There’s been little to no news coverage of the new laws that will allow more foreign and cross ownership in the Australian media landscape.
Crikey reported on a poll of 374 journalists that showed “more than 80% believe the federal government’s proposed new media laws will have a negative impact on the integrity of reporting and 85% say the reforms will reduce diversity”. Other views:
- 53% of the journalists surveyed say they are unable to be critical of the media organisation they work for.
- 38% say they have been instructed to comply with the commercial position of their owner.
- 32% say they feel obliged to take into account the political views of their proprietor when writing stories.
- 63% say Australian media companies have “too much influence” in deciding how Australians vote.
- 71% say media owners have too much influence in determining the political agenda.
So with such a high percentage of journalists opposing it, why doesn’t the issue rate in the news media? Because powerful news organisations don’t want public opinion about the further concentration of their power to be viewed negatively. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. The media is where each and every one of us get our information. They control debate by telling us what is news, and when it is news.
So what can we do about it? Apparently nothing. You can’t mobilise the news machine to inform, if that’s exactly what it doesn’t want to do. So you need to go elsewhere to find the debate.
Subscribe to Crikey for some dissenting views, or at least visit their site and read the stuff you don’t have to pay for.
2 comments ↓
Wow. According to what you said, Israel seems like a free-press heaven. People here claim the media should be restrained in war because it keeps its critical approach to the government and the army, like before the war.
And it should keep its critical approach, no matter what the situation. Anyway, repressive media restiricion in say China or Zimbabwe are easy to identify. Repressive media restrictions in free and open societies are much more dangerous because you don’t notice them. At least, that’s what the conspiracy theories in my Mass Media and Society course are teaching me this semester.
It’s depressing.
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