When the muzzles come out, we have to keep barking
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Your right to know: Two weeks ago, I received a letter from my union-appointed lawyers who informed me Lyndoch Living has been monitoring my two Facebook pages, one being my private page and one being this page.
They attached a number of screenshots provided by Melbourne lawyers K&L Gates on behalf of Lyndoch, showing comments by followers and readers of The Terrier.
Those commenting were Warrnambool people expressing their opinion on how every membership application lodged with Lyndoch Living had been rejected.
These comments related to stories I had published on February 16 and 23.
My lawyers also attached a number of quotes from those stories that were highlighted by K&L Gates on behalf of their client.
The recommendation in response to this legal letter from K&L Gates was that I remove the articles and the comments in the screenshots.
The past two weeks has been a time of enormous worry for so many of us because of a resurgence of Covid-19.
It has been so challenging for our aged care homes and their fabulous staff, including those working so hard on the ground at Lyndoch Living.
What I have also found enormously worrying these past two weeks, however, is the rapid erosion of our right to know. Our right to have a say. Of our right to speak up when we see our public institutions being hijacked by vested interests.
Lyndoch Living belongs to us. The Warrnambool City Council is answerable to us. We must never forget this.
And right now, while we are fighting a pandemic, we are being forced to also fight for our democratic rights which are being pulled out from under us one bit at a time.
Secrecy and silence is becoming the new normal.
I’ll be honest, legal letters scare the shite out of me, but I became a journalist for a reason and I am not going to be scared into silence, and, I hope, neither are you.
So we will keep going. We have to, and I want to thank every single one of you who is helping me to make that happen.
If you would like to support the Terrier, you can throw something in the tip jar below.
Attack dog: when Lyndoch sent its lawyers after The Terrier
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
A lot of people have asked me lately whether I was sued for defamation by Lyndoch Living CEO Doreen Power and if it all ended up in court.
The answers are: yes and no. Let me explain.
After I wrote a series of four stories late last year about my concerns around Lyndoch, its direction, and its leadership, I received a letter from Melbourne law firm K&L Gates, who represent Lyndoch Living.
(The Gates part, by the way, relates to the firm’s founder, the father of US billionaire Bill Gates, so this was not some tin pot law joint with broken blinds and wonky lampshades, but a downtown Collins St law firm with city views and a serious letterhead.)
K&L Gates wrote that they were acting on behalf of the Lyndoch CEO who was:
“disturbed by a series of recent articles, written and published by you on (The Terrier), attacking our client’s reputation and character”.
Gulp.
Naturally, I felt slightly sick, but only slightly, because in 30 years’ of working as a journalist in search of the ever-elusive truth, I have received one or two of these letters before. The scary bit was that I now work alone.
The letter then set out the CEO’s particular grievances – or imputations.
That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client bullies and intimidates staff and other third parties;
That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client manipulates staff by psychological means into doubting their own sanity;
That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client unfairly favours some people over others;
That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client has caused a detrimental impact on the care of Lyndoch’s residents;
That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client lacks transparency and endorses secrecy;
That in carrying out leadership roles as CEO of Seymour and Plenty Valley Community Health, our client destroyed the culture and workplace environment of those places, and caused irreparable physical and/or psychological harm to their staff;
That our client is a disinterested CEO who does not care about her staff or the residents of Lyndoch; and;
That our client is unfit to be the CEO of Lyndoch or of any other organisation.
Defamation law is an important law and one that I take extremely seriously.
It is there to protect all of us from malicious untruths, but it can also be used by powerful people to “chill” journalists from investigating or writing about issues of public interest.
Back in the days when journalists worked in robust newsrooms with bottomless budgets, such legal battles could be fought with vigour.
Those days are almost gone.
The unofficial legal team for The Terrier: Bon the Beagle, George the German Shepherd and Cindy the Crazy Kelpie.
Now, like many journos out on their own, I have no newsroom and no budget for legal battles, and I rely entirely on insurance via my union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
Like all journos, I also rely on thorough research and credible sources to get things right in the first place, but it is one thing to argue a fact like, “you have no money” compared to “why do you have no money?”
WHY is the very guts of investigative journalism, but it is time-consuming, expensive, and it attracts law suits. Many newsrooms have given up on it, but it is what I do.
So I got my legal letter, paid for by Lyndoch, which confirmed that the aged care home which once looked after my own Mum was now threatening to sue me.
This was serious and it’s precisely why I waited until my Mum passed away last April before I started to write this current series of stories: as feisty as Mum was, she would have been worried sick.
Over the holiday period K&L Gates talked to my lawyers and vice versa. Letters were exchanged.
And in the end, my insurers decided not to fight the imputations, because who knows if I would win or lose in trying to prove the “why?”
I agreed to pull the stories from the website and remove them from Facebook and I cannot publish them again. I also agreed to pay costs.
All of this cost me $2000 in an insurance excess, but, because of you wonderful beings, it actually cost me $200, because Foxy the Fighting Fund kicked in and helped me to cover that excess.
Did it go to court? No.
Did The Terrier win or lose? I will leave that up to you to decide.
Is it important that we keep going? More than ever.
Defamation can be designed to “chill”, and frighten journalists into tightening their buttocks, but you know what? I am being cautious, but also reaching for an extra coat.
If you are reading this and would like to support The Terrier, please throw something in the tip jar below.
