Proposed changes to Australian media laws have provoked a strong reaction from some broadcasters and publishers who claim they could impact press freedom, but others say the proposed changes are mild and will have minimal impact on the current media landscape.
Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, announced the proposed reforms at a press conference on Tuesday.
The changes include an increase in the hours of local content broadcasters would be required to air, and the appointment of a Public Interest Media Advocate tasked with applying a public interest test to proposed media mergers, and declaring a self-regulatory body for print and online media organisations.
Details of the public interest test have not yet been fleshed out, prompting criticism from some media outlets.
News Limited CEO Kim Williams called the public interest test “highly interventionist, vague and unnecessary” in an opinion piece published in his company's Daily Telegraph in Sydney yesterday.
An opinion piece posted on Fairfax Media's National Times website called for the public to be able to determine what's in the public interest.
Crikey's Bernard Keane, however, called the reforms “minimalist” and “safe” because the proposed changes would allow broadcasters and publishers to be able to self-regulate with the incentive of protection from privacy laws.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard was yesterday forced to defend the proposed changes, saying they won't allow governments to control the news.
The proposals call for:
- Greater Australian content on commercial broadcast networks (50% reduction in licence fees for broadcasters who comply)
- The appointment of a Public Interest Media Advocate, tasked with applying a public interest test to proposed media mergers
- A press standards model that ensures strong self-regulation of the print and online news media
- An inquiry into the abolition of the 75 per cent reach rule of media ownership (this limits the proportion of the population one network can reach)
- On-air reporting of ACMA findings regarding broadcasting regulation breaches
- Modernising the ABC and SBS charters to reflect their online and digital activities
Mr Conroy said the government was “not prepared” to negotiate the bill, meaning it will have to be accepted as is, or rejected outright by parliament.
Q&A: PROPOSED MEDIA REFORM LAWS
Dr Margaret Simons, Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne says the changes, if passed, will put increased pressure on news media to self-regulate their content.
What, in your view, are the most significant changes being proposed in this reforms package?
Well I think the whole package is fairly minimal really, the big decision such as the 75 per cent reach rule have been put off for another day, and what remains is a gentle pressure, if anything, towards improved news media regulation or journalistic self-regulation and a slight modification to the rules governing some mergers and takeovers.
If the whole package is passed, what do you see as being the most significant impact to the media landscape?
I think for some large media organisations there will be an extra hurdle for them to pass in order for them to be allowed to do takeovers or mergers, but it really only affects the very big players, and only some of them. And there will also be an increased pressure on news media to get a bit more real about their self-regulation of journalism standards.
That being said, as well as your comments that the reforms are fairly minimal overall, what do you say about the media coverage that the reform package has generated this morning?
Well there's been some good stuff but there's also been stuff that just merges on the ridiculous. I mean the comparisons to Mao, and to dictators around the ages are not only ridiculous but also offensive to people who really are suffering under governments who restrict freedom of speech. I mean this is nowhere near; it is just ridiculous to make that comparison. And the sort of coverage that we saw in the Daily Telegraph in Sydney for example today is offensive to those people and really makes me quite angry.
Watch News Limited's Editorial Director Campbell Reid interviewed on ABC
Watch News Limited's Chief Executive Kim Williams interviewed on ABC
You've got media companies reporting on media regulation... to what extent do you think there might be some responses that are vested in self-interest, rather than public interest?
Well sad to say, we've seen this play out a number of times during the couple of years that this area has been debated. The media have really proved being incapable of adequately reporting anything which reflects on their own self interests, and that is very sad.
This package has been given a very short window of time to be debated before it needs to be approved or denied, does that concern you?
I think the reality is the government doesn't want this to be an election issue, so win or lose, they want it out of the way. I think they're also trying to concentrate the minds of the Greens and the Independents, more or less saying this is the most that can be achieved at the moment, take it or leave it. I think we have had a very long debate about this and we have had two reports, the Finkelstein Inquiry and the Convergence Review. It's not that it hasn't been open for debate for a very long period of time. The sad thing is, the Conroy package doesn't really pick up entirely on either of those reports.
What do you believe is missing from the report?
I think the big opportunity that's been lost is to adopt a uniform approach, a platform neutral approach to news media regulation. It's ludicrous these days I think when you have broadcasters with text on their websites and newspapers that have videos on their websites, it's ludicrous to have print media regulated one way and broadcast media another way. And both the
Convergence Review and Finkelstein Review and every industry body that made submissions to those inquiries recommend that we have a uniform system, and we haven't. And that's a real lost opportunity.
The media is currently regulated under the Press Council, which oversees self-regulation in print, while the Australian Communications and Media Authority overseas broadcasting and telecoms.
