AS the supplements saga deepens, how good was it to see such solidarity from all 18 AFL club captains at the season launch on Wednesday? Fremantle captain Matthew Pavlich, flanked by 17 other captains including Essendon’s Jobe Watson, condemned the Herald Sun for printing the names of 10 current Essendon players and two former Bombers named in the ASADA interim report.
It followed similar condemnation from Essendon chairman Paul Little, who labelled the article “disgusting” and “a disgrace”. The uproar following the publication has rippled throughout the AFL world, with countless people clawing at the reputation of chief football writer Mark Robinson and fellow journalist Michael Warner.
As Robinson said on his AFL360 program on Tuesday: “No one barracks for the journos.”
No truer words have been said. While we’re on the subject of words, how about the choice of words from Pavlich and Little, talking about the vulnerability of the players. How disgusting it was that their names have been sullied.
All the while, they fail to grasp that the players have been vulnerable for 18 months, due to an unsupervised, ill-governed and potentially harmful supplements program that took place. Accusations that naming the players is compounding that vulnerability are absolute bollocks. The report does not imply guilt, nor does it jeopardise an ongoing investigation.
It is a simple statement of fact. Even Little admitted that “the disclosure of players names will not change the outcome of the investigation in any way whatsoever”. There are even talks of legal action. On what basis? It is not defamatory, as it clearly states that the players are not in any way guilty, just that they confessed that they had been injected with peptides which they were told were legal, but may be proven otherwise. The same assertion that Jobe Watson made On the Couch last year.
It is believed that the players were interviewed under a legislative confidentiality clause in order to protect them, however according to Robinson, the same clause does not apply to the media, specifically the Herald Sun. If legal action is to take place, then it should be directed at the potential leaking of the document.
The public interest that has circulated around this issue has been unprecedented. You can only imagine what the reaction would be if the Essendon “playing dead” scandal of 1924 had occurred in the social media age.
Little also took aim at what he saw as the sullying of the players’ reputation, stating: “…it unfairly impacts our players, their reputations, their families and our club.”
Again, I don’t ever recall seeing Mark Robinson in a lab coat holding a syringe. He is simply stating a fact, which is what the crux of journalism is all about.
And this is where the profession of journalism is hard to grasp. Kevin Bartlett’s favourite quote is “lying is the second language of the AFL.” So deciphering what is right, what is wrong and what is reportable becomes increasingly difficult. When you’re wrong, as Mike Sheahan found out following last year’s Grand Final, public humiliation is on the menu. But the dish is served the same even when you’re right. Chip Le Grand from the Australian revealed in September that the AFL was on the brink of dropping the charges laid on Dr Bruce Reid and set to offer a settlement deal to Essendon, only for the CEO Andrew Demteriou to personally attack Le Grand on radio, calling his journalism “deplorable” and “garbage”. Le Grand was proven right, and Demetriou refused to retract the statement. Them’s the breaks.
ASADA is reportedly facing a hard task in any case, as the legality of AOD-9604 is still uncertain, while questions remain over which variant of Thymosin was used. In the case of the “dirtied dozen”, all the disgust and disappointment is being thrown in the wrong direction. It wasn’t Robinson and Warner who initiated the supplements program, which could see a quarter of the Essendon list issued infraction notices.
Robinson followed the initial naming report by calling for the players to deserve clarity and closure, and rightly stating that they are the innocent victims in all this. But facts are facts, and it was in the public interest that the players be named. Point the finger at the Essendon Football Club, for it is the primary candidate for fault here.
Don’t shoot the messenger
