Australian media makes martyr of Corby
Australian media makes martyr of Corby
Neil Sands, Agence France-Presse/Sydney, Australia
Australia's most recognized face right now is not a movie star or politician but a young beauty therapist facing life imprisonment in Indonesia for allegedly trafficking drugs to the resort island of Bali.
Images of Schapelle Corby staring through the bars of her Balinese prison cell dominate newsstands from Sydney to Perth, while talkback radio airwaves are abuzz with discussion about the fate of the 27-year-old.
Corby's sentencing on Friday will be carried live on Australian television, the culmination of saturation coverage that analysts say has not been seen in the Australian media for decades.
Paul Maley of the press watchdog Media Monitors said the reporting frenzy was comparable only to the Azaria Chamberlain case of the early 1980s, when a baby disappeared in central Australia and her parents were convicted of murder despite evidence the child was killed by wild dingoes.
Tabloid current affairs shows have launched fierce bidding wars to interview members of Corby's family and Indonesian authorities have warned Australian reporters to back off after a journalist tried to sneak into her jail in search of a scoop.
Unlike the Chamberlain case, famously portrayed in the Hollywood film A Cry in the Dark starring Meryl Streep, Corby has gained widespread public support in Australia.
The Queenslander was arrested when customs officers found 4.1 kilograms of cannabis in her luggage when she flew into Bali last October.
She could face the death penalty under Indonesia's tough anti- drug trafficking laws, but prosecutors have asked for a sentence of life in prison.
Corby's defense team have argued that the drugs were planted in her baggage after it was checked in at Brisbane airport, a claim that newspaper opinion polls have found more than 90 percent of Australians believe.
The Australian media have portrayed Corby as a martyr figure. A recent front page article in Sydney's Daily Telegraph under the headline "Suffering in Silence" said she had lost her voice because she was so drained by her ordeal.
"The story has played from broadsheet newspapers to the tabloids, from respected commentators to gossip mags ... people have not tired of this topic," Maley said.
He said the coverage had become a juggernaut generating its own momentum and was "unlikely to fade anytime soon".
Theories about why the case has touched a nerve with the Australian public abound. The respected Bulletin magazine said many Australians, who regard Bali as their tropical playground, believed they could innocently find themselves in Corby's situation.
"She is one of us," it said. "That could be your sister or daughter weeping in a foreign jail.
"If you believe her story, it could have been you or me that landed in a Bali cell."
Maley said analysis of talkback radio coverage also found mistrust of the Indonesian justice system, particularly following the trials of the 2002 Bali terrorist bombers, which killed 88 Australians.
"Many resent the fact that Abu Bakar Baa'syir was sentenced to just two years jail for his role in the Bali bombing, while Corby faced life for being found with marijuana," he said.