WORLD NEWS | One Goliath injured but challenges remain

MELBOURNE, May 1 (360info) A smaller voice has cracked down on free speech in one of the world’s most tightly controlled media industries.

World Press Freedom Day is often marked by stories of desperation — the growing suppression of voices, media outlets being shut down, journalists locked up and journalists killed. But there have been some dawns this year, particularly in Australia, where a lack of diversity in media ownership has been a long-standing problem.

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While many independent media outlets around the world have faced persecution from the authorities, in Australia small independent publisher Crikey has taken a stand against a larger media conglomerate, Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp. Corp.) defamation suit.

Crikey says it follows a deceptively simple, well-worn idea of ​​”tell the truth and shame the devil”, which Rupert’s son Lachlan Murdoch dared to challenge after naming the Murdoch family as unindicted co-conspirators. File a defamation suit. The conspirators of the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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The news site was going strong in the days leading up to Lachlan Murdoch’s departure, just days after his US television network Fox News was charged with falsehoods about the 2020 US election. statement and was forced to settle a U.S. defamation lawsuit.

Will Hayward, Crikey’s CEO and chairman, was ecstatic: “We are proud of where we stand. We are proud of exposing the hypocrisy and abuse of power by media billionaires. This is a victory for free speech. We win gone.”

The cost of failure may well have silenced another independent voice.

In a country where Murdoch’s media is so powerful, two former prime ministers from across the political spectrum have called for a royal commission into Rupert Murdoch’s Australian media empire, which is a big celebration.

Crikey’s campaign won many friends and massive GoFundMe donations for his legal fight, and more support for a growing hate campaign against News Corp publications, which led to anti-Murdoch posters and stickers in Australia Sell ​​and display everywhere.

This isn’t the only good news in the Australian media. Government-mandated media negotiation guidelines have resulted in 30 agreements between digital platforms (Google and Meta) and various parts of Australian news businesses.

While the code has been praised and copied in other countries, some smaller Australian publishers have been aggrieved because they don’t always have the skills or common sense to get a good deal. Still, there is money in the code of journalism as a whole.

The new Labor government has halted the previous government’s ongoing attacks on the trusted national broadcaster ABC. Labor also pledged $29 million at the election to support regional, local and community media, including Aboriginal publications and hyperlocal community websites.

It also matches the $10 million pledged by the previous coalition government to help offset printing costs. While the money has been going to news organisations, there has been no announcement to better support journalism students studying at university, where the previous government raised the cost of their degrees by 110%.

Another bright spot for a free press was the appointment of a press-friendly attorney general, Mark Dreyfus. The longtime supporter of journalism and journalists has been keen to engage with everyone in the industry and has invited news organizations big and small to the capital to discuss proposed changes to Australia’s privacy laws.

He also used the opportunity to discuss strengthening Freedom of Information laws to force governments and ministries to be more open to journalists’ requests.

However, Dreyfus doesn’t have an easy answer to who will be a reporter in 2023. It remains a thorny issue, especially for those who work for mainstream news outlets who are tired of being lumped with unregistered independent journalists. ethics.

More and more people, with a career in comedy or with a camera, are calling themselves journalists. Until they no longer want to be one.

However, this good news does not change the fact that trust in journalism continues to decline in Australia and around the world.

Overall trust in Australian journalism fell further over the year (from 43% to 41%). Additionally, the Public Interest Journalism Initiative continues to map newsroom closures, and even in vibrant neighborhoods, there is a steady stream of stories about closures.

Bigger newsrooms are changing, too. They continue to lose older, better paid, experienced journalists while trying to replace them with younger staff from more diverse backgrounds.

While there is still work to be done on diversity, these young journalists must be sharp. They often need to present reports suitable for all platforms – text, audio, visual, digital and social.

They also need to capture the attention of audiences who are overwhelmed by non-news-centric media. Australia may have high levels of literacy, but Australians lack confidence in their media literacy.

Getting press attention is difficult. The ABC’s Talkback radio host Rafael Epstein recently called on his listeners to discuss whether negative coverage of the Victorian government by the state’s anti-corruption watchdog was swaying voters.

Epstein was barely inundated with calls. Despite his efforts for a few days, he was unable to garner much interest beyond a handful of normal partisan callers.

Epstein’s efforts point to a problem with all news outlets: Even with the best reporting, backed up by the strongest evidence, audiences aren’t always moved.

Getting people to pay attention to high-quality journalism in an information-rich environment remains an ongoing problem.

Despite the efforts of multiple fact-checkers from news organizations across Australia, misinformation and fake news are having a very real impact on the community.

The small Yarra Ranges Council, less than 40 kilometers from Australia’s largest city Melbourne, has been forced to close its art gallery and move its committee meetings online following abuse directed at staff and MPs.

Only one newspaper in the Yarra Ranges serves the area, but that hasn’t been enough to stem the impact of misinformation online. The mayor told the ABC the council was being targeted by conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities, 5G cell towers and vaccinations.

Another issue that continues to loom over Australian journalism is the ongoing detention of Julian Assange in the UK. There has been some progress in the Assange case, with the Australian and British high commissioners now planning regular visits to the WikiLeaks founder, who is serving time in Belmarsh Prison and facing espionage charges in the United States.

Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, stood in Assange’s corner, telling the Guardian: “I have made clear the Australian government’s position, which is: Enough is enough. There is no good in the continuing problems.”

But Cheng Lei, who has been imprisoned in Beijing for more than two years on espionage charges, has remained silent so far.

Her partner had asked Victorian Premier Dan Andrews to fight for her freedom during a visit to China earlier this year, but so far there has been no word on the Melbourne journalist and mother-of-two’s fate . (360 Information Network)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)