When you say nothing at all: The prejudice of silence.

Internationally, it has been reported by the BBC, CNN, The New York Times and Thomson Reuters, amongst others. But closer home, the Australian media seem strangely reticent to do likewise. We’re talking, of course, about the recent referendum in Slovenia in which a marriage equality bill, introduced by the government, was soundly defeated by the public.

The New York Times put it like this: It was a stinging defeat for the government, which had tried to prevent the vote, by arguing that marriage was a human right that should not be subjected to a popular referendum. 

(Sounds familiar, eh? Arguing against democratic processes in the name of human rights. And, of course, backing it up by the power of the state. It’s quite a brilliant strategy, actually. Nevertheless, we digress.)

As of 8.03am on Tuesday, 22 December 2015, the only Australian companies to report this news were Sky News, Yahoo!7 and The Australian. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age were silent. So, too, was the state broadcaster, the ABC. In fact searching for the term “slovenia” on the ABC website for today and yesterday showed no reportage of the referendum (see attached images).

Apparently, some world events are not worth reporting. Especially when your own country is expected to have a plebiscite on the issue of marriage equality. Perhaps its best that you keep such news items out of the public eye. After all, who knows what ideas the Aussie public might get when they hear of another country actually voting AGAINST legalising same sex marriage. Never mind that Austria and Croatia have also taken similar steps in the past few months. Never mind that Finland has collected more than 107,000 signatures (more than twice the amount required by law) to rescind the law permitting same sex marriage.

It seems that the media cannot be trusted to report in an impartial and unbiased manner. Because reporting is not just about the manner in which you report an incident. Equally, it’s about whether or not you choose to report the incident at all.

In other words, keeping silent is just as partial and partisan as speaking out in favour.

One can understand if this happens in a private corporation where everyone is expected to toe the executive line. But when a state-funded news agency and media behemoth fails to mention an international news event, you’ve got to be concerned about the possibility of state-funded totalitarianism that decides what the public should and should not hear. This is not North Korea or China we’re talking about; we’re talking about Australia.

What makes it even more concerning is that this silence seems to contravene the statutory duty of the ABC Board under section 8(1)(c), Australian Broadcasting Act 1983 (Cth) which is “to ensure that the gathering and presentation by the Corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognized standards of objective journalism.”

So “objective journalism” is not just about the “presentation” of news and information. What’s equally important is the “gathering” of it.

And going by the evidence, the “gathering” is pretty selective.

With apologies to Mr Orwell: all news is equal. But some news is more equal than others.

Note: All links are current as of 12.54pm ACDT, Tuesday 22 December 2015.