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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, print, television and online media with publishing, business and communications technology.

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.  As a sign of his commitment to community broadcasting he oversaw for five years the production on Channel 31 of a nightly news bulletin with journalism students as reporters and presenters.  In 1994 he set up his own media company, which he led to the forefront of electronic publishing in Australia.

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, more than 10 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 shifted his focus to scholarly research.  He has been working to bring his knowledge and experience of investigative techniques and political analysis to a number of articles and conference presentations for publication in international books and journals (see below).

Philip is also conducting major research on the opportunities and threats involved in the implementation of climate change policy in coal mining regions of Australia.

Research Interests

Philip's areas of expertise include:

  • Australian labour history
  • Australian Labor Party history
  • Environmental journalism
  • Environmental politics
  • Online journalism
  • Public sector broadcasting

Keywords

Media, journalism, journalist, television, news, current affairs, multimedia, community, editor, industry expertise, documentary, Judging the World, One Destiny!, Labor in Power, TV, environment, global warming, online, newspapers, coal, Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban, climate change, weather, bushfires.

Current Research Projects

  • Media reporting of the link between climate change and extreme weather events, particularly those that created the conditions for the Victorian bushfires of early 2009 and the floods of 2010-11.
  • The media and climate change sceptics: whether the reporting of climate change calls into question traditional notions of journalistic ethics, particularly concepts of balance.
  • The coal industry and the Labor Party: how relations between the ALP, the coal industry and coal mining communities have developed in response to the emergence of climate change as an issue. Specifically, the project addresses these questions:
    • How are historical and contemporary relations between key coal industry interests and the ALP influencing the party’s capacity to adapt to the challenges of climate change?
    • How are communities that traditionally rely on coal for their economic wellbeing and social cohesion adapting to the prospect of a future without coal?
  • International comparative studies of the reporting in newspapers, television and blogs of the climate change summits in Copenhagen in December 2009 and Cancun in December 2010.

Teaching

Philip received a Dean's commendation in 2010 for his teaching of Environmental Journalism, 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. The 2011 students went one step further and the unit was evaluated as such a success that it was placed in the top three per cent university-wide.

Publications

Books

  • Sturgess, G. & Chubb, P. 1988 Judging the World: Law and Politics in the World's Leading Courts, Butterworths Sydney
  • Russell, R. & Chubb, P. 1998 One Destiny!: The Federation Story, How Australia Became a Nation, Penguin Ringwood

Book Chapters

  • Chubb, P., Shadow to Reality:  Forming the Labor Cabinet in Costar, B & Hughes, C, (eds) Labor to Office Drummond 1983
  • Chubb, P. and  Bacon, W., Fiery politics and extreme events, in Eide, E., Kunelius, R. & Kumpu, V., (eds) Global Climate -- Local Journalisms, Global Journalism Research Series, Vol. 3, projectverlag, 2010

Refereed Journal Articles

  • 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 Sprott, P.  "The Media and Bushfire Arson" in Stanley, J. and Kestin, T., eds. (2010) Advancing Bushfire Arson Prevention in Australia:  Report from a national symposium, 25-26 March 2010, MSI Report 10/3, Monash Sustainability Institute, Melbourne, Australia.

Works in Progress

"Fighting Over Fires: Climate Change and the Victorian Bushfires of 2009".  With Chris Nash and William Birnbauer.  Article manuscript under review.

"Making a Monckton Out of the National Broadcaster: Representations of Climate Change on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation."  With Chris Nash.  Article manuscript under review.

Film, 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

Media

  • Chubb, P.  "Earth and Fire: The Struggle for Australia" Time Australia November 28 1988 Melbourne
  • Chubb, P.  “By Which We Live” Time Australia May 16 1988

Professional Memberships

Journalism Education Association of Australia