The fact that Communications Minister Mitch Fifield has got a package of changes to Australia’s media laws this far is remarkable considering the ill-fated recent history of attempts at media reform.
Indonesian media moguls have argued that the internet means cross-media ownership laws that prevent common ownership of radio, television and newspapers are obsolete.
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Indonesia’s media landscape may be a model which Australia is emulating as it looks to change media ownership laws. There are positives to this, but also causes for concern.
Mitch Fifield has recognised that Australia’s system of media regulation is outdated.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The Save Our Voices campaign argues that existing media rules are “squeezing the life out of our regional TV networks”. But the real story is more complex. Reform is necessary, but so too is local content.
The entry into the market of new media and new players hasn’t altered the value of local content for people in regional and rural Australia.
Wikipedia/Bidgee
Some of the bush tales about regional news that are circulating in the ongoing debate about media reform need to be debunked.
While Microsoft, Google and Apple have had to answer questions in Canberra about whether they meet their tax obligations, their media activities seemingly defy regulation.
AAP/Nikki Short
Current regulations are a complete mismatch for today’s media practices and structures. While politicians shy from the debate, it’s time to heed public opinion and revisit the Finkelstein Report.
Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull has floated the idea of reforming media laws, but Australia media terrain has changed.
AAP/Penny Bradfield
In the latest episode in the long-running saga that is the phone hacking affair, Dan Evans, a former journalist at the News of the World and Sunday Mirror, has received a 10 month suspended sentence after…
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is developing proposals for changing the rules governing Australia’s media.
AAP/Gary Schafer
Major media players continue to dominate online news, current affairs and analysis, despite a proliferation of online news content sources, a government report has found. The internet has given established…
Australia’s established media groups have used the internet to extend their domination of news.
AAP/Dean Lewins
That media ownership rules have been progressively relaxed in many democracies is certainly not news. But that Australia, with one of the most concentrated media markets in the world, is thinking of further…
On the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday, discussion turned to media reform, and the panellists were in remarkable consensus. The consensus seemed to be that reform was long overdue: a sense that it is time for…
How will new communications minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition approach the vexed issue of media reform?
AAP/Alan Porritt
The media has wasted little time reminding the Coalition government that its rigorous scrutiny of the former Labor government was par for the course. Journalists are snapping at the Coalition’s heels on…
Media organisations should push for media rights and freedoms on a more regular basis, not only when they’re under threat.
AAP/Lukas Coch
It is just a week since the Gillard government withdrew the four media reform bills for which it could not garner the necessary support from the crossbench MPs. The proposal that concerned me most as a…
After Conroy’s media reforms failed to find any standing, where does media regulation go from here?
AAP/Alan Porritt
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…
Stephen Conroy’s approach threatens Australia’s standing as a free, Western democracy.
AAP/Lukas Coch
It’s a great shame when political and commercial vested interests drown out compelling and principled arguments for free expression in this Australian media reform debate. First, I declare my own interest…
Two companies control 88% of Australia’s print media assets.
AAP/April Fonti
Australian media, and in particular the print media, stands out internationally among advanced democracies for its extreme concentration. Three owners – News Limited, Fairfax Media and APN News and Media…
The Courier Mail never retracted a story alleging Manning Clark was a spy, even though the Press Council ruled against them.
AAP/Dave Hunt
It is a matter of public record in Australia that my grandfather was a communist spy. That he wasn’t really one doesn’t always matter. Manning Clark, famous Australian historian and my father’s father…
Former News International executive Rebekah Brooks leaves the Old Bailey after appearing on charges of conspiring to bribe public officials. It was revelations about journalistic practises at News that inspired inquiries in Australia and the UK.
EPA/Andy Rain
There are at least two points of convergence in this week’s parliamentary deliberations on media freedom in Australia and the UK. Both are driven by reports – Finkelstein and Leveson respectively – responding…
Media bosses such as News Limited’s Kim Williams have been ferocious in their attacks on proposed media reform.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Anyone who has picked up the country’s biggest newspapers in the past week (and that of course includes the nation’s poll-fearing political powerbrokers) would naturally think communication minister Stephen…