TIMELY INJECTION OF BALANCE

The media's addiction to sensation might have derailed Sydney's safe heroin
injecting-room trial, but so far the coverage has been low-key and fair,
writes Daniel Hoare

ARE you chasing?" has long been the hushed catch-cry of drug dealers
peddling their mind-altering products along the pavements of Sydney's Kings
Cross. But recently the phrase took on a new meaning when the media
descended on the area chasing something else. They were not in the market
for heroin, but for a story on heroin.

On a rainy Sunday evening in early May, the news rooms of Sydney's
television stations and newspapers were abuzz after an anonymous tip-off:
"Do you know that the injecting room is open up the Cross? It's disgusting."

By Monday afternoon, a significant media presence had materialised directly
opposite Australia's first legal heroin injecting facility -- which
straddles Sydney's seedy sex strip in Darlinghurst Road. One seasoned
journalist commented that the media presence was as large as the city had
experienced for a general news story.

Camera crews from Australia's commercial TV networks jostled for a vantage
point beside newspaper photographers and journalists. The Daily Telegraph
even stationed a photographer in the room of a hotel opposite the facility
in the week leading up to its opening.

Interest in the English-speaking world's first legal heroin injecting
facility has not been confined to the Australian media.

Nor has it been confined to the mainstream news outlets.

The centre's spokesman, Patrick Kennedy, has fielded inquiries from more
than 50 media outlets, from internet sites to magazines including Elle and
Who Weekly. He has also spoken to a large number of international media
outlets, including CNN, the BBC and The New York Times.

"The level of national interest, let alone international interest, has been
quite amazing," says the centre's medical director, Dr Ingrid van Beek.
"Maybe that reflects my naivety about the importance of this story [to the
media]."

The 24 intravenous drug users who stepped through the front doors of the
converted pinball parlour during its first two daylight shifts were unable
to provide the assembled throng with any controversy. There were no
doped-out junkies staggering from the room, and no clients captured on film
driving away after shooting heroin into their veins.

The media instead used footage of a very public overdose outside a nearby
hotel.

Media coverage of the issues surrounding the facility will have a
significant impact on whether or not the 18-month trial is deemed a
success, according to Paul Dillon from Australia's National Drug and
Alcohol Research Centre. "Only a minority in the wider community have
direct experience of heroin abuse, so public perceptions will be shaped by
the media's coverage," he says. "If the media gives a balanced viewpoint,
this initiative has a better chance of gaining public acceptance."

Dillon believes that the media has contributed to derailing drug policy
reform proposals in the past. He cites the ACT Government's 1997 proposal
for a pharmaceutical heroin trial as an example. "Instead of giving a
balanced view, the media looked for every possible negative story they
could create."

His view is supported by Professor David Penington, who has headed several
government committees on illicit drugs.

Penington says the media's campaign against the proposal -- led by The
Daily Telegraph -- contributed to Prime Minister John Howard vetoing the
experiment. "There's no doubt the campaign from various Sydney media
outlets contributed to defeating the trial.

When Howard read and heard all of the negatives, he jumped on the bandwagon.

That is the problem we face -- politicians react to public opinion, which
is shaped, to a considerable extent, by the media."

The Telegraph labelled the proposal "contentious, morally indefensible and
profoundly evil" and ran a series of editorials calling on the Prime
Minister to veto the trial.

Images of the health ministers who supported the trial were placed under
the headline "Drug pedlars in business suits".

Dillon contrasts the media's coverage of the ACT proposal with its coverage
of naltrexone, a drug recently given approval by the Federal Government for
use in detoxification. "The media got behind naltrexone very early in the
piece, and the wider community picked that up. While there was limited
scientific backing into the effectiveness of the drug, it forced the
Government to examine it more closely."

Australians were first introduced to naltrexone in 1997 when The Australian
Women's Weekly, in conjunction with the Seven network's Today Tonight
program, funded a trip to Israel for a middle-class heroin addict. Under a
story titled "Heroin: hope at last", the magazine told the story of the
25-year-old woman's miraculous recovery from addiction. "I feel new," she
proclaimed after waking from treatment. "I can't believe it. Wow!"

Like any media-sensitive policy, the merits of the Kings Cross injecting
facility need to be effectively marketed.

Realising this, the centre's organisers hired a public relations firm to
liaise with the media and implement a communications strategy.

The key messages of the policy revolve around a central premise that the
facility is not in itself a panacea for the Kings Cross heroin problem.
According to Kennedy -- a public relations professional with more than 17
years' experience -- it needs to be emphasised that while the centre's main
function is to provide a supervised environment for injecting heroin, it
also acts as a gateway for treatment and rehabilitation.

"The media is important for the centre in communicating its messages, not
just to the drug injecting community, but to the broader community as
well," he says. "The second part of the strategy is to ensure that only the
correct messages are communicated. So, there is a bit of issues management
with such a high-profile topic.

This is an area where on occasion, no news is good news."

If the media response after the first few weeks is any guide, the PR
strategy has been highly successful. The centre attracted little fanfare
after the first day of operation, and by the Wednesday, there wasn't a
single news story about the facility in any Australian news bulletin or
newspaper.

A TV journalist covering the story said there was no need to stake out the
centre for days on end because sufficient footage had been obtained on its
first day of operation. "We had what we wanted, so there was no need to
hang around.

The story will pick up again if an incident occurs, or when the centre's
success has been evaluated."

Kennedy handed out prepared video footage of mock heroin users inside the
facility for the TV news services. "This strategy was designed to ensure
high-quality and non-identifying images appeared in the media, and leaves
less reason for clandestine attempts to gather footage," he says.

The media were also given updates on the centre's progress before it
opened, with many taking guided tours inside the building.

This has helped to foster a positive relationship between the media and the
centre's organisers, according to van Beek. "We've had compliments from the
media for having kept them fully informed," she says. "I think that's been
important."

The Daily Telegraph led the charge, splashing its late Monday edition with
"8 SHOTS, 1 STRIKE: Heroin injecting room open for business".

The second paragraph of the Tele's front-page piece was precisely what the
organisers had hoped for: "The first client to enter the injecting room for
a shot of heroin agreed to be referred to treatment services."

The same information appeared in nearly every news story about the centre.
It attracted coverage on news bulletins and in newspapers in nearly every
Australian state. "Few visit injecting room" said Adelaide's The
Advertiser; "Quiet start for injecting room" was The Courier-Mail's
summation in Brisbane; and Melbourne's Herald Sun simply declared
"Injecting room opens its doors".

On the Tuesday, the issue failed to warrant front-page treatment in any
newspaper. The Telegraph relegated the story to page 8, The Australian ran
it on page 5, and The Sydney Morning Herald made no mention of the story in
its news section.

Opponents, including the vocal Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce, were in
most cases given only a minor comment at the foot of each story.

Negative comment in the print media has come from Daily Telegraph columnist
Piers Akerman, who suggested a giant needle be erected in Kings Cross "in
case some junkie isn't aware that the centre is open and ready for
business". The Australian's D.D. McNicoll was also critical, likening the
facility to Australia's "big" tourist attractions, including the Big
Pineapple and the Giant Prawn.

Sydney's radio hosts all agreed to assess the trial -- in due course -- on
its merits.

John Laws, of 2UE, said he hoped the centre worked for the sake of heroin
users. "Let's hope that it works and works very well," he said. Laws's
colleague, Mike Carlton, called for opponents to "back off a bit and give
the place a chance to show what it can do".

While the Kings Cross injecting centre's key messages have been able to
infiltrate the general news, Penington believes the biggest challenge will
come from conservative opinion columnists. "They have influence on members
of the public seeking simple answers," he says.

Penington had direct experience of this. When he was head of the Bracks
Government's drug policy committee last year, the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt
ran a fiercely negative campaign against his committee's injecting room
proposal.

"He wanted to play the man rather than the issues," says Penington. "He
just wanted to discredit any plausible evidence and wrote about the press
conferences without having attended any of them."

Bolt disagrees, suggesting the committee's proposal was not preceded by a
public discussion of the facts. "It wasn't about playing the man," he says.
"Professor Penington made claims about injecting rooms that simply couldn't
be sustained ... [Opinion columnists] only have influence when they express
what the wider community know in their hearts to be the facts."

After a nervous beginning, the Kings Cross injecting centre's organisers
are content with the media coverage to date. "You could argue that the
media were creating a story by being on our doorstep," says van Beek. "But
on the other hand, they also quoted me as saying the media presence had
discouraged people from using the centre.

To that extent it has been fair."