Press Council chair vows to fight for press freedom and disclosure standards for native ads
The chair of the Australian Press Council David Weisbrot has pledged to fight for press freedom and create a new model for defamation laws to help protect freedom of speech in Australia following the passage of recent terrorism Bills through Parliament.
Speaking to an audience at the Melbourne Press Club today, Weisbrot, who has headed the APC since March, said “times have changed” and the APC’s role “in advancing freedom of the press” cannot be “largely restricted to its complaints-handling function”.
“Freedom of speech and freedom of the press may have a strong cultural hold in Australia, but they rest on flimsy legal foundations,” Weisbrot said, in an address in which he also outlined plans for disclosure requirements around native content.
“Unfortunately, the traditionally fine balance has been tipping steadily against freedom in recent times. We’ve had 40 ‘anti-terrorism’ laws passed, often with insufficient Parliamentary scrutiny of the potential effects on free speech and press freedom.”
The Press Council is already overwhelmed trying to process complaints with such limited resources and funding. They barely manage. How on earth are they going to take on all this other stuff? It just sounds more and more to me like the Murdoch editors have got their way and have now removed the gums of the toothless tiger Press Council. It may have been weak, but it was the only mechanism the public could use to attempt to hold the unregulated press to account.