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The State of Media Diversity, Independence and Reliability in Australia and the Impact That This Has on Public Interest Journalism and Democracy, Including

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The State of Media Diversity, Independence and Reliability in Australia and the Impact That This Has on Public Interest Journalism and Democracy, Including The state of media diversity, independence and reliability in Australia and the impact that this has on public interest journalism and democracy, including: The current state of public interest journalism in Australia and any barriers to Australian voters’ ability to access reliable, accurate and independent news; - News is largely consumed via social media platforms. - News Corp articles in particular, are typically paywalled, and headlines are often the only part of an article that’s displayed on social media platforms. - Social media users often don’t read beyond the headline, or first paragraph of an article at most. - News Corp owns The Australian as its national masthead, major metro papers including: Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, NT News, The Mercury, Adelaide Advertiser; as well as a number of local titles such as the Leader, NewsLocal and other titles in regional cities. - News Corp articles are often syndicated across all titles, which in turn get published to their individual social media channels where their audience tends to read only the headline. - 7 West Media and Nine Entertainment Co. Dominate the majority of broadcast news media, and Nine in particular owns the majority of talkback radio across the country. - Talkback radio often generates a news cycle of a given topic. - Nine also acquired Fairfax Media in 2018. The effect of media concentration on democracy in Australia; - Headlines are written to generate page views and therefore advertising revenue. - Advertising revenue and subscriptions are the only ways media companies can generate income - This incentivises click bait headlines, often attached to low quality, high volume news content - This often results in the truth being obscured or only 1 side of a story being discussed, even of the media organisation has given their right of reply to all parties involved. - This also creates a media landscape where the misinformation and deliberate disinformation can prosper. The impact of Australia’s media ownership laws on media concentration in Australia; - Print and broadcast media all have their own written or video content, published natively online and to their social media channels. - Australia’s media ownership laws were devised at a time where online news was not as prolific, and not the main source of news consumption. - In the case of Nine, since the acquisition of Fairfaxedia, it owns print, online, radio and TV broadcast in Australia’s 2 most populous cities. - Media ownership laws need to be updated in step with current community expectations. The impact of significant changes to media business models since the advent of online news and the barriers to viability and profitability of public interest news services; - As stated above, advertising revenue and subscriptions are the only ways for media organisations to generate income. - This results in an overreliance on social media to drive website traffic The impact of online global platforms such as Facebook, Google and Twitter on the media industry and sharing of news in Australia; - Social media platforms are designed to keep users on their own site, to be attractive to advertisers for their own commercial viability - Social media platforms are where the majority of online discussion on topics happens - Media organisations often fail to adequately moderate discussions they’ve created with their content which has allowed for conspiracy theories and misinformation to get a foothold. - This is particularly prevalent on Sky News Facebook page The role that a newswire service plays in supporting diverse public interest journalism in Australia; - Newswire services such as AAP are particularly important in times of crisis for factual, unbiased, and up to date reporting. The state of local, regional and rural media outlets in Australia; - Local, regional and rural media outlets are diminishing in Australia, and are often first on the chopping block when cuts happen, as they have been with significant regional cuts happening earlier this year. The role of government in supporting a viable and diverse public interest journalism sector in Australia; - Government should move quicker than it has to to ensure a regulatory framework that ensures media organisations can be commercially viable, balanced and mostly importantly, factually accurate. In addition: - A mandate for factually correct reporting needs to underpin any regulatory framework. - News Corp have a long history of inaccurate reporting, recently with their viewpoints on the US election, throughout the year with the pandemic, and prior to that, the misreporting of causes of the Black Summer bushfires. - 7 West Media, particularly 7 News, commonly create articles from posts on social media, often without verifying the truth of them..
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