If the chair of the newspaper self-regulator can’t get effective redress, what hope is there for the less powerful in society?
- Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne
In all the politicking and government attacks on the ABC for giving a platform to former terror suspect Zaky Mallah, the free speech debate has become confused.
After a High Court win over Today FM, ACMA is likely to be able to deal more swiftly with this kind of case – and with less risk of incurring large legal bills.
The attacks on Gillian Triggs are the latest in a series of campaigns The Australian has waged against those in public life with whom it disagrees or against whom it has a grievance.
Julian Disney, the outgoing chair of the Australian Press Council, made a singularly powerful argument in his valedictory speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday: that freedom of the press is strengthened…
AUST gets wake-call with Sydney terror. Only Daily Telegraph caught the bloody outcome at 2.00 am. Congrats.— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) December 15, 2014 In one brutally insensitive tweet, Rupert…
In the recent ABC funding debate, many have questioned what the public broadcaster is for. What should its role be in Australia’s contemporary media landscape? Some argue that the ABC is a market-failure…
The journey of whistleblower website WikiLeaks was traced by, among others, Professor Gerard Goggin, chair of the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. In an analytical narrative…
Due to Australia’s small population and high concentration of few media voices, public broadcasters play a pivotal role in shaping the media ecosystem and cultural landscape. With the ABC and SBS under…
The Sydney Daily Telegraph’s reaction to an Australian Press Council ruling that it breached the council’s “fairness and balance” principle raises concerns about the council’s relationship with the big…
The ABC’s handling of allegations that Australian Navy personnel deliberately injured asylum seekers has become nastily entangled with an array of complex issues. These include: the politics of ABC bias…
Since 1803, when its first newspaper was published, Australia’s media have been owned largely by private enterprise. Except for the Government Gazette, which was confined to publishing official government…
Were The Guardian Australia and the ABC ethically justified in publishing leaked classified material showing Australia tapped the telephones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife…
It is remarkable how complacent Australia’s media has been in response to the federal government’s brazenly cynical suppression of information about asylum seeker boat arrivals. There were a few indignant…
The best lines in investigative journalist Paul Barry’s new book - Breaking News: Sex, Lies & the Murdoch Succession - are supplied by Lord Conrad Black of Crossharbour, that connoisseur of corporate…
How does a newspaper of strong ideological preferences - such as News Corp broadsheet The Australian - respond when there is a government in office that more closely shares its ideology than did the previous…
Such an irony: the commercial television channels, which ran a landmark free-speech case in the High Court to protect their advertising revenue during election campaigns, have now censored an advertisement…
Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott have met in a “town hall” style leaders’ debate at the Broncos Leagues Club in Brisbane. Abbott and Rudd took questions from an audience of 100 undecided voters on issues from…
Poor old Kim Williams. It was like putting celebrity chef Gabriel Gaté in charge of the abattoir. Red in tooth and claw is the News Corp style, especially during election campaigns, and now in the midst…
Seventeen minutes they gave it on Channel Seven’s evening news. A one-fact story: the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have given birth to a boy (later named George), who will be third in line to the British…
An integral power of the media is that of portrayal: the act of determining how people, events, ideas and organisations are described to the public, and therefore how they are perceived by the public…
The Australian media industry is united in its opposition to some key provisions of the federal government’s new whistleblower legislation - now before parliament - and is pushing for some significant…
The protection of confidential sources is an ethical and legal minefield for journalists in Australia, despite the introduction over the past two years of so-called journalists’ privilege in several jurisdictions…
To get an idea of how big an opportunity the federal government missed with its shambolic attempt at media reform, consider this: the last federal minister to achieve any substantive reform of media self-regulation…
One of the key factors in Ted Baillieu’s losing the support of his parliamentary colleagues on Wednesday night was that he failed to manage the media effectively. Did he? To find the answers, it is necessary…
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