Do we have press freedom?

Press freedom in Australia might sound like a concept many of us take for granted, but audience and panel members congregated in BMW Edge this morning to decide whether we might be begging the question.

‘Journalistic foot soldier’ Duncan Hughes (Australian Financial Review) opened by mentioning the legal incursions upon press freedom. Many of us offer the United States as the butt of ‘most litigious society’ jokes, but he said that Sydney and London are actually the ‘defamation capitals’ of the world.

Lenore Taylor (Sydney Morning Herald, and author of Shitstorm, pictured) has worked in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery for a number of years, which may sound boring, but she thinks it is ‘really important for the functioning of democracy’. But this is getting more difficult – what with strictures on accessing information, the media cycle’s shortening and space limitations. Those who grumbled about the policy coverage of the recent (ongoing?) election may be surprised and discomfited to know that Taylor said it was difficult to actually get policy pieces off the ground, in the face of other more sensational aspects of the election process.

Ross Gittins (The Age) reflected on what journalists consider to be news. It came down to the basics: ‘what is interesting and important’. But commercial pressures mean that for new organisations to even survive they have to run things that are merely interesting, but not important (e.g. stories about Paris Hilton). So the challenge for journalists is to make the important things interesting.

An audience raised the spectre of self-censorship: ‘you rarely find anything inconsistent with the house ideology’. Taylor, an ex-Australian journalist, said that paper did have a strong editorial line, and does sometimes force things onto the national agenda without giving space to alternative views. ‘No one ever told me what to write … but there was a very strong editorial line.’ For example, when she was in Copenhagen for the 2009 climate conference, she was constantly asked to interview Ian Plimer, the well-known climate change sceptic.

Gittins was not so soft with his words, suggesting that some news outlets now took a tailored-for-your-comfort approach; for example, Fox News. These news outlets are ‘insidious’, targeting readers who have money and ‘telling them what they want to hear’.

But what is beneficial for press freedom? Taylor declared that a diverse multiplicity of news outlets is necessary to good journalism, though if – as one audience member complained – they are all giving us the same news, they are not using that diversity properly.

News readers and news writers alike can explore several other journalism sessions – including new media, leadership, employment and ethics – at the MWF New News 2010 Conference, which runs over Thursday 2 September and Friday 3 September.