Journalists Writing Australian Political History

There has been a considerable increase in the number of political histories written by journalists since the 1960s. Three types of journalistic political histories have emerged in this period: the quickie, the longer history and the investigative work, and the works of Warren Denning, Alan Reid and Paul Kelly have been particularly influential in the development of the genre's present characteristics and concerns. This article finds that the genre's increase is the result of a combination of factors: the expansion of a tertiary-educated readership; the introduction of university training for journalists; increasing economic pressures faced by publishers, and the rise of celebrity culture.     

Crime-money,reputation and reporting

The emphasis of government legislation on money laundering has been based on the assumption that reporting institutions are able to spot deviant customer behaviour and that implicitly such behaviour is criminal. This paper looks at the drivers for reporting of suspicious or unusual activity, in particular, focusing on the principle of reputation. It considers the evidence over bank disclosure within annual published reports with respect to their money laundering compliance activity; particularly examining whether there was any change in disclosure and hence reputation management reporting by those banks fined by the regulator for lapses of compliance. An attempt is also made to apply the principles of legitimacy theory to evaluate the association between money laundering and reputation looking for evidence of a ‘virtuous cycle of compliance’. However, the findings point to limited public awareness of money laundering and to the adoption of a deficit rather than enhancement model of reputation management.

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Outsmarting the Liars: The Benefit of Asking Unanticipated Questions

We hypothesised that the responses of pairs of liars would correspond less with each other than would responses of pairs of truth tellers, but only when the responses are given to unanticipated questions. Liars and truth tellers were interviewed individually about having had lunch together in a restaurant. The interviewer asked typical opening questions which we expected the liars to anticipate, followed by questions about spatial and/or temporal information which we expected suspects not to anticipate, and also a request to draw the layout of the restaurant. The results supported the hypothesis, and based on correspondence in responses to the unanticipated questions, up to 80% of liars and truth tellers could be correctly classified, particularly when assessing drawings.

‘I'm a photographer,not a terrorist’: the use of photography to detect deception

When planning large-scale incidents or bombing campaigns, terrorists often conduct reconnaissance research to identify key targets. This may include taking photographs of potential target locations. Identifying an effective real-time method to distinguish between genuine photographers and those with more sinister intent may be beneficial for law enforcement and security agencies. Participants took photographs in a public place with a genuine intent (truth tellers) or sinister intent (liars). After taking these photographs, the participants were approached by an undercover interviewer (a mime artist) who asked them whether he could see the photographs. Later, the participants discussed their photographs in a formal interview. First, liars were less cooperative in their interaction with the undercover interviewer than truth tellers. Second, in the formal interview, liars mentioned some security features that appeared in the photographs more than truth tellers. The findings suggest that ‘using photographs to detect deception’ is a subject that could prove important to explore to benefit forensic and counter-terrorist practice.