Australia needs a Media Freedom Act. Here’s how it could work
A Media Freedom Act could serve three key roles, making it an appropriate and advantageous option in the protection of national security, press freedom and democracy, explains Rebecca Ananian-Welsh in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Australians picked up their morning papers on Monday to find heavily blacked-out text instead of front-page headlines. This bold statement was instigated by the “Your Right to Know” campaign, an unlikely coalition of Australian media organisations fighting for press freedom and source protection.
A key reform advocated by a range of organisations and experts – including our research team at the University of Queensland – is the introduction of a Media Freedom Act. Unlike human rights or anti-discrimination legislation, there is no clear precedent for such an act.
So what exactly might a Media Freedom Act look like and is it a good idea?
Raids and response
It was the June raids on the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC’s Sydney headquarters that revealed the fragile state of press freedom in Australia. Two parliamentary inquiries into press freedom are on foot, with public hearings before the Senate committee starting last Friday.
This is a topic that really needs a lot more discussion. The present legal framework is clearly broken. Reform will need a lot of support from politicians to have any chance.
Australia also has some of the most heavily concentrated mass media ownership in the world. That concentration of ownership has played a part in how we have ended up with such a broken set of media laws.
Can I just point out again…. the blatant disregard for human life that is the media’s treatment of Julian Assange the journalist who reveals governments secrets the public have a right to know.
What am i missing here? this is hypocrisy.