Attitudes about press freedom

Increases in government powers and new laws are combining to make it more difficult for Australian journalists to do their jobs, writes Mark Phillips

Matt Davidson

The widespread use of defamation, excessive court issued non-publication orders, and national security and metadata retention laws are combining to make it more difficult for Australian journalists to do their jobs, MEAA’s annual press freedom survey has found.

The second annual survey of 1532 people was conducted online by MEAA from February to early April.

The survey was open to all members of the public, with 386, or a quarter of the respondents (25.1 per cent), identifying as a journalist or other form of media professional. Of these 212 were currently employed, with the remainder either retired or unemployed journalists, or studying for a career in journalism.

It found that that 63 per cent of journalists believe the overall health of press freedom in Australia is “poor” or “very poor” while 85 per cent say press freedom has got worse over the past decade.

Asked to assess the health of current press freedom issues, working journalists became more pessimistic. They identified the diversity of media ownership as an issue of concern, with 73 per cent giving a score of poor or very poor.

Government secrecy and lack of transparency came next with a 71 per cent rating of poor or very poor. This was followed by the impact of national security laws that criminalise journalism scoring 70 per cent, whistleblower protection scored 69 per cent, metadata retention scored 67 per cent, with political attacks on journalism on 66 per cent.

Journalist shield laws were next on 65 per cent and defamation was ranked at 64 per cent. Funding of public broadcasting came next on 62 per cent, with court suppression orders and freedom of information tied on 58 per cent.

But it was when journalists were asked specific questions about their own personal experiences that the clearest picture emerged of the impact of current press freedom constraints on their work.

Eighty per cent of journalists said Australia’s defamation laws made reporting more difficult (72 per cent in 2018) and 10 per cent (up from 6.3 per cent in 2018) had received a defamation writ in the past two years. Twenty-eight per cent of journalists (up from 2018’s 24.4 per cent) said they had had a news story spiked within the past 12 months because of fears of defamation action by a person mentioned in the story.

Court suppression/non-publication orders are a growing issue for journalists. Slightly under a quarter of all journalists said their work had been hindered by an order in the past 12 months. Of these, 56 per cent of respondents said they believed the court’s decision was excessive. Overall, 54 per cent of journalists believed that judges are actively discouraging reporting of open courts and are taking a more aggressive view of media reporting.

These numbers were higher in Victoria, where the suppression order issue is said to be particularly acute. This has been highlighted by the controversy over the George Pell case, in which dozens of editors and journalists have been charged with contempt of court for publication of details of the case allegedly in breach of a blanket suppression order.

Among the Victorian working journalists 28 per cent said their work had been hindered by a court issuing an order. Of these 82 per cent said they believed the court’s decision was excessive. More generally, 62 per cent of Victorian journalists believe judges are actively discouraging reporting of open courts and are taking a more aggressive view of media reporting.

A third of journalists said information from a confidential source whose identity they had protected had led to the publication or broadcasting of a news story but only 8 per cent believed legislation was adequate to protect public sector and private sector whistleblowers.

Despite more than two years of laws which allow government agencies to access journalists’ computers, mobile phones and other metadata, less than half of journalists said they or their employer took steps to ensure they did not generate metadata that could identify a confidential source. More than a half (57 per cent) said they were not confident that their sources could be protected from being identified from their metadata.

Journalists say they get most of their information on press freedom issues from MEAA or from what they glean from media reports. Media companies are failing in keep their workers up to date about press freedom concerns with less than 1 per cent of responses saying their main source of information came from their employer.

Only 27 per cent of journalists said their employer kept them informed of changes to national security laws and how they may affect their journalism, although only 19 per cent believed their reporting had been hindered by Australia’s national security laws.

Mark Phillips is MEAA’s communications director.

--

--

The union for Australia's creative professionals. Authorised by Paul Murphy, 245 Chalmers St, Redfern NSW 2016. Web: meaa.org Phone: 1300 65 65 13