1986. Harrison, J. "Deathknocks. The media come to grief." Australian Journalism Review 8, pp. 4-7.

Revised version published in Henningham 1990.

DEATHKNOCKS: The media come to grief

John Harrison
School of Journalism & Communication
The University of Queensland

Abstract

This article provides a critical reflection on the journalistic practice of deathknocks, based on an
industrial accident at an underground coal mine at Moura in Central Queensland in 1986 in which
12 miners died.

"Rightly or wrongly, reporters have been perceived as heartless ghouls. . . Community

feeling, sharpened by bereavement, has turned strongly against the press contingent here. . .
And there have been threats that the media men can expect no protection if the mourning
turns to violence. . . The town's two motels have been virtually taken over by media men - a
high powered invasion unwelcomed by grieving families of dead men. . . To be sure the
press group contained its usual quota of hot-heads and show-offs. A few. Mostly reporters
carried out the distasteful but necessary business of interviewing relatives with sensitivity.
No journalist enjoys a deathknock."
David Bentley, "When Grief Turns Ugly", Sunday Sun, July 20, 1986.
On Wednesday, July 16, 1986 an explosion in the Moura No 4 underground mine entombed 12
miners. Before the dust settled, journalists were scrambling to reach the small town of Moura [pop
3000] two and a half hours by road southwest of Rockhampton in central Queensland.
After the blast, the second biggest story to come out of the Moura mine disaster was the tension
between journalists reporting the story and the community of Moura.

This article attempts to analyse the dynamics of that tension through a case study of the disaster.
First, the practice of deathknocking is discussed with specific reference to the Moura case.
Secondly, the reasons given for the tension between journalists and the Moura community as stated
by each side at the time of the disaster are analysed, and an alternative explanation for the tension
is offered - an explanation which arises out of an understanding of the grief and bereavement
process.

The deathknock: How personal privacy becomes the second disaster victim

The journalists covering the Moura disaster did not question the necessity or the desirability of the
deathknock. Bentley of the "Sunday Sun" wrote of the "necessary business of interviewing
relatives". ABC-TV journalist Pat McGuiness told Queensland University journalism student Dani
Cooper:
"Deathknocks will never disappear. You have to remember the media is a competitive
business. Emotive stories sell papers and boost ratings. These stories are always on - it is
more or less expected these stories will be done."

Two comments. First, their professional socialization leads journalists to be unquestioning of the
deathknock as a legitimate journalistic practice. Secondly, competition, and more fundamentally
ratings and sales, and the bottom line, the dollar, is argued as making deathknocks inevitable.
But what is the deathknock? At best, it is a request by an outside individual - a journalist - to be
party to the lives of individuals and families at a time when they are most emotionally venerable; at
the point at which they are attempting to cope with death. Furthermore, it is a request for that
outside individual to share that experience with readers and viewers, the overwhelming majority of
whom are also complete strangers. In any bereavement situation there are already enough strangers
moving into the family circle of the bereaved. Funeral directors, sometimes emergency service
personnel, and sometimes the clergyman conducting the funeral. It is often overlooked that the
second victim of any tragedy or disaster is often the privacy of the bereaved. Journalists are just one
more stranger to cope with when emotional limits are already tested.

That said however, I believe that the deathknock will remain with us as part of the journalistic
process, and that the best solution is to equip journalists to the fullest extent possible to handle
death, dying and bereavement so that emotionally vulnerable people do not suffer any further
distress. Indeed, the deathknock story can have a positive effect. The subject of death and dying has
been a taboo subject for too long. A good deathknock story is one which helps the community
break down that taboo. At a more specific level, deathknock stories can make the community more
aware of social problems such as drink driving or other forms of drug abuse. It can also be argued
that telling one's story in public may have a therapeutic effect for the bereaved individual.

It has been suggested that privacy legislation should be introduced to eliminate the deathknock.
There are two current trends in our community life that need to be recognized in making a
judgement on this issue. There is the trend towards greater protection of individual rights through
 tribunals such as the Human Rights Commission, and the various racial and sexual discrimination
bodies. Balanced against this is the demand for less government interference especially in the
conduct of business. The highly competitive nature of the media already referred to by Pat
McGuiness, along with the volume of red tape involved make it unlikely, in my view, that the
deathknock would go.

The second explosion: Why did the town erupt against the media?

When the conflict between journalists and the Moura community blew up, the eruption itself
became news. This was partly because of the week long delay in recovering the miners' bodies after
the explosion. During that time, the community's concerns about media behaviour were put by four
men representing the interests of the town. They were Police Inspector Pat Bruton, mining union
leader Andrew Vickers, Thiess Dampier Mitusi general manager Ross McKinnon and the local
Anglican priest, and industrial chaplain at the mine Fr Denis Vanderwolf.

The conflict between the media and the community was sparked when Fr Vanderwolf announced
the day after the mine explosion that the pregnant widow of one of the trapped miners had been
approached by a representative of a southern media organisation at 1. 30 am in the morning and
offered money for her story.

From that point relationships between the media and the community deteriorated sharply. David
Bentley of the Sunday Sun reported four days after the explosion, “The press have received scant
co-operation from mine officials and police. Media conferences have been terse, aggressive
affairs." The police instructed journalists not to attempt to contact relatives of the entombed men;
reporters were abused in the streets, and as David Bentley reported, journalists covering a mass
meeting of 300 miners two days after the explosion had "the comforting assurance that if miners
decided to kick a few heads, they would do so with police blessing". A police press conference was
scheduled at the same time as the miners' mass meeting, but when the police spokesman failed to
appear on time, reporters surmised that the conference was a sham to keep them away from the
mass meeting. Perhaps the crowning comment came from the Anglican Bishop of Rockhampton,
George Hearn who had gone to Moura to assist his pastorally overloaded parish priest. Entering a
prayer service Hearn told a press photographer that he would use his pastoral staff for the purpose
for which it was originally intended if the photographer didn't get of the way.

In fact mine owner BHP became so concerned at the breakdown of communications between
journalists and the authorities that it sent one of its Public Affairs staff from Melbourne to help
reduce the conflict level. Amid the conflict, two theories emerged among the participants as to why
there had been a break down in relations between the journalists and the community.

The first theory was that most of the journalists were sensitive and ethical seekers of truth, but there
were one or two bad eggs among them. Sunday Sun journalist David Bentley subscribed to this
view with his comment that "the press group contained its usual quota of hot-heads and show-offs."
When things had cooled down a little, mine manager McKinnon also subscribed to this theory.
Bentley reported "McKinnon. . . confides privately that some journalists still deserve to be strung
up." But also, "We've got a job to do, you've got a job to do, " Bentley reported McKinnon as
saying.

The second theory was the "Moura is a small town" theory. The town of Moura itself has only
come to life since 1963 when Sir Leslie Thiess selected the bush hamlet as the site of the dormitory
town he was building to serve the export coalmines he was developing in the area.
The "Moura is a small town " view had adherents among both townspeople and journalists. Fr
Denis Vanderwolf said that the southern media did not understand the problem of dealing with
grief in a town in which everyone knew at least one of the men killed. Vanderwolf commented that
it wasn't a matter of twelve grieving families, but 3000 grieving people. The Anglican Church has
recognized this dimension of the problem and launched a national appeal for funds to allow it to
deploy additional clergy in Moura to cope with the pastoral load of bereavement counselling.

Journalists also subscribed to the "Moura is a small town " theory, but from a different perspective,
saying that Moura did not understand the media. Pat McGuiness said, "People die; papers the
media, have to get pictures. But in Moura the people were so unused to the media they did not
expect this would happen”. Ironically, the men who were most vocal in their criticism of the media
- Inspector Bruton, Ross McKinnon of TDM, and mining union leader Andrew Vickers, were
themselves from out of town and had varying degrees of experience in dealing with the media.
Inspector Bruton was from Gladstone, Moura was part of his division. Vickers, a former Utah
employee from Moranbah at the northern end of the coalfields, is based in Ipswich. McKinnon was
a Brisbane-based mining engineer. All three had come to Moura specifically to deal with the crisis.
Vickers, described by one reporter as being "notable for finger- jabbing tirades about journalists'
ethics" during the crisis, is quite accustomed to dealing with the media, and does so regularly.
Denis Vanderwolf, the other person in Moura to express his concern about the behaviour of the
media, has served since ordination in the Anglican Diocese of Rockhampton after training in
Adelaide. For nearly ten years he has served in central Queensland mining towns, where he was
both Anglican priest and part time industrial chaplain. He likewise is no stranger to the presence of
the national media in mining towns. He was stationed in Moranbah when the controversial Four
Corners program on Utah was broadcast in November 1977.

Thus, given the background of those who were instrumental in raising questions about the ethics of
media behaviour in Moura, I do not believe that the "Moura is a small town" hypothesis is viable as
an explanation of the conflict that arose between the media and the community. I think it is much
more likely that the conflict between journalists and the Moura community became inevitable the
moment the mine blew up because anger is an integral and normal part of the grief process. In
classic texts books such as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' On Death and Dying, anger is classified as the
second stage of response to death, following denial and isolation. In Kubler-Ross' five stage
taxonomy of responses to death, anger is then followed by stages defined as bargaining, depression
and acceptance. It is only in the past fifteen years that studies of death and bereavement have been
a recognized part of the training of professional counsellors and pastors.

For the Moura community, the onset of the anger stage was facilitated by the actions of the middle
of the night media deathknocking the night of the disaster. The anger was probably more acute
because many in the community were still in the middle of the denial and isolation stage.
Moreover, it is important to realize here that we are dealing, as Chaplain Vanderwolf suggested
with 3000 bereaved people, not twelve families.

The anger of the bereaved can be focussed in any direction. Why in Moura was it directed against
the media? The first logical target for community anger was the mining company.
BHP, which owns Thiess Dampier Mitsui, does not enjoy a good reputation as an employer in the
central Queensland coalfields; The US owned company Utah, which also operated mines in the
same region until being bought out by BHP, enjoyed a reputation as a far more beneficent employer
despite the incipient anti-American feeling of the workforce. Even so, a major sociological study of
workers at Utah mines published in 1981 showed that 44% of manual workers at two Utah mines in
central Queensland mines showed resentment towards the company. [Williams 1980, p95]. With a
highly unionised workforce the central Queensland coalfields have often been the scene of
industrial conflict. The 1978 strike against former treasurer John Howard's attempt to tax
subsidized housing is an example of the industrial muscle of the miners.

At the time of the Moura disaster however there appeared to be a concerted effort by TDM
management and the miners' union to present a united front, more particularly during the week it
took to recover the bodies. TDM general manager McKinnon rarely appeared on camera without
the mining unions' Andrew Vickers by his side. There was a sense of solidarity among those
engaged in the rescue operations. McKinnon said, "There's an awful lot of consensus decision
making going on at the mine. We talk to the unions, the mines inspectorate, the rescue team, the
police." His next comment reveals the priority he placed on relations with the media, and his [quite
correct in my view] perception of their place in the rescue operation. He said, "When things
change, our first task is not to rush to the media, but to assess that change." The media needed
McKinnon more than McKinnon needed the media.

Sometimes in times of bereavement, people focus their anger on God. The age old mystery of
suffering appears again. Why should a good and loving God allow such a thing to happen? [Kubler-
Ross 1973, p.65] However, in Moura, because of the links established over a number of years with
the mine workforce through industrial chaplaincy, the men of God were perceived as part of the
rescue and support operation. Indeed it was Chaplain Vanderwolf who blew the whistle on the
group that was to bear the brunt of much of the town's grievous anger - the media. This does not
mean to say that individuals did not pose the question as to why God should allow such a
tragedy to befall their family, mates or community. But the church moved with a rare speed to
provide substantial pastoral support for the community, with the local bishop coming in to assist,
and the launching of an appeal to assist the members of the community struggle to the final stage of
grief and bereavement - acceptance of what has happened.

Chaplain Vanderwolf also performed not only a pastoral role, but an advocacy role on behalf of the
bereaved families, drawing public attention to what he and they considered unjust intrusion into
their privacy by the media. The pastoral and advocacy roles are an essential and established part of
industrial chaplaincy work as it operates in the central Queensland coalfields [Harrison 1983, p36]
So the media came to grief as the scapegoat of a town's wrath. They were not primarily responsible
for that wrath. Sure, the alleged midnight deathknock did not help their case and despite the
protestations of some to the contrary, the journalists present were probably professionally ill-
prepared for the task of doing a deathknock story on a community of 3000 people. They, and their
city based editors, probably did assume they were only dealing with twelve families. Moreover the
competitive nature of the media made it difficult for them as a group to take any substantive steps
to restore the confidence of the townspeople in journalists once the conflict exploded.
If there is any lesson to be learned from Moura's explosion of anger against journalists, it is that the
profession needs to take more seriously the task of training journalists in dealing with death and
grief.

REFERENCES:

Harrison, John [ed] 1983, Patterns of Ministry and Mission in Mining Communities: Bowen Basin
Case Studies, Brisbane: Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland Synod.

Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth, [1973] On Death and Dying, London: Travistock.

Williams, Claire, [1981] Opencut: The working class in an Australian mining town, Sydney:
George Allen & Unwin.