Freedom is fickle: the national disgrace of press freedom, or the lack there of

General October 25th, 2006

Australia comes in 35th on RSF’s freedom of the press list behind countries including Ghana, Lithuania, Bosnia, Cyprus and even New Zealand. It’s a complete and utter national disgrace, but not surprising really, our Federal Government jails journalists for not revealing their sources, video bloggers will shortly potentially need to be licensed to do video online, and libel laws are headed in the wrong direction in terms of the publics right to know. We should be top of this list! Of course, you won’t read much about it in the MSM either, after all, we all know about the great relationships our media owners have with the Government. It really is a sad day when you realise that your own country isn’t as free as it once was, nor should be.


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Comments

  1. 1
    Paull Young
    October 25th, 2006 at 9:17 am

    Well said Duncan.

    It is a disgrace, and we really should be happy with nothing but first place on this list.

  2. 2
    Mr Angry
    October 26th, 2006 at 7:02 am

    Duncan, do you have any more info on the prospect of vloggers needing to be licensed? I hadn’t heard about that.

  3. 3
    duncan
    October 26th, 2006 at 7:31 am

    http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/06/036233
    for streaming video, but I also recall earlier than this the government talking about licensing online video in the same way as TV stations are licensed: the theory went that both a broadcasters. I cant find a direct link but in this:
    http://www.refused-classification.com/internet_06-05to05.htm
    there’s Coonan talking about the Government considering licensing online video:

    Going forward, it is our clear objective to regulate as little as possible anything that is a general internet stream or service. The rationale behind wanting to think about licensing was really to make sure that consumers had—and I think consumers would want this—a level of confidence and comfort in the government having at least some kind of potential ability to supervise if somebody wanted to set up, for instance, a pornography television channel or a terrorist training television channel.

    So maybe I jumped the gun a little bit, they were thinking about it, and given all the ho-ha with the recent media changes with any luck they’ve either forgotten about it, or dropped it as an idea altogether (touch wood) :-)

  4. 4
    Green
    April 25th, 2007 at 6:32 pm

    Hi Sam! Photos i send on e-mail.
    Green

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