How news is made in Australia – some personal views

CONCLUSIONS

What the project tells us is that in these days the greatest influence on the media is not the media owners. Nor do ratings or circulation seem to be the dominant influence in the actual making of the news. The biggest influence seems to be the journalists themselves, other journalists, and their own beliefs and commitments. (Or as one news producer said, their cultural mindset.)

So the concept of regulating a discrete medium, say television, more than another seems to have little validity.

What is the point, then, of laws regulating ownership, domestic or foreign, if that is to limit influence when the greatest influence, on a daily basis, comes from much more from the corps of journalists than ever from the media owner – even if a dominant media proprietor can be identified? This leads to the conclusion that those aspects of the Broadcasting Services Act regulating ownership should be reviewed. Obviously, this cannot be done dispassionately in an election year, but it would seem highly appropriate in the next Parliament. (Needless to say until a change in the law the ABA will of course rigorously apply the law as it is.)

If media owners, where they exist, do not have and cannot have the power they may once have enjoyed, the better course might be to leave media ownership to the anti-trust laws. The concept of limiting an owner to a certain share of voice, while initially attractive, suffers from the need to attribute arbitrary values to each medium, e.g. radio, print, TV, as well as how to include new technologies. If abolition were thought too extreme, proposals for acquisitions by media owners could be required to satisfy the regulation that the result must be in the public interest.

In conclusion, the report suggests four matters of concern:

First, a surprising homogeneity in the cultural mindsets of political journalists, and a tendency on their part to indulge in campaign journalism.

Second, a failure to distinguish, to the satisfaction of the public and the regulators, between news and comment.

Third, a concern about sensationalism and intrusive reporting; and

Fourth, a concern about the adequacy of the coverage of local events and issues.

The concerns the project reveals are mainly ethical matters. Ethical principles transcend the technology for delivery, whether it be print or broadcast, analogue or digital. The solution for the proper application of ethical precepts lies not in further legislation, for that would be worse than the problem. The solution is with the individuals and organisations concerned.

As Mahatma Ghandi wrote:

"The sole aim of journalism should be service. The press is a great power but, just as an unchained torrent submerges the whole countryside and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within."