Time for Finkelstein? Australians need to rewind the media policy machine
In this cross-posting from The Conversation Bruce Baer Arnold of the University of Canberra argues the government needs to revisit the Finkelstein Report as a guide to help overhaul media regulation.
As Australia drifts between national elections it is time, once again, to ask some hard questions about media policy. Those questions should be asked and answered by all Australians rather than just by Malcolm Turnbull, Rupert Murdoch, Bill Shorten, Kerry Stokes, Bruce Gyngell and Tony Abbott.
A guide is provided by the Finkelstein Report, a victim of political opportunism and ALP infighting.
Another guide is provided by a poll in the UK, which suggests that non-specialists are interested in media policy, in particular the development of policy that reinforces integrity through accountability.
Finkelstein dodged the hard question. How can you have free speech if you muzzle the media?
Exactly where in the Finkelstein Report is it recommended or implied that the media need to be muzzled Paul? Refer to the section(s) and I’ll give it a re-read.
Isn’t the hard question rather ‘ How can you have free speech without a diverse and responsible press?
Fink did not address competition policy or media concentration in any serious way. It’s evidence was token and largely parades of totally predictable opinion. Its conclusions were banal and inoperable.
What we face is a very likely collapse of Fairfax. Its main titles are already seriously diminished, operating increasingly as clickbait and financially fragile. They have given up on any serious news enquiry and rely only on opinion and one or two reporters like McClymont for the remnant reputation.
News is clearly sweating on the demise of Fairfax to become the monopoly provider of “news”. (That must be the sole commercial justification for the Oz, for example, and certainly explains the extreme tactics of malice they have employed against Fairfax in recent years.)
The ABC is shrinking back to Sydney, with a bit of Canberra. The regional media are shrinking fast now.
My point is that the primary news sources are largely gone, which is why we see so much recycled “opinion” and PR as “news”. Soon they may be gone forever.
Turnbull and others like to say the internet has delivered diversity in news, which is nonsense. The web does allow us to read the NYT instead of a single correspondent, but the population of those who question governments, poliicing, corporates etc is diminished and the ones that are left are producing little in the way of valuable news.
What is seriously required is aggressive competition policy that takes account of disruption.
Bruce Gyngell? Shurely Shome Mishtake?
The Finklestein report recommended that Government should regulate content, despite the source or popularity of the channel. Taking an example from the report, any digital channel that receives more than 15,000 hits a year should be subjected to a new super regulator with the power to remove content. This would include the vast majority of sites in Australia.
Let’s look at the 15,000 “hits”. The report does not define “hits”. There are so many possibilities. Websites display pages, and each time a page is displayed, it’s regarded as a hit. “Hits” can also be regarded as the unique elements within a site, where one single page might have an image, text and an ad, which may be three separate “hits”. Or a “hit” could be a single visitor. The most suitable definition in this instance is “HITS” as an acronym for “How Idiots Track Success”.
Then, assuming that the definition of “internet site” a catch-all, then even a small Facebook Fan Page with an average of 41 viewers per day (totalling 15,000 per year) would come under the jurisdiction of this super-regulator.
If the recommendations were taken to their logical conclusion, then the idea of Government controlling our very personal expression would have become a reality. Considering that the average Australian has approximately 130 Facebook friends, and considering at least 13-17% of these people see our every Facebook post, if we posted twice a day, then we would have 44 “hits” per day, over 15,000 “hits” per year, and we would be compelled under law to write (or remove) whatever the Government wanted.
The Gillard / Rudd Government’s ultimate failure in media regulation was that they deliberately commissioned these reports in an effort to control communications, rather than cultivate free speech and innovation. They vainly sought to restrict the number of voices, and seek to control what those existing voices said. There was and is simply no need for Government to play a role – there is nothing a Government can do to improve diversity and control content standards without putting Australia into the Dark Ages.