We have argued before that Australia’s system of news media oversight is, to put it mildly, imperfect. This week, Richard Ackland was rather less mild about the Australian Press Council, or APC. ‘The Louise Milligan case shows why the APC needs to be replaced,’ Ackland wrote in the Gazette of Law and Journalism.
The Louise Milligan case concerns a complaint brought by Milligan, an ABC journalist, against The Australian newspaper for an editorial published in June 2021, shortly after Christian Porter dropped his defamation action against Milligan and the ABC. The editorial was headlined, ‘Greatest enemy of truth is those who conspire to lie’. It named Sally Neighbour and Louise Milligan, before ending, ‘The most dangerous enemy of the journalist is bad, lazy, deceitful journalism.’
On September 5, more than two years after Milligan made her complaint, the APC published its adjudication. The APC found a breach of General Principle 1 (ensure material is accurate and not misleading) and General Principle 3 (ensure material is presented with reasonable fairness and balance). Ironically, the editorial had extolled the virtues of journalistic accuracy, fairness and balance. The APC also found a breach of General Principle 6 (avoid causing substantial offence or distress without a sufficient public interest justification).
The details described by Ackland, a former host of Media Watch, are damning. According to the GLJ: the APC lost documents pertaining to the complaint; the APC failed to consider key aspects of the complaint; and procedural mismanagement of the complaint culminated in a two-year delay before a decision was reached, and only then after the complaint was belatedly shifted from the APC’s staff and chair to an adjudication panel. Given such cases, it’s no wonder people are losing faith in news media. If breaches in news are accompanied by deficiencies in oversight, the only way is down.
Meanwhile, lack of journalistic accountability has led to calls for news outlets to be brought under the proposed misinformation bill. Rather than policing journalistic accuracy through legislation designed to combat online misinformation, journalism should get its own house in order by ensuring its news oversight system is robust and effective. All news, whether published on news sites or digital platforms, should be overseen by a coherent, cross-platform standards scheme.
Today’s newsletter is all about making news better. From Cardiff in Wales, Monica reports on the latest in journalism scholarship; from the airwaves, Derek discusses the perils of undisclosed commercial deals on radio; and I team up with Chris Ferrie to explore what quantum physics can teach us about voting in the Voice referendum.
Read it in full here.
Sacha Molitorisz, Senior Lecturer - UTS Law