Name: Mark Fulford Submission: Over the last 20 or so years, i have become increasingly concerned in regards to the nature of what I see in the media, print, tv or online. I always thought that the backbone of a healthy democracy and a fair go, is a free, balanced media, reporting the important news items to us, the people in a non- partisan, balanced manner. Unfortunately, quite often these days this is not what I see. I live in Victoria, and in the Herald-Sun in particular, I often see divisive, biased, inflammatory journalism, that appears to seek advantage, often political. A good example has been what I’d call an inflammatory, continuous campaign against our state premier, Daniel Andrews. Headlines in big letters reading “Dan made disaster”, or “Hotel hell”, suggesting the Premiers unproven guilt, in relation to issues around the quarantine of returning Australians from overseas. In reality, the Premier has allowed an IVAC investigation to take place in relation to the matter, and the resignation of the government minister concerned, has occurred. I note that our Prime Minister himself and various ministers from his cabinet, Michaelia Cash, Angus Taylor, Bridget McKenzie, Ken Wyatt amongst others, have all escaped such criticism in the Murdoch press. To me this smacks of bias. Bias, that unchecked, is and will continue to damage our democracy. The Australian people work and pay taxes in order to pay our politicians, they work for us. We as citizens need to be able to trust that our government looks after our interests too, and one of those, is to be informed without bias. It’s time our media was put under the microscope in a fully independent enquiry .