Associate Professor Philip Chubb

Deputy Head, School of Journalism, Australian and Indigenous Studies

View contact details in Monash Staff Directory

Biography

Philip's career combines leadership positions in the academy, media and business.

Prior to joining Monash in 2008, his industry roles included Melbourne Editor of the National Times, leader writer at The Age and deputy editor of Time Australia; in television he was Executive Producer of The 7.30 Report (Victoria) and National Editor of The 7.30 Report. Philip's work as a reporter included time on The Age's investigative reporting, feature writing and political teams. He was national and Asia Pacific correspondent for Time Australia, where he reported extensively from Canberra and also covered the stories of hope and despair in the emerging nations and economies of Australia's neighbours, including the ethnic tensions and violence in places as diverse as Malaysia and New Caledonia.

Philip also co-authored two books, Judging the World and One Destiny! and while both won significant scholarly respect, the former achieved the unusual distinction of being quoted approvingly in a judgment of the International Court of Justice. The widespread praise for Judging the World, which was about law, politics and human rights, centred on what critics saw as its originality and the wide sweep of its journalism. More than 50 judges from 17 superior courts around the world were interviewed as part of the research process. Former Governor-General and High Court Justice Sir Ninian Stephen declared: "What a world it would be if all journalism reached these heights."

Philip also co-authored One Destiny!, which was part of a major, multi-faceted publishing project that is still going on today, nearly 15 years later. The overall purpose of the project was to explain and improve the popular understanding of the politics of Australian federation. The first stage was the creation of an encyclopedic CD-ROM on the subject of Australian nationhood, which was launched by then Governor-General Sir William Deane at Old Parliament House. Philip led the multimedia production team that developed the project for more than two years. The Federal Government bought 25,000 copies to send to all schools in the country and more recently commissioned Philip to move the CD-ROM content online.

Philip won Australian journalism's top award, the Gold Walkley, for a series of five, one-hour TV documentaries on the Hawke and Keating governments called Labor in Power, which is still frequently repeated on TV and is regarded by many critics as a tour de force, the best documentary of its type to be made in Australia.

Philip has won numerous awards as a journalist. These have included a Logie (best TV documentary), a Gold Walkley (best journalism), a Walkley (best application of journalism to the television medium), the Gold UN Media Peace Prize, the Golden Gavel award of the NSW Law Society, four national community television awards, including for best program, and numerous awards for multimedia and web design.

Philip is also a past-president of the Australian Journalists' Association (now MEAA) and is an AJA Gold Honour Badge holder.

Since joining Monash, Philip has expanded his focus to scholarly research. His work has included:

Publications. He has written widely in a scholarly journals and books. His work has specifically involved analyses of the ways various Australian media outlets have covered climate change and associated debates.
Popular media. Philip has been featured speaking on media and climate change. Outlets have included the ABC's Big Ideas program, where he was on a panel, and print publications.
Scholarly conferences. He has delivered papers at many national and international conferences studying media and climate change, including conferences in Perth, Aarhus (Denmark), Berlin, Hamburg, Bergen, Cape Town, Hobart, Sydney and others.
International collaborations. He has been the Monash coordinator of a world-first consortium of European and Australian universities collaborating to teach environmental reporting and promote staff and student mobility. The project is called the Global Environmental Journalism Initiative (GEJI) and Monash’s partner universities overseas have been in the UK, Denmark, Finland and Greece.
He has been the Australian representative on MediaClimate – which is a forum for scholarly analysis of media and climate change. It involves scholars from fifteen countries and is funded by the Norwegian and Finnish governments to document and analyse national news coverage from countries around UN Climate Change Summits. The project has published one book with another to come in early 2012.
He has run workshops for journalists from nine Asian and Pacific countries on climate change coverage and constraints operating in their own countries.
Teaching collaborations. He has provided input into English language courses on the development of Australian environmentalism and media and climate change at universities in Denmark and Finland. He has also devised and managed online debates between students in Australian and Scandinavia on the subject: media coverage of climate change science is biased. More than 200 students have participated in these debates over two years.
Curriculum Development. He has devised and taught a unit called Environmental Journalism at Monash University since semester 1 2009, which is centred around the reporting of and writing about climate change. He also assists students with opportunities for financially-supported student exchanges with partner universities (UK, Denmark, Finland and Greece).

Research Interests

Philip's areas of expertise include:

Environmental journalism
Environmental politics
Online journalism
Public sector broadcasting

Current Research Projects

Media reporting of climate change science and efforts at mitigation.
Social change and the development of climate change policy in coal mining regions.
International comparative studies of the reporting in newspapers, television and blogs of the climate change summits in Copenhagen in December 2009, Cancun in December 2010 and Durban in December 2011.

Teaching

Philip received a Dean's commendation in 2010 for his teaching of Environmental Journalism (ATS3807), which is a popular third year unit that provides students with the knowledge and skills to write on climate change at the local and global level. Students in 2010 and 2011 evaluated the unit in the top three per cent university-wide. Philip's 2011 students in Political Journalism (ATS3809) evaluated that unit similarly.

ATS3807 Environmental Reporting
ATS3809 Political Reporting

Publications

Books

Sturgess, G & Chubb, P (1988) Judging the World: Law and Politics in the World’s Leading Courts, Butterworths Sydney.
This was cited many times, quoted approvingly in a judgment of the International Court of Justice and praised by an Australian High Court Justice and Governor-General (Stephen).
Russell, R & Chubb, P (1998) One Destiny! the federation story, how Australia became a nation, Penguin Ringwood.
This was a large cross platform publishing venture involving book, multimedia and online projects and was strongly praised when launched by another Australian High Court Justice and Governor-General (Deane).

Scholarly Book Chapters (recent)

Chubb P and Bacon W (2010) Fiery politics and extreme events. In: Eide E, Kunelius R and Kumpu V (eds) Global Climate -- Local Journalisms, Projektverlag, Bochum/ Freiburg.
This was about media representations of climate change conferences, in association with scholars from 18 other countries.
Chubb P (2012) ’Really, fundamentally wrong’: Media coverage of the business campaign against the Australian carbon tax. In: Eide E and Kunelius RMedia Meets Climate. Gothenburg: Nordicom. Forthcoming.
This was about the media representations of the business response to the carbon tax proposals of Feb-July 2011.
Chubb P and Mitchell M (2012) Carbon tax conflict: the roles of mainstream and social media. In Cottle S et al (eds) Environmental Conflict and the Media. New York: Peter Lang. Forthcoming.
This was about how the media froze out supporters of the carbon tax in Australia in 2011 and how those thus treated turned to social media to have their position heard.

Refereed Journal Articles (recent)

Horgan D, Chubb P and Page M (2009) Suicide Prevention by Voluntary Private Medicine and Business. Consulting, Psychotherapy and Health, 5 (1), The Use of Technology in Mental Health Special Issue, 82-95.
Chubb P and Nash C (2012) Representations of Climate Change at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Media International Australia. Forthcoming.
This was about the way the ABC covered the tour in 2010 of UK climate change denier Christopher Monkton, compared with how it covered the contemporaneous tour of a major US supporter of climate change science.

Published Conference Article

Chubb, P and Sprott P (2010) The Media and Bushfire Arson. In Advancing Bushfire Arson Prevention in Australia: Report from a national symposium, 25-26 March (edsStanley J and Kestin T) Melbourne, Australia, MSI Report 10/3, Monash Sustainability Institute.
This looked at the causes of the Black Saturday fires and the explosive combination of arson and climate change.

Works in Progress

Chubb, P, Nash, C and Birnbauer B Fighting over Fires: Media representations of the Victorian bushfires of February 2009, Article manuscript under review, Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism.
This looked at how the Australian newspaper represented the debate about whether climate change or inadequate fuel reduction was the main cause of the intensity of the Black Saturday fires.

Television Documentaries

Labor in Power. ABC, Sydney, June-July 1993.

Conferences

“Rupert Murdoch and Climate Change: Reporting the Victorian Bushfires in The Australian Newspaper January-September 2009”, delivered at Responsibility Across Borders: Climate Change as Challenge for Intercultural Inquiry on Values 3-6 November 2009, Aarhus University Denmark.
“Reporters or Missionaries: Changing Roles of Journalists and Changing Approach of News Media”, delivered at Responsibility Across Borders: Climate Change as Challenge for Intercultural Inquiry on Values 3-6 November 2009, Aarhus University Denmark.
“Fighting About Fires: Reporting of the Victorian Bushfires”, delivered at Journalism Education in the Digital Age: Sharing Strategies and Experiences 2-4 December 2009, Perth, Australia.
“Global Environmental Journalism Initiative: Reporting the Environment Across Borders”, delivered at Journalism Education in the Digital Age: Sharing Strategies and Experiences 2-4 December 2009, Perth, Australia.
“Reporting Climate Change: Balance Creating Bias” Australian Science Communicators National Conference, 7-10 February 2010, ANU Canberra
“Making a Monckton Out Of the National Broadcaster: Representations of Climate Change on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation" Communicating Climate Change II -- Global Goes Regional, Pre-conference to the ECREA 2010 Conference,11-12 October 2010, Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies, Hamburg University.
“GEJI – The Global Environmental Journalism Initiative” EU Project Directors Conference, Berlin 13-15 October 2010.
“Fiery politics and extreme events” Global Climate – Local Journalisms, Bergen, 18-21 November 2010.
“Carbon tax conflict: the roles of mainstream and social media” Environmental Politics and Conflict in an Age of Digital Media, Hobart 17-18 November 2011.
“Covering climate change in the Asia-Pacific region”, Environmental Politics and Conflict in an Age of Digital Media, Hobart 17-18 November 2011.
“Really fundamentally wrong”, Media Meets Climate, Cape Town, 27 November - 1 December 2011.

Community

Member Advisory Council Museum of Australian Democracy