Australia's news media faces regulatory crackdown by government
Source: Guardian
Australia's news media faces regulatory crackdown by government
Broadcast of sex scandal story involving Labor MP focuses fresh attention on standards and political influence
Jonathan Este
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 June 2012 14.30 EDT
The prospect of tighter regulation of the Australian media has drawn closer after it emerged last week that a TV network aired a prostitute's lurid claims against an MP despite knowing the woman wanted to retract the allegations.
MPs called for the government to "enforce higher standards" and introduce "greater government regulation" of Australia's news media when the woman revealed on Channel Seven that she had retracted her claims to have been paid for sex by the Labor MP Craig Thomson, several days before the rival Nine Network then broadcast the story.
The government's chief whip, Joel Fitzgibbon, was quick to tell ABC: "This sort of journalism is not the right path for Australia. There are two key initiatives in the pipeline, the establishment of a tort of privacy and greater government regulation of our media. And I think this gives weight to the government pursuing those initiatives with a great deal of enthusiasm."
The episode has exacerbated an already tense relationship between the news media and the embattled Labor government of Julia Gillard. An inquiry into media conduct and regulation, set up in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in the UK and headed by the retired judge Ray Finkelstein, recommended a government-funded News Media Council with compulsory membership across all platforms, including blogs, and powers to impose a statutory right of reply and dictate the placement of corrections.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/10/australia-media-regulatory-crackdown-government
