CURTIN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Faculty of Humanities

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

To be attached to all assignments
(ALL SECTIONS MUST BE COMPLETED)

STUDENT NAME:Ryan
Johnson..................
STUDENT ID:
17755274
UNIT NAME AND NUMBER:
Journ1000
DUE DATE:
30/5/2015.
WORD COUNT:1500.
.
TUTORIAL DAY AND TIME:Friday
11am.............
TUTORS NAME:

David..
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOUR TUTORS NAME IS ON ALL SUBMITTED ASSIGNMENTS

DECLARATION:
I declare that I have retained a copy of this assignment.
I have read and understood Curtin University policies on Plagiarism
and Copyright and declare that this assignment complies with these
policies.

I declare that this assignment is my own work and has not been
submitted previously in any form for assessment.

Signature:Ryan Johnson
29/5/15...................

Date:

Case of Mr. Ward and the Media

This essay will investigate the 2008 WA death in custody case of Mr. Ward. Firstly, it will
state how the incident occurred and what was the reaction and response after the incident.
This will lead into an analysis of the medias intentions of reporting the story and whether
their intentions were justified. The discussion will also convey whether or not the media
reported the case fairly and sensitively whilst abiding by correct protocols and
procedures. Overall, it will reflect how media can start a media frenzy by using certain
emotive words.
This section will depict the events leading to Mr. Wards death. On Australia Day, 2008,
Mr. Ward, who is known as this for cultural reasons, was charged with one count of drink
driving at 9.30 at night. He was taken to the lockup in the remote town of Warburton,
approximately 1500km northwest of Perth in the lands between the Gibson and Victoria
deserts (Taylor 2008). Mr. Ward was then driven 570km to the courthouse in Laverton,
where he appeared on the next morning and was imprisoned in custody. The police had
said he was to be transported to the nearest jail - the Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison
another 352km away - when he collapsed (Taylor 2008).
According to a report by Green Left Weekly, the air temperature inside the car cell was
over 47 degrees, and the metal surface reached 56 degrees (Bainbridge 2009). During the
trip, the transportation officers who were transporting Mr. Ward did not check for his
wellbeing or see if he needed food or water. Charandev Singh, a death in custody
researcher, elaborates, Mr. Ward would have become heat stressed and then gone into
heatstroke and died, so you are looking at a period of hours during which time he would

have deteriorated and they have not monitored him (Jackson 2008). Therefore, this can
conclude that the transportation officers, whose sole objective was to escort the subject
from Laverton to the regional prison without complications, acted negligently and
ultimately caused Mr. Wards death.
The aftermath of the incident was understandably critical of the incidents leading to Mr.
Wards Death. The WA Corrections Department was also found to be negligent and found
to be a factor in the death after the coroner released an inquest report. On page 16 of the
inquest, it was reported that the cell heavily restricted airflow and the air conditioning in
the front of the car was not working (Hope 2009). WA's Inspector of Custodial Services,
Richard Harding, expressed that the vehicle was in a parlous state and that it falls
short of international minimum standards (Jackson 2008). After a ridiculously long
period of legal limbo that took over 3 years to conclude, WorkSafe prosecuted the
Department of Corrective Services and the prisoner transport contractor G4S. Corrective
Services and G4S were each fined $285,000 for their role in Mr. Ward's death (Wynne
2011). The two transportation officers were fined $11000 and $9000 for their role in the
incident (Wynne 2011). The aftermath of the case was rife with controversy, as many
believed the sentence was unjust. The time took to unveil the sentences further prolonged
the case to be prioritized by the media.
The next few paragraphs will explain the medias intentions when the case was reported.
There was a fluent trend on the media representations of Mr. Wards case. This being
within the first paragraph, if not the first sentence, there was a direct mention to his race.
This can be seen in many high profile news sources such as The Age (Jackson 2008 &
Peera 2009), Green Left Weekly (Bainbridge 2009) and the ABC (Wynne 2011 & Four
Corners 2009). This begs discussion on whether or not it is ethical and if it sticks to
protocol to use the race of the person in a news article. According to Reuters Handbook
Of Journalism (2015), the protocol of race states a news source should only mention
race or ethnicity when relevant to the understanding of a story. Take care when reporting
crimes and court cases. The race of an accused person is not usually relevant. With this

protocol in mind, Mr. Wards race did not have to be mentioned to understand the context
of the story.
The discrepancies in the media mentioning race in the headlines can be seen with a
comparison between Mr. Wards case and the case of Mark Holcroft. Holcroft died of a
heart attack whilst getting transferred to a prison in NSW on August 27, 2009 (Holcroft
2010). The circumstances were similar; Holcroft was imprisoned after a drink driving
offence and both are dead because of negligent officers (Perera, 2009). His death is
allegedly from not receiving his heart medication before being transferred (Cannane
2010). Holcrofts case received considerably less media attention when compared to Mr.
Wards case. A hypothesis of the reason this occurred is because race or ethnicity is not
mentioned in any news articles about Holcrofts case. The medias intention of using Mr.
Wards race in the headlines was to relate both the incident and his race to an underlying
issue. The previously listed articles by The Age, Green Left Weekly and the ABC can
determine this as the headlines about Mr. Wards case deviate into the underlying issue of
Aboriginal deaths in custody. The media used the case of Mr. Ward to create media
frenzy about the underlying issue. The result of the underlying issue combined with the
incident and the race of the victim creates panicked and angry news watchers and readers
who draw conclusions based on those three factors given by the media. In actual fact,
there is one factor in regards to articles about Mr. Wards case and thats the incident
itself. Therefore, this can conclude that the medias intention was to use race as a tool to
emote their audience into campaigning an underlying issue.
The underlying issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody may have been triggered by Mr.
Wards race. However, there is the underlying issue of deaths in custody in Australia to
discuss. The media mainly reported the indigenous deaths in custody. Many of the articles
also portrayed Australian deaths in custody as being overwhelmingly represented by
indigenous deaths. This section will convey whether the segregation of indigenous deaths
in custody from Australian deaths in custody is justifiable. A report by the Australian
Institute of Criminology states there has been a total of 1,393 deaths have been recorded
in prison custody across Australia since January 1, 1980 to June 30, 2011. A statement

from from the abstract from the same study states; The report found both the Indigenous
and non-Indigenous rates of deaths in custody have decreased over the last decade and
are now some of the lowest ever seen (0.16 per 100 Indigenous prisoners and 0.22 per
100 non-Indigenous prisoners in 201011). For the last eight years in a row, the
Indigenous rate of death in prison has been lower than the equivalent non-Indigenous
rate (Australian Institute of Criminology 2011). Another consideration when talking
about the number of people who die in custody is how these people die in custody. The
statistics show that nearly half of all deaths in custody of from suicide or natural causes
(Australian Institute of Criminology 2011). The rest is spread out into different sections
such as external trauma and police shootings. There is no official number of deaths by
negligence but, when all other factors are taken into consideration, the numbers would
presumably be low. Therefore, indigenous deaths are less likely to occur in custody than
non-indigenous deaths. This leaves the reason to segregate indigenous deaths in custody
from Australian deaths in custody unjustified.
To conclude, much of the media exploited the Mr. Ward case to prioritize an underlying
issue that was Aboriginal deaths in custody. This can be highlighted by the response of
the Australian public. The common opinion was that the case happened due to racism.
This assumption happened because much of the media shaped the story by including Mr.
Wards race to align with the underlying issue. Racism couldve played a part in his death
but the point is too subjective. The media, in a way, did stick to protocols as it made race
relevant in the issue. However, after analyzing the events leading up to and after the
event, the race of the victim didnt have to be included to make the primary story
relevant. The fact is that Mr. Wards death was due to extreme negligence but the media
angled the story to push an underlying issue by mentioning Mr. Wards race.

References

Australian Institute of Criminology,. 2011. Deaths In Custody In Australia To 30 June

2011. Canberra: Australian Government.
Bainbridge, Alex. 2009. 'Racism Kills: Demand Justice For Mr Ward'. Green Left
Weekly. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/41875
'Four

Corners'.

2009.

TV

programme.

2:

ABC.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2595622.htm
Handbook.reuters.com,.

2015.

'R

Handbook

Of

Journalism'.

http://handbook.reuters.com/?title=R.
Holcroft, Christopher. 2010. Family's Anguish Over Prison Van Death Steve Cannane
Interview by . TV. Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Lateline.
Hope, Alastair. Western Australian Government Coroner Act 1996,. 2009. RECORD OF
INVESTIGATION INTO DEATH. Kalgoorlie. 16
Jackson, Andra. 2008. 'Police Under Scrutiny After Aboriginal Custody Death'. The Age.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/police-under-scrutiny-after-aboriginalcustody-death/2008/02/01/1201801035358.html.
Perera, Suvendrini. 2009. 'Racism And Cover-Up Pervade Response To Deaths In
Custody'. The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/racism-and-coverup-pervaderesponse-to-deaths-in-custody-20100318-qi87.html.
Taylor, Paige. 2008. 'Leader Dies In Custody'. Blog.

Network Knowledge.

http://netk.net.au/Aboriginal/Aboriginal82.asp.
Wynne, Emma. 2011. 'Prison Guard Given Record Fine Over Ward Death'. ABC
Goldfields. http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/10/05/3333163.htm.

Bldg 208 - Humanities Room 411