Media review must step into the modern age

December 16th, 2011

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Updated

December 16, 2011 10:48:15

Photo:
The Interim Report is itself a spectacular example of silo vision on media. (Thinkstock: iStockphoto)

The logic behind the Media Convergence Review, whose Interim Report was issued yesterday, is simple enough.

Our current media regulation is based on the concept of ‘silos’ – radio, television, and print are separate and different: regulation that applies to one is inappropriate or irrelevant to the other.

But in the digital age content of all kinds – text, audio, video – is inextricably entwined on the internet. So we need new rules that will be appropriate to the converged media world.

And yet ironically, it seems to me, the Interim Report is itself a spectacular example of silo vision. Its authors haven’t been able to escape a mentality derived from the era in which we all grew up, in which the print media are self-regulated, and the broadcast media are regulated by a statutory authority.

Why the difference? Why was the Australian Communications and Media Authority, among its many and varied responsibilities (and before it, the Australian Broadcasting Authority), made the ultimate arbiter and enforcer of the Codes of Practice drawn up by the commercial television and radio broadcasters, and indeed by the ABC and SBS as well? And why are newspapers regulated only by the Australian Press Council, a body voluntarily set up and funded by the big newspaper companies themselves?

Well, as I’ve argued before, for the simple reason that the state has no business regulating a free press in a free country. The reason that principle did not apply to radio and television was that radio spectrum was limited; a licence to broadcast was a privilege, the granting of the right to use a public good for the making of private wealth. In return, society had a right to expect that certain rules should apply to its use.

The Convergence Review recognises that in the digital age, radio spectrum is no longer scarce; not only because digital channels take up a lot less spectrum than the old analogue broadcasts, but also because cable and the internet now, and the NBN when it arrives, will make over-the-air broadcasting virtually irrelevant.

So the Interim Report recommends scrapping the licence system as it applies to content providers, and with it the licence fees paid by the television and radio networks in return for their right to broadcast. The ‘ownership’ of spectrum should instead become a tradeable commodity.

Fine. But the Convergence Review panel has spectacularly failed, it seems to me, to notice the corollary: that with the disappearance of spectrum scarcity goes the only logical justification for the state to involve itself, via a statutory regulator, in matters of content, beyond what the law of the land dictates.

The Interim Report proposes, instead of the ACMA, a super-regulator which will be responsible for all “Content Service Enterprises”. These are not defined with much precision in the Interim Report. It states clearly enough that they won’t include small-time bloggers and start-up companies. The review panel has in mind the big providers of audio-visual content, whether public broadcasters like the ABC and SBS, traditional mainstream commercial operators like Channels 7, 9 and 10 or the Macquarie Radio Network, and subscription TV providers like Foxtel. And it clearly hopes to bring within the regulatory fold companies like Google (owner of YouTube) and Apple, perhaps even Facebook and Twitter, which already do, or soon will, offer customers a plethora of audio-visual content from all over the world.

The new regulator is clearly modelled on the British Ofcom. The Interim Report says it should have broad latitude and a lot of clout:

A range of effective powers to deal with changes in industry structure, market participants, consumer expectations and new technologies. These should include rule‑making as well as enforcement powers.

The report makes no bones about the fact that as well as adjudicating on how much media diversity is in the public interest (good luck with that one), and trying to insist on a minimum level of spending on Australian content (good luck with that too) the new regulator will be responsible for rules about content.

“Specific communications content regulation (beyond the application of the general law) will still be needed to promote public interest outcomes,” it explains.

What sort of regulation? Well, obviously stuff like obscenity and “community standards”. But not only that, the report suggests.

Content standards should also reflect the importance of fairness, accuracy and ethical behaviour in relation to news, opinion and current affairs…

And, says the report:

Regulation should be applied to Content Service Enterprises regardless of the technology or delivery platform used.

I’ve listened to and read a fair bit of commentary, including interviews given by Glen Boreham, the chairman of the Convergence Review. No-one that I’ve heard has mentioned the bleeding obvious: that, other than the ABC, and possibly NineMSN and YahooSeven, the two biggest “Content Service Providers” (or at any rate, news content providers) in Australia are News Ltd and Fairfax Media. The fact that at the moment they supply most of their content in the form of text is irrelevant. More and more, they are going to be supplying audio and video on their websites, just as the ABC and NineMSN supply reams of text.

Yet both News and Fairfax – and every other newspaper company in the land, come to that – has been fiercely arguing to the Finkelstein Media Inquiry that statutory regulation of their content, online as well as in print, would be a gross intrusion on the freedom of the press. And in my opinion they are right. It’s one thing to have a much-strengthened self-regulatory body like the Australian Press Council, possibly even part-funded by the taxpayer; that’s a desirable outcome. But it’s quite another to have the fairness and accuracy of the news output of every major media outlet in the country regulated by the Convergence Review’s new statutory regulator.

Apart from anything else, in practical terms it’s a ludicrous proposition. How, in the absence of licences, are you going to enforce the regulation? How are you going to persuade “Content Service Enterprises” like News Ltd, let alone Google, to submit to it? If regulation is to be a legal requirement for any major content provider, it means that the state is imposing conditions on the right to publish; in other words, a licence. In an age of media plenty, we are to have a more restrictive and regulated press regime than we’ve had since the earliest years of the colonies.

When I rang and asked people at the Convergence Review whether News Ltd and Fairfax would qualify as Content Service Enterprises, it seemed to me that it was a question that simply hadn’t occurred to them. That’s why I say the Interim Report is a product of silo thinking. Because by definition, in a converged world, you can’t hive off ‘audio-visual’ content producers from others. And yet the Convergence Review’s attitude to content regulation comes straight from the world of licensed broadcasting, and owes almost nothing to the 300-year-old tradition of a free press.

The Convergence Review is quite right to suggest that content licences are becoming irrelevant and should be abolished. But it’s failed to go the next obvious step: to suggest that compulsory content regulation in the digital era (apart from that imposed by the law of the land) should be done away with too. Yes, we should have a one-stop shop to deal with complaints and to uphold the standards that all good journalism should abide by; and yes, that body should have authority over all mainstream news outlets, regardless of platform; but it must be far closer in spirit to the Australian Press Council than to the ACMA.

I have very little doubt that that is what Ray Finkelstein’s Media Inquiry will propose; and the Convergence Review is bound to take into account Mr Finkelstein’s views. So I would expect that in its final report the Convergence Review will at least show some sign that it appreciates the difficulties with the model of content regulation it has so blithely proposed in this Interim Report. But it’s a worry that proposals so cavalier as to the traditions of a free press, and so impractical as to the digital future, should have been put forward at all.

Jonathan Holmes, the presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch, has been a journalist for 35 years.

Topics:
information-and-communication,
broadcasting,
internet-culture,
social-media,
print-media,
television-broadcasting,
radio-broadcasting

First posted

December 16, 2011 08:47:09