Herald-Sun ban on Hoser extends to snakes

Herald-Sun ban on naming Hoser extends to snakes

Media release dated 18 December 2003

A study has shown that in the last two years, at least three media releases sent by Snakebusters manager Raymond Hoser have apparently been used by reporters at the Herald-Sun as a catalyst for a story by the paper and yet not once has Hoser or snakebusters been correctly attributed as the first source or trigger for the story.

Other media have correctly attributed Hoser and/or snakebusters as their source.

Without exception, the releases have been used by scribes at the paper to go out and get an alternative snake-related story to be reported within a day or two of the Hoser releases.

The Herald-Sun have had a D-notice on reporting Raymond Hoser by name since 1995 when he first published a book on police corruption.

The D-notice was enforced on instructions from the Victorian government and police at the time seeking to keep a lid on exposure of corruption in the State's police force, then regarded as being squeaky clean.

Three books and 8 years later, staff at the Herald-Sun will now concede that Hoser was right and that police corruption in Victoria has been a problem, but they refuse to publicly name or commend Hoser for being the first to stick his neck on the line to expose the problem.

In terms of snakes, the paper's logic appears blindly simple … don't credit Hoser with anything.

The D-notice was briefly broken slightly last year.

Last year a snake was found in a mid-city bookshop and a media frenzy ensued when a bystander phoned the press and told them to come down for a look.

Being a quiet news day the place was soon packed out with journalists and cameras.

When the snake-catcher arrived to save the day, it was the D-noticed Raymond Hoser who removed the animal that just happened to have made it's home underneath Hoser's police corruption books.

The scribes from the Herald-Sun and Age falsely accused Hoser of setting the whole thing up, but the bookshop owner and original complainant said that they didn't know Hoser until he arrived to get the snake.

Yes, they'd merely called a snake catcher.

In other words, it was not a set-up.

Notwithstanding this, the Herald-Sun story made false claims about Hoser as did the Age in a later report.

Hoser sent out a pair of media releases about snakes yesterday and sure enough today (18 December) the Herald-Sun apparently seized on this to write their own story on snakes, failing to mention Hoser or his release.

The Herald-Sun used another snake catcher Simon Watharow as their "snake expert" for the story.

While it's always possible that the paper may claim that their story was independently obtained, a check of past stories on snakes at the paper make the claim seem unlikely.

You see, almost without exception the paper's stories on snake removals have followed hot on the heels of Hoser's media releases and in many cases made the same statements.

On a previous occasion, Watharow phoned Hoser and said he was actually asked by a scribe at the Sunday Herald-Sun if she could simply attribute Hoser quotes to him instead. He said, that was OK as what Hoser had said made sense and he'd go along with Hoser's substantially longer experience with snakes.

A cross-check of the Sunday Herald-Sun article and the earlier Hoser media release showed direct matches of quoted information.

Other media sources had in fact used the Hoser release and quoted from it directly, correctly attributing the quotes to Hoser.

Recently, the Age paid Hoser $10,000 after they were sued for stealing Hoser's material and not attributing it to him … they too found an alternative source to attribute it to.

Notwithstanding this scandalous conduct, the text wasn't what the Age was sued for but rather the photos, that had been scanned and used without permission.

Because of the ease by which a newspaper journalist can claim to have obtained material via an alternative source, it is effectively impossible to prove in a court of law that theft of material occurred, even if the evidence is compelling.

You see the journalist simply rounds up another person to say "I told them this".

That's a pretty hard thing to get around and no doubt is what the Herald-Sun would claim in terms of their various snake stories.

But one thing remains certain.

If you have seen a snake story in the Melbourne Herald-Sun about local snakes in the last 2 years, you can be dead sure that it probably followed a Raymond Hoser media release the day or two before.

Today's was definitely no exception.

(For those unaware, Hoser is author of the definitive 240 page reference on snakes, Australian Reptiles and Frogs, published in 1989 and since used as a benchmark text for many later publications by others, published the most detailed paper ever on Melbourne's snakes (in 1990) has discovered and named numerous species of snake, including more Death Adders and more Pailsus species than any other person, as well as subspecies of King Brown Snake, Taipan, species of python, brown snake, etc and published over 100 scientific papers on snakes)

FURTHER INQUIRIES AND DETAILS OF THE STORIES REFERRED TO WITHIN CAN BE OBTAINED FROM 0412 777 211 AND/OR BY VIEWING EARLIER RELEASES AT

http://www.smuggled.com/arc2003.htm

Recent snake-related media releases as posted on the AAP Medianet website at:

http://aapmedianet.com.au/

and sent to news outlets are as follows:

From 17 December 2003

http://aapmedianet.com.au/

Lots of deadly snakes enter houses to avoid Melbourne heatwave -- Snakebusters Australia

Snakes enter Melbourne homes to escape the scorching heat.

Media Release 12 Noon - Wed 17 December 2003

For the last two nights, Snakebusters Melbourne have removed removed a deadly Snakes from a houses in Melbourne suburbs.

These have been at Warburton and Diamond Creek.

Both were large deadly Tiger Snakes, the most common species around Melbourne.

In the last week, there have been many other call-outs for snakebusters to remove snakes from inside houses in suburban Melbourne, but these others were during the day. None of the homeowners had ever had snakes in their homes before.

Then there's been an abnormally large rash of the more routine calls to remove snakes from gardens and other residential areas.

The reason for all this activity according to snakebusters manager Raymond Hoser is the topsy-turvy Melbourne weather and the unseasonable heat this week.

From a cooler than average spring to a scorching last few weeks the snakes of Melbourne have literally been caught on the hop and are rushing about trying to find cooler areas to hide.

Put another way, many are turning up in places they are not normally found.

Most snakes have been found by dogs and cats and many pets have been bitten.

Most pets bitten by venomous snakes in Melbourne die and those that survive are usually treated with anti-venom which costs about $500 a shot and more than one is often necessary.

With hot weather forecast for the next week, snakebusters expect to be busier than normal collecting snakes from properties and sometimes inside people's homes.

The most common snake in Melbourne is the Tiger Snake which is deadly and almost always tries to bite when attacked or caught.

In most cases snakes are best left alone.

If pets, kids or elderly people live in the area, it's best to have the snake removed by a licenced snake catcher, whose numbers are in the phone book.

According to Raymond Hoser, "even the professionals get bitten sometimes, but for the inexperienced to be tackling a snake, it's reckless and liable to result in one or other losing."

"It's not like on TV, where you see so-called snake-men wrestling with defanged pets. In the real world, the risks are also real".

Snakes are "protected " by law and so they should not be killed.

For further inquiries in terms of the "midnight snakes in houses" refer to Snakebusters Melbourne on

0412 777 211

or http://www.snakebusters.net