Giving Voice, One Word at a Time

Elizabeth Flaherty, editor of scone.com.au. Photographer: Katrina Partridge.

WHEN I was interviewing Bones last week for the story Bad Policy, No Bones About It, I was humbled by his persistence to be heard.

The expressions and body language of Bones certainly convey the tone of what he has to say clearly, but he has to use a keyboard and types with one finger, to tap out each word he wants understood.

He had a complaint about a train policy for people with disabilities.

He was frustrated and annoyed that the train staff did not understand him when he tried to board the train and he was frustrated and annoyed that the Transport Committee, where he was able to voice some of these issues, was disbanded last year.

So to tell me his story, he patiently typed one letter at a time.

As he typed, I thought about many people I’ve known who have felt a sense of injustice but decided not to carry through with an official complaint because the bureaucracy is just too difficult.

For Bones, it was much more difficult to make a complaint or be heard.

Yet he had a persistence born of a strong sense of justice and an insistence on equality that drove him to continue.

As a journalist our role is to report on issues in our community and to do that in such a way that different perspectives are presented, then leave it for the reader to decide their position.

Often the role of a journalist is also to hold the government and corporations to account and ask the questions readers want to know.

I always find it very telling when people don’t want to answer a question, prefer to respond with ‘no comment’, assert it is none of anyone else’s business or become hostile, it speaks volumes.

As the famous Dr Phil says, “people who have nothing to hide, hide nothing”.

Mark “Bones” Curtis at Scone train station

But as I watched Bones, type determinedly one letter at a time, I also thought of a friend who works for a major media outlet in Sydney and was originally a country girl.

When she heard I had launched scone.com.au she wrote that she was glad I was there to give voice to Scone.

At the time it sounded a bit grandiose and I preferred to just think of it as reporting, but as I watched Bones determinedly type one letter at a time to tell his story, I realised she was right and I was humbly reminded of just how important that can be.

Elizabeth Flaherty

Editor
scone.com.au