing something else. They were not in the market for heroin, but for a story on heroin.

On a rainy Sunday evening in early May, the news rooms of Sydney's television stations and newspapers were abuzz after an anonymous tip off: "Do you know that the Injecting room Is open up the Cross? It's disgusting."

By Monday afternoon, a significant media presence had materialised directly opposite Australia's first legal heroin injecting facility which straddles Sydney's seedy sex strip in Darlinghurst Road. One seasoned journalist commented that the media presence was as large as the city had experienced for a general news story.
Camera crews from Australia's commercial TV networks jostled for a vantage point beside newspaper photographers and journalists. The Daily Telegraph even stationed a photographer in the room of a hotel opposite the facility in the week leading up to its opening.

Interest In the English speaking world's first legal heroin injecting facility has not been confined to the Australian media. Nor has it been confined to the mainstream news outlets. The centre's spokesman, Patrick Kennedy, has fielded inquiries from more than 50 media outlets. From Internet sites to magazines including Elle and Who Weekly. He has also spoken to a large number of international media outlets, Including CNN, the BBC and The New York Times.

"The level of national Interest, let alone international interest, has been quite amazing," says the centre's medical director, Dr Ingrid van Beek. "Maybe that reflects my naivety about the importance of this story to the media."

The 24 intravenous drug users who stepped through the front doors of the converted pinball parlour during Its first two daylight shifts were unable to provide the assembled throng with any controversy. There were no doped out junkies staggering from the room, and no clients captured on film driving away after shooting heroin into their veins. The media Instead used footage of a very public overdose outside a nearby hotel.
Media coverage of the issues surrounding the facility will have a significant Impact on whether or not the i8 month trial is deemed a success, according to Paul Dillon from Australia's National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. "Only a minority in the wider community have direct experience of heroin abuse, so public perceptions will be shaped by the media's coverage," he says. "If the media gives a balanced viewpoint, this initiative has a better chance of gaining public acceptance."

Dillon believes that the media has contributed to derailing drug policy reform proposals in the past. He cites the ACT Government's 1997 proposal for a pharmaceutical heroin trial as an example. "lnstead of giving a balanced view, the media looked for every possible negative story they could create."

His view is supported by Professor David Penington, who has headed several government committees on illicit drugs. Penington says the media's campaign against the proposal - led by The Daily Telegraph - contributed to Prime Minister John Howard vetoing the experiment. "There's no doubt the campaign from various Sydney media outlets contributed to defeating the trial. When Howard read and heard all of the negatives, he Jumped on the bandwagon. That is the problem we face—politicians react to public opinion, which is shaped, to a considerable extent, by the media."

The Telegraph labelled the proposal "contentious, morally indefensible and profoundly evil" and ran a series of editorials calling on the Prime Minister to veto the trial. Images of the health Ministers who supported the trial were p]aced under the headline "Drug pedlars in business suits".

Dillon contrasts the media's coverage of the ACT proposal with Its coverage of naltrexone, a drug recently given approval by the Federal Government for use in detoxification. "The media got behind naltrexone very early in the piece, and the wider community picked that up. While there was limited scientific backing into the effectiveness of the drug it forced the Government to examine it more closely."

Australians were first introduced to naltrexone in 1997 when The Australian Women's Weekly, in conjunction with the Seven network's Today Tonight program, funded a trip to Israel for a middle class heroin addict. Under a story titled "Heroin: hope at last", the magazine told the story of the 25-year old woman's miraculous recovery from addiction. "I feel new," she proclaimed after waking from treatment. "I can't believe it. Wow!"

Like any media-sensitive policy, the merits of the Kings Cross injecting facility need to be effectively marketed. Realising this, the centre's organisers hired a public relations firm to liaise with the media and implement a communications strategy.

The key messages of the policy revolve around a central premise that the facility is not in itself a panacea for the Kings Cross heroin problem. According to Kennedy - a public relations professional with more than 17 years' experience - it needs to be emphasised that while the centre's main function is to provide a supervised environment for injecting heroin, it also acts as a gateway for treatment and rehabilitation.
"The media is important for the centre in communicating its messages, not just to the drug injecting community, but to the broader community as well," he says. "The second part of the strategy is to ensure that only the correct messages are communicated. So, there is a bit of issues management with such a high profile topic. This is an area where on occasion, no news is good news."

If the media response after the first few weeks is any guide, the PR strategy has been highly successful
The centre attracted little fanfare after the first day of operation and by the Wednesday, there wasn't a single news story about the facility in any Australian news bulletin or newspaper.

A TV journalist covering the story said there was no need to stake out the centre for days on end because sufficient footage had been obtained on its first day of operation. "We had what we wanted, so there was no need to hang around. The story will pick up again if an Incident occurs or when the centre's success has been evaluated."

Kennedy handed out prepared video footage of mock heroin users inside the facility for the TV news services. "This strategy was designed to ensure high-quality and non-identifying images appeared in the media, and leaves less reason for clandestine attempts to gather footage," he says.
The media were also given updates on the centre's progress before it opened, with many taking guided tours inside the building. This has helped to foster a positive relationship between the media and the centre's organisers, according to van Beek. "We've had compliments from the media for having kept them fully informed," she says. "I think that's been important."

The Daily Telegraph led the charge, splashing its late Monday edition with "8 SHOTS, 1 STRIKE: HEROIN INJECTING ROOM OPEN FOR BUSINESS".

The second paragraph of the Tele's front page piece was precisely what the organisers had hoped for: "The first client to enter the injecting room for a shot of heroin agreed to be referred to treatment services."
The same information appeared in nearly every news story about the centre. It attracted coverage on news bulletins and in newspapers in nearly every Australian state. "Few visit injecting rooms said Adelaide's The Advertiser. "Quiet start for injecting room" was The Courier Mail summation in Brisbane. And Melbourne's Herald Sun simply declared: Injecting centre opens its doors."

On the Tuesday, the issue failed to warrant front page treatment in any newspaper. The Telegraph relegated the story to page 8, The Australian ran it on page 5, and The Sydney Morning Herald made no mention of the story in its news section. Opponents, including the vocal Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce, were in most cases given only a minor comment at the foot of each story.

Negative comment in the print media has come from Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman, who suggested a giant needle be erected in Kings Cross "in case some junkle isn't aware that the centre is open and ready for business". The Australian's D. D. McNicoll was also critical, likening the facility to Australia's "big" tourist attractions, including the Big Pineapple and the Giant Prawn,

Sydney's radio hosts all agreed to assess the trial - in due course - on its merits. John Laws, of 2UE, said he hoped the centre worked for the sake of heroin users. "Let's hope that it works and works very well," he said. Laws's colleague, Mike Carlton, called for opponents to "back off a bit and give the place a chance to show what it can do".

While the Kings Cross Injecting Centre's key messages have been able to infiltrate the general news, Penington believes the biggest challenge will come from conservative opinion columnists. "They have influence on members of the public seeking simple answers," he says.

Penington had direct experience of this. When he was head of the Bracks Government's drug policy committee last year, the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt ran a fiercely negative campaign against his committee's injecting room proposal.

"He wanted to play the man rather than the issues," says Penington. "He just wanted to discredit any plausible evidence and wrote about the press conferences without having attended any of them."
Bolt disagrees, suggesting the committee's proposal was not preceded by a public discussion of the facts. "It wasn't about playing the man," he says. "Professor Pennington made claims about injecting rooms that simply couldn't be sustained...[Opinion columnists] only have influence when they express what the wider community know in their hearts to be the facts.

Alter a nervous beginning, the Kings Cross injecting centre's organisers are happy with the media coverage to date. "You could argue that the media were creating a story by being on our doorstep," says van Beek. "But on the other hand, they also quoted me as saying the media presence had discouraged people from using the centre. To that extent it has been fair."

Back to Top

Back to Clippings

Home

Kennedy Communications

Ph. (02)9520 1155 Fax: (02)9548 0173 Email: kennedycommunications@bigpond.com