Australia

@Joshi
Disagreements are fine, more than fine, they are needed if we are to understand where we stand on issues and why we do so.

My thinking is that the fourth estate should not be ‘muzzled’ by laws in what it produces as ‘editorials’ and ‘opinion pieces’ because that would be ‘censorship’. Australia has a history with govt censorship and we really don’t want to go back there (plenty of detail on the internet if interested).

Such opinions and editorials are not, of course, beyond the laws as they stand today. This is why liable cases are brought against journalists and their agencies from time to time (even if the legal system is somewhat skewed to favour the well-off, ie. those who can afford the usurious legal fees). That works fine up to a point. In my opinion, access to the legal system should be broadened to cover those aggrieved but too poor to litigate. Everyone should have received an education which equips them to know the difference between news (the reporting of a factual event) and editorails and opinions ( as well as infomercials, copyadvertising, puff pieces, fiction and propaganda).

As for the last of these, propaganda, we only need to strengthen our electoral laws to cover it, at the expense of extremist political groups if needs be. The benchmark being ‘factual truth’, subject to litigation, in political advertising. More work for govt here.

As for ‘news reporting’, the only culprit for the lies ‘reported’ are those who originally spoke them or performed them. In an open democracy you would not want to censor that (even if the reporters are slack and don’t put in the work to point out the fallacies, lies and misdirections in the items they are reporting on - that’s another issue altogether). Maybe there needs to be more that journalism as an oversight body ought to do to bring rogue reporters to heal (something like the medical profession does, or the govt does with respect to trade registration regulators).

Last, we all know that the nearer to a monopoly an enterprise is the worse off everyone else will be. And here our govt out to have the power to break up these monopolistic empires (aka Murdock and quite a few others). Divestiture legislation ought to be supported by all our representatives in Parliament ( those that won’t, do not have our social and financial interests in mind - one then wonders what the F** they are doing in Parliament in the first place, but that’s another story to tell).

Happy to read your own thoughts on this. Apologies for the length of this toot.

BTW, for the trolls out there reading this (you know who you are) present your arguments without attacking the person and you’ll get a lot more out of your ‘doom scrolling’.

#journalism #corporatemedia #censorship #auspol #Murdockcracy