Aussie newspapers blast media curbs
Sydney—australia’s biggest rival newspapers protested restrictions on press freedom on Monday, running front pages simulating censorship. The conservative News Corp and fierce rivals at Nine Entertainment ran similar front pages with most of the words blacked out, in a rare show of unity in a usually partisan media industry. Australia has no constitutional safeguards for free speech.
Sydney—australia’s biggest newspapers ran front pages on Monday made up to appear heavily redacted, in a protest against legislation that restricts press freedoms, a rare show of unity by the usually partisan media industry.
Australia has no constitutional safeguards for free speech, although the government added a provision to protect whistleblowers when it strengthened counterespionage laws in 2018. Media groups say press freedoms remain restricted.
Mastheads from the domestic unit of Rupert Murdoch’s conservative News Corp and fierce newspaper rivals at Nine Entertainment ran front pages with most of the words blacked out, giving the impression the copy had been censored, in the manner of a classified government document.
Parliament has long been passing laws in the guise of national security that impeded the public’s right to know what the government did in its name, the Media, Entertainment and Arts
Alliance said.
“Journalism is a fundamental pillar of our democracy,” said Paul Murphy, the chief executive of the industry union.
“It exists to scrutinize the powerful, shine a light on wrongdoing and hold governments to account, but the Australian public is being kept in the dark,” he said in a statement.
Monday’s media protest is aimed at pressuring the government to exempt journalists from laws limiting access to sensitive information.