Australian media are not as accountable as a democracy might expect.
That’s the view of the Australian government’s Independent Inquiry into Media and Media Regulations, conducted by a retired judge, Ray Finkelstein.
Australia has a very narrow mainstream media ownership by democratic standards. One foreign media group dominates the newspapers, while the taxpayer funded ABC generates the bulk of electronic media news and current affairs.
Finkelstein as seen by the Sydney Morning Herald
As the Libyan civil war hotted up, reporters crossed the border into danger, to get the story.
When they did so, Shaun Filer was there to try to keep them safe.
Some journalists believed that if you got one step closer to the fighting, the more chance you had of getting the big story, Filer said. “In many cases it was the photo journalists… who needed to get really close to get that image,” he said. “It’s not like text [reporting] or doing a piece to camera, the photo journalists needed to go forward”. While Filer was in Libya, a photo journalist was shot near the front lines. More…
ABC 24 Hour News has embraced a grab bag of right wing activists as its “independent” commentators drawn from rightist organisations promoted by John Howard. More…
