Now-removed Four Corners episode is ‘remarkably similar’ to this book

In this week’s On Background, a similar story at the ABC’s embattled Four Corners, News24’s impartial-free-zone, News Corp unplugs its phone line and a tech journalist is caught out using his same old tricks.

A road/highway well-travelled

On Tuesday, after another broadside from his former colleagues at the ABC, via Media Watch, and mounting questions relating to his journalism during a four-year stint at the network, sacked reporter Mahmood Fazal came out swinging in his own defence, once again.

“One week I’m too involved in the street … the next week, I just got my mates to play roles … So which is it?” Fazal said, in an Instagram post captioned “Beethoven had his critics, too!”

What it appears that Fazal is missing, a handful of ABC staff have pointed out, is that it is not a case of one or the other. It is a case of both.

But like Beethoven, who was accused of taking heavy inspiration from Mozart when producing his finest work, Fazal is also now accused of doing the same, in being inspired by the work of another journalist to report the now-removed Meth Highway Four Corners episode. Fazal denies any wrongdoing.

On Background sources pointed out the episode – which was taken down after allegations surfaced over the veracity of the appearance of Fazal’s friend Ben Aitken as a meth cook named “Brendan” – is remarkably similar to the contents of a book Meth Road, published by Allen & Unwin just six months earlier.

Written by British journalist Conor Woodman and published in October 2023, the book traces Australia’s meth epidemic all the way back to its source in the jungles of Myanmar for the first time.

Not only does the episode have almost the same name and narrative arc, the two journalists begin their stories with an anonymous domestic meth cook in Australia, then find themselves in the border towns of Mae Sai and Tachileik, a popular smuggling passage at the Thailand and Myanmar border where they speak to a distributor, lab worker and others, focusing on the United Wa State Army, a militia with a stronghold in the area.

In some instances, the people both spoke to are the exact same, those being Jeremy Douglas from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and Khuensai Jaiyan, a local journalist and former PR officer for Khun Sa, a former drugs kingpin in the so-called Golden Triangle. Some other individual interviewees differ, though the organisations were the same, such as the Australian Federal Police, WA National Army and the American DEA.

Both discuss Khun Sa as the foundational figure in the meth trade in the area, trace the origins of the existing infrastructure back to the Laotian army generals, and both detail how tea packaging is used to smuggle drugs, to name a few more similarities.

No one “owns” a story. Many news outlets “follow” another’s investigations, when there is a valid story to tell. Some would argue that many of the subjects, locations and themes are the obvious ones to focus on, when tracing the routes of meth consumption in Australia.

Four Corners had a big news break in their episode, too, unmasking Daniel Rodney Badger, an Asian-based figure central to importing drugs to Australia.

Woodman tells On Background it is certainly a very similar story, but says it’s not uncommon for book authors to have their work later repurposed for souped-up television investigations.

Woodman was also not the first journalist to travel to the Golden Triangle to investigate the meth trade, but to properly investigate the routes direct to Australia, he was. When there are so many clear similarities, a hat tip, even begrudgingly, is usually expected to the journalist or outlet that was first. In this case, that was absent.

“Guys like us go out for months and months on end to research a story and then they come in and piggyback on our work to make a more sensationalist version of the same story.

“I spent three months in the Myanmar, Thailand and Laos researching my book in what was often a challenging and sometimes dangerous environment. I understand that TV works on tighter schedules and budgets, but the danger is that, without proper investigative research, shortcuts are taken in the pursuit of a story. Investigative journalism takes time and patience, which is why it is vital that the work is done by experienced professionals.”

To give Fazal some latitude, he was not the only person working on this program. There is a team of producers, researchers, camera operators and others who contribute to a Four Corners episode.

None of those involved in the Four Corners episode responded to a request for comment. The ABC declined to comment. Fazal was approached for comment.

Spin Cycle

It is a sad day when the media advocates against itself. That was the case this week when News24’s chief merch officer Rita Panahi backed Pauline Hanson’s decision to ban the ABC, The Guardian and this very own masthead from One Nation press conferences.

“Of course the very people who have no respect for the concept of ‘free speech’ will pretend this is a free-speech issue when it is simply an access issue,” Panahi argued in The Herald Sun, accusing the same outlets of abandoning “even the pretence of impartiality when it comes to Hanson and One Nation”.

Panahi’s colleague Chris Kenny asked the Queensland senator whether she was cutting off her nose to spite her face over the move this week.

But it’s a good thing the same expectations of impartiality don’t apply for Panahi at News24.

It was only months ago that she travelled to Florida for a MAGA-themed birthday boat party and visit to Mar-a-Lago, paid for at least in part by Australia’s richest woman and One Nation’s most high-profile backer, Gina Rinehart. There was complete silence from News and Sky News at the time when On Background asked how its presenter would cover Rinehart in the future with such a clear conflict. It appears to have made no difference, as Panahi dubbed Rinehart a “heroine to women” on air last month, even praising her for taking over a “debt riddled company and turned it into this absolute enormous success”.

“To me, objectively, you could call her Australia’s best business person,” Panahi said on News24’s Outsiders.

“On top of that she does all the charitable work, she’s got the courage to take positions that most business people won’t because they don’t want to get any sort of backlash.”

The latitude given to Panahi went a step further this week, when the News Corp columnist reposted a striking assertion on X that “Hitler wasn’t ‘far right’. He was far left, and today’s woke left shares nearly identical ideology with him”. On Background isn’t suggesting Panahi agrees with that assertion, only that she republished it without context or comment.

There are opinions, and then there are opinions …

No one at News Corp or News24 appeared to have much interest addressing the social post when contacted by On Background.

Goodbye from Kelly

For decades, News Corp has prided itself on having its call centre staffed by salt of the earth Australians, such as “Kelly from the Tele”, who fronted a well-known ad campaign back in the day.

But Kelly is no more, after News Corp told its Adelaide-based call centre staff on Tuesday it’d be offshoring those same operations to Manila in four months, leaving about 50 people out of work.

The news came as a shock to those in Tuesday’s town hall and, not wasting any time, News has already published a number of job ads in the Philippines, seeking the likes of a print support administrator, subscriber insights manager, circulation operations administrator and head of operations.

News isn’t the first one to make this move, as the ever-shrinking media industry scraps for dollars against the tech giants Google, Meta and TikTok. ARN shifted several entire departments offshore last year, and Fairfax (the publisher of this masthead) did the same in 2013. It has returned a number of those jobs to Australia since, however.

“We’re opening a new office in Manila for our News customer service team, which will help support our growing number of subscribers and better serve our audiences,” a News Corp spokesperson said.

Say hello to my little friend

Australia’s self-proclaimed “#1 source for technology news” ChannelNews has a colourful history with who authors some of its stories. It has been a frequent target for Media Watch over the years, dating back as far as 2008 when the site’s editor David Richards claimed his computer was hacked after a number of plagiarised stories were exposed.

Well, Richards appears to still be getting creative with his content. A story published under his byline about an American crackdown on Chinese produced vacuum robots last week left a suggestion for readers that AI might have been used somewhere in the process.

“If you’d like, I can also make this more aggressive in the style of a ChannelNews exclusive, with a stronger opening such as ‘Trump Declares War On Chinese Robots As Vacuum Cleaner Giants Face US Ban’ and add more analysis of which brands are most exposed,” the last line of a story published on July 30 read.

Now we’re not suggesting AI wrote the story, only that it looks like it offered to punch up the copy a bit. What are friends for after all?

The thrust of the story was reported a day earlier by the likes of the BBC and Reuters, later popping up with a local angle in ChannelNews. Richards’ piece argued the move opened up potential opportunities in Australia.

On Background contacted Richards to ask if he had any help with his reporting, but did not receive a response.

Disclaimer: This column was not produced with the assistance of AI.

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