“Parents” Needed by Australian Media Industry
The Chairman of the Media Inquiry and former federal judge, Rey Finkelstein, has raised the concept of a new industry levy. This came up after a lengthy discussion on future industry regulation with entrepreneur Eric Beecher during the first day of public hearings in Melbourne.
According to Beecher, the Australian media is in need of “parents”. By saying this, he meant a firmer regulation for the preservation of editorial standards especially that pressure and competition have led to the erosion of public trust.
”Clearly self-regulation hasn’t worked as well as it could. It’s like parenting. You need some discipline,” said Beecher.
It was at this juncture that Justice Finkelstein came up with the concept of strengthening the Press Council (Australia’s Newspaper watchdog) by having a new industry levy imposed by the government. However, Beecher has raised several practical objections like the cost on small players and “blogs with no revenue”.
Finkelstein sticks to his stand and says that there are ways to have this done on a “proportionate and equitable basis”.
On the other hand, the Press Council is vocal about its needing of additional resources from the industry and the non-media sources.
There were two witnesses yesterday that had highly critical comments on the coverage of News Limited. An Associate Professor at Deakin University said he was blown away by the biased coverage of the said news organization on the Gillard government.
According to Prof. Robert Manne, no single proprietor should be allowed to own 70 per cent of print circulation as he says it is not “democratically viable”.
”Freedom of the press is one of the foundation stones of society,” said Manne.
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Source : BRISBANETIMES
