“Nobel Prize” for misrepresentation, Court told
After re-watching the Four Corners program that defamed him and biologist Jeremy Griffith for the first time in 12 years today in the Supreme Court, Tim Macartney-Snape was clearly emotional, recounting his initial response to the program in 1995 as being “totally stunned”.
“I remember thinking at the time that if there was a Nobel Prize for documentaries and the category was to totally twist and misrepresent the truth, then that was the all-time winner,” he told Kieran Smark, barrister for the plaintiffs.
“I cannot tell you how angry I became at how an honourable and, by all human sensibilities, a good group of young people were utterly trashed.
“And it was not by some commercial operator from which you might expect sensationalism, but the ABC. I mean this is a media organisation owned by the public which has a responsibility to air important issues. They took the most important issue of all, the issue of understanding ourselves, what more noble cause is there than to understand ourselves? It goes right back to Socrates and Plato.”
Mr Macartney-Snape spoke of the betrayal he felt when he first watched segments of the program pertaining to his career on the public speaking circuit, and the damaging effects the Four Corners broadcast had on his professional and personal life.
“I felt betrayed, embarrassed that every school I went to thought I had this agenda – which was complete and utter rubbish. I felt terrible.”
When asked how his feelings changed over time, Mr Macartney-Snape replied, “The enormity of what was perpetrated slowly sunk in. [The Four Corners program] was an incredibly well-crafted documentary and it gradually dawned on me that any interest in me as a public speaker was pretty well shot”.
“I felt ostracised … people stopped ringing me. There were a few people who rang but it was a lonely time,” Mr Macartney-Snape said. “I had to keep my chin up and keep going,” he added.
The mountaineer also recounted how he had to contend with the broader effects of the program. The Court was shown footage of Mr Macartney-Snape being interviewed by Liz Hayes on Channel Nine’s Today program upon his return from climbing in South America just three weeks after Four Corners aired.
“Let’s look at some of the claims your critics are making. They say of course, one of the things they accuse you of is using opportunities like school speeches to do recruiting for the group,” Ms Hayes was shown asking.
The footage showed Mr Macartney-Snape responding, “Yes well that’s a lie. Any of the thousands of students and parents of students who have heard me talk at schools and public lectures and corporate lectures will know that I do nothing of the sort.”
Mr Macartney-Snape said he was “insulted” by the terms of a statement made in open Court by the defendants four weeks before the trial began in which they asserted that they did not intend to convey the defamatory imputations in Four Corners. “It felt like someone kicking you in the face, and then saying they didn’t kick you in the face but sorry if you are hurt.”
The case continues tomorrow in the Supreme Court before Justice David Kirby.
