RSS Feed
March 2nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda THE Finkelstein report into Australia’s media industry has stirred howls of protest about over-regulation of the media with its push for a statutory body to oversee standards for all news media.
It’s a show-stopper recommendation, one that will provoke cries that press freedoms are about to be shackled.
The review finds that for a host of reasons self-regulation by the media industry has failed. It calls for the creation of a super-regulator – a News Media Council.
This recommendation was pre-empted by the draft findings last year of a parallel government inquiry that examined convergence in the media. But the review by former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein, released yesterday, fleshes out how such an authority would work.
The introduction of a new watchdog recognises that the rapid growth of online media has blurred the distinction between media platforms and that the same standards of journalism should apply no matter where the news appears.
But Finkelstein believes a statutory, government-funded body is necessary because the Australian Press Council lacks power and funds, and the broadcast regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, is ”cumbersome and slow”.
He believes self-regulation has failed to deal with irresponsible reporting. And recourse to other measures, such as legal proceedings, takes too long.
While many in the media will disagree with Finkelstein’s findings, most of the heat will focus on his proposal for a News Media Council. The fear is that it will lead to over-regulation of the media and a restriction of freedom of speech.
This is a fear shared by industry participants as diverse as the former Victorian Privacy Commissioner, Paul Chadwick, who is now the ABC’s editorial standards director, and by the conservative think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.
The proposed new body would regulate print and online media, all broadcasters including the ABC, as well as those outliers of the media industry, bloggers.
Immediate questions might be: how such a council would operate and who would appoint its members. Why, for example, should government funding be preferred to industry funding, and why should membership be compulsory?
The review has attempted to calm concern that a new uber-council might infringe on the freedom of the press by stating explicitly that the government would have no role beyond funding the body.
But Finkelstein has recommended any findings of the proposed council be given a ”legally binding” status and that it should be able to enforce the publication of all apologies, retractions and rights of reply. This sort of compulsion will be resisted by many in the industry.
Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU
Views: 0
Posted in 
Tags: 
