The Senate Select Committee on the Future of Public Interest Journalism Report February 2018 © Commonwealth of Australia 2018 ISBN 978-1-76010-698-0 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. This document was produced by the Senate Select Committee on the Future of Public Interest Journalism secretariat and printed by the Senate Printing Unit, Department of the Senate, Parliament House, Canberra. ii Membership of the Committee Members Senator Catryna Bilyk (Chair) from 7.12.2017 ALP, TAS Senator Sam Dastyari (Chair) until 30.11.2017 ALP, NSW Senator Lisa Singh (Chair from 30.11.2017 to 7.12.2017) ALP, TAS Senator Scott Ludlam (Deputy Chair) until 14.7.17 Greens, WA Senator Sarah Hanson-Young from 09.08.2017 (Deputy Chair Greens, SA from 21.08.2017) Senator Jonathon Duniam LP, TAS Senator James Paterson LP, VIC Senator Nick Xenophon until 31.10.2017 NXT, SA Participating Senator Senator Kimberley Kitching ALP, VIC Secretariat Mr Tim Watling, Secretary Mr Nicholas Craft, Principal Research Officer Dr Ros Hewett, Senior Research Officer Ms Jo-Anne Holmes, Administrative Officer Ms Alexandria Moore, Administrative Officer Suite S1.61 Telephone: (02) 6277 3560 Parliament House Fax: (02) 6277 5794 CANBERRA ACT 2600 Email: [email protected] iii Table of Contents Membership of the Committee ........................................................................ iii Recommendations .............................................................................................. ix Chapter 1.............................................................................................................. 1 Introduction and background ................................................................................. 1 Referral ................................................................................................................... 1 Background to the inquiry ...................................................................................... 1 Definitions, role and importance of public interest journalism .............................. 2 Oversight of media in Australia ............................................................................. 6 Reviews of the media sector in Australia ............................................................. 13 Recent changes to Australian media laws and other relevant legislation ............ 17 Freedoms and responsibilities of the press ........................................................... 20 Structure of this report .......................................................................................... 21 Conduct of the inquiry .......................................................................................... 22 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................. 22 Chapter 2............................................................................................................ 23 Challenges for news media in the digital age ....................................................... 23 Trends since the Finkelstein Report ..................................................................... 23 The digital revolution and the challenge to traditional business models ............. 25 The loss of journalist jobs from industry restructuring ........................................ 29 Australia's public broadcasters–ABC and SBS .................................................... 31 Negative effects in focus ...................................................................................... 32 The diminishing quality of news and its effects ................................................... 38 The advent of 'fake' news and online echo-chambers .......................................... 40 Chapter 3............................................................................................................ 45 New opportunities, new audiences and innovative approaches ......................... 45 Opportunities for media consumers and producers .............................................. 45 Committee view .................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 4............................................................................................................ 63 Aggregators and the news media .......................................................................... 63 The importance of news to aggregators ............................................................... 63 Criticisms of Google and Facebook ..................................................................... 64 Engaging in partnerships to improve news .......................................................... 66 Combating the spread of fake news ..................................................................... 68 A levy or tax on aggregators ................................................................................ 70 Committee view .................................................................................................. 76 Chapter 5............................................................................................................ 79 Overseas experience ............................................................................................... 79 Europe ................................................................................................................... 79 Germany ............................................................................................................... 80 Austria .................................................................................................................. 82 Belgium ................................................................................................................ 83 The United Kingdom ............................................................................................ 83 Norway ................................................................................................................. 84 Sweden.................................................................................................................. 85 France ................................................................................................................... 85 Italy ....................................................................................................................... 86 Spain ..................................................................................................................... 86 The United States ................................................................................................. 87 Canada .................................................................................................................. 88 The Philippines ..................................................................................................... 89 Indonesia ............................................................................................................... 89 Chapter 6............................................................................................................ 91 Direct Commonwealth measures in support of public interest journalism ...... 91 Australia's Public Broadcasters ............................................................................ 91 The Community Sector ....................................................................................... 103 Potential additional direct Commonwealth support ........................................... 104 Education ............................................................................................................ 109 Committee view .................................................................................................. 111 Chapter 7.......................................................................................................... 115 Australia's taxation system and legal framework, and the potential for indirect assistance measures .............................................................................................. 115 General support for indirect measures ................................................................ 115 vi Adjusting Australia's tax system ........................................................................ 117 Australian laws that potentially restrict public interest journalism .................... 125 Other Commonwealth policies ........................................................................... 134 Committee view .................................................................................................. 135 Additional Comments by Coalition Senators ............................................... 141 Appendix 1 ....................................................................................................... 143 Submissions ........................................................................................................... 143 Appendix 2 ....................................................................................................... 147 Public hearings and witnesses ............................................................................. 147 vii Recommendations Recommendation 1 The committee recommends that the ABC and SBS be funded adequately, so that they can deliver on their charter