Shutting Down Sharleen

Morton, T; Aroney, EE

Shutting Down Sharleen

Morton, T

Aroney, EE

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Publisher:: ABC
Citation:: Hindsight, 2010
Issue Date:: 2010-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Morton, T https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4255-2992	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Aroney, EE https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5483-7207	en_US
dc.date.issued	2010-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Hindsight, 2010	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/17519
dc.description.abstract	Sharleen Spiteri was a sex worker, a drug user, and she was HIV+. In July 1989, Sharleen Spiteri appeared on the national current affairs TV program 60 Minutes and told reporter Jeff McMullen that she tried to get her clients to practice safe sex, but sometimes they wouldn't cooperate. As a result, the NSW government took Sharleen from her flat under police guard, and forcibly detained her in a locked AIDS ward, a mental hospital and a disused nursesâ home. After she was released from detention, Sharleen spent much of the remaining 16 years of her life under 24-hour supervision by health workers. She became the most expensive public patient in NSW history. This program uses the techniques of investigative journalism, including exclusive original interviews with politicians, bureaucrats, health workers, carers, sex workers, nuns and journalists, as well as extensive archival research and material obtained through FOI to uncover the background to Sharleenâs story. It raises important issues about the relationship between the media and public policy, and the clash between individual civil liberties and governmentâs responsibility to protect public interest. Co-producer/author Tom Morton author delivered a paper based on the documentary at Back to the Source, the national Investigative Journalism Conference held at UTS on September 17th-18th 2011. Paper was published in Pacific Journalism Review in 2012. Awards/Competitions/Festivals 2010 Gold Radio Award, New York Festivals: http://www.newyorkfestivals.com/main.php?p=3,1&wp=info&id=405202 Finalist, John Curtin Award for Journalism, Victorian Premierâs Literary Awards, 2010	en_US
dc.format	Radio documentary - Investigative journalism	en_US
dc.publisher	ABC	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Hindsight	en_US
dc.title	Shutting Down Sharleen	en_US
utslib.location	ABC	en_US
utslib.location.activity	ABC Radio National	en_US
utslib.for	190301 Journalism Studies	en_US
dc.location.activity	ABC Radio National	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/Journalism Program
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	false	en_US
pubs.place-of-publication	ABC	en_US
pubs.rights-statement	Shutting Down Sharleen is a 53’00 radio documentary about Sharleen Spiteri, an HIV+ sex worker forcibly detained by the NSW government in 1989 after admitting on 60 Minutes that she had unprotected sex with clients. Research background: This research is in the field of journalism studies, focusing on investigative journalism. Etttema and Glaser (1998) define investigative journalism as a ‘personal story with a public moral’. Morrison & Svennevig (2009) show that, while journalists routinely claim they are acting in the public interest, they are rarely able to define it. Sendziuk (2010) argues that Sharleen’s treatment by the authorities was the ‘unfortunate exception’ to Australia’s policy of safeguarding civil liberties as the most effective way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. This research asks how journalists and politicians framed notions of the public interest in Sharleen’s case, and what the consequences were for her and for public debate about HIV/AIDS. Research contribution: The research shows how, according to Arrow discussing our documentary in the journal History Australia “the media’s construction of Sharleen as deviant, dangerous, and deserving of her fate shaped public and political responses to AIDS” (Arrow 2010). It suggests that journalists need to conceive of the public interest in ways that are more nuanced, more reflective, and more responsible. Research significance: The documentary was broadcast on Hindsight, ABC Radio National. It received a Gold Radio Award at the 2011 New York Festivals, and was a finalist in the John Curtin Award for Journalism, 2010.	en_US

Abstract:

Sharleen Spiteri was a sex worker, a drug user, and she was HIV+. In July 1989, Sharleen Spiteri appeared on the national current affairs TV program 60 Minutes and told reporter Jeff McMullen that she tried to get her clients to practice safe sex, but sometimes they wouldn't cooperate. As a result, the NSW government took Sharleen from her flat under police guard, and forcibly detained her in a locked AIDS ward, a mental hospital and a disused nursesâ home. After she was released from detention, Sharleen spent much of the remaining 16 years of her life under 24-hour supervision by health workers. She became the most expensive public patient in NSW history. This program uses the techniques of investigative journalism, including exclusive original interviews with politicians, bureaucrats, health workers, carers, sex workers, nuns and journalists, as well as extensive archival research and material obtained through FOI to uncover the background to Sharleenâs story. It raises important issues about the relationship between the media and public policy, and the clash between individual civil liberties and governmentâs responsibility to protect public interest. Co-producer/author Tom Morton author delivered a paper based on the documentary at Back to the Source, the national Investigative Journalism Conference held at UTS on September 17th-18th 2011. Paper was published in Pacific Journalism Review in 2012. Awards/Competitions/Festivals 2010 Gold Radio Award, New York Festivals: http://www.newyorkfestivals.com/main.php?p=3,1&wp=info&id=405202 Finalist, John Curtin Award for Journalism, Victorian Premierâs Literary Awards, 2010

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/17519