In Press Freedom Challenge, Media Bares New Fangs

Michael Hedges October 23, 2019 - Follow on Twitter

Threats to media freedom are, commonly viewed, the misfortune of countries ruled by autocrats and tyrants. Glancing through the widely quoted indexes, those at the bottom or nearing it are terrible places. Some have been at the nethermost forever. Others just sink, like the frog in boiling water. Speaking out, literally and figuratively, is difficult.

Australian news organizations kicked off an attention-getting campaign this week to raise awareness for media freedom issues. That would be all Australian news outlets: publishers and broadcasters. Broadcasters began during Sunday night prime-time with announcements and features about media freedom. Newspaper front pages on Monday (October 21) were “redacted” - black marker lines striking out all text. Online news portals also went dark. Media watchers called the protest “unprecedented.”

This has been coming for months and years. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided raided offices of the public broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the home of News Corp political reporter Annika Smethurst in June, looking to uncover sources and whistleblowers for reports embarrassing to political leaders. Journalists involved still face prosecution. The story made headlines for a day or so but, as we say, the pot was getting warmer.

Successive Australian conservative governments have rewarded private sector media proprietors with deregulation, allowing further consolidation, and reducing the ABC’s operating budgets and footprint. At every opportunity, it seems, government officials remind those in the media sector how the relationship works. After the June raids Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke warmly of press freedom while reminding one and all that “no one is above the law.” The raids, he said, were “the independent actions of an agency doing its job to protect national security.” Others have called for journalists and whistleblowers to be arrested, one referring to them as “spies.”

The Right To Know campaign was born in that aftermath. Several outlets published an open letter titled: “Journalism is not a crime.” They are asking for reform of defamation laws, the Secrecy Act - specifically exemptions for journalists from some national security laws - and freedom of information disclosure laws. Also on their list are protections for whistleblowers and the right to contest search warrants.

The tipping point in their campaign came from an unexpected partner. “The involvement of News Corp, with its command of two-thirds of Australia’s daily newspaper circulation and its proven political clout, has given powerful impetus to the campaign,” wrote University of Melbourne research fellow Denis Muller in The Conversation (October 23). “Whether it would have joined in had not one of its own journalists been raided is a matter on which (AFP commissioner Reese) Kershaw might care to reflect as he conducts his promised review of how the AFP handles these matters.”

When asked at a parliamentary hearing about the timing of the Right To Know campaign’s debut, after the AFP raids rather than during public debates over the legislation, ABC news director Gaven Morris pointed to news cycles and public disinterest. "I hope that what we do in this building is think about how laws work and apply them, regardless of whether that's sensational enough to make the top of the news or the front pages. That's kind of your job, not our job."

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