Greens leader Bob Brown came out swinging against the Australian media yesterday, claiming the industry was being ''precious'' and ''abandoning the public interest'' with its opposition to a regulator that would police all media.
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''The howls of dismay about this are ridiculous and [they] need to stop abandoning the public interest and look forward to bolstering it,'' Senator Brown said. ''The print media's being a bit too precious here and they want to be exempted from what every other Australian has to do and that is to make sure that if they do a wrong it gets rectified and gets rectified quickly.''
The review into Australia's media, led by former federal court judge Ray Finkelstein, was initiated after the News of the World phone hacking scandal in Britain.
Mr Finkelstein's report, handed down on Friday, recommended a government-funded news media council be established, which would have statutory powers over the media and the power to compel retractions, corrections and apologies - or have recourse to courts.
It would apply to radio, print and broadcast media, including blogs with more than 41 hits a day.
While Mr Finkelstein stressed the establishment of the council was ''not about increasing the power of government or about imposing some form of censorship'', Australia's media industry leaders immediately hit back, saying it could lead to government interference.
National secretary of the Media Entertainment Arts Alliance Christopher Warren said the findings were ''a huge disappointment'' and the report ''fails to understand the way Australia's news media operates''.
Greg Hywood, the chief executive of Fairfax Media (publisher of TheCanberra Times), said yesterday he had seen no evidence in the report there was a problem needing to be solved. ''Ray Finkelstein draws on a range of polls and reports to say that the standing of the media is low,'' Mr Hywood said. ''But making an argument that the media is not popular is irrelevant. We are not here to be popular. We are here to ask the difficult questions and maintain transparency around the political process, key institutions and the social environment in which we live. His recommendation for a statutory body is not warranted. We continue to believe in self-regulation, but of course remain open to discussions to improve this where possible.''
On Friday News Ltd chief executive Kim Williams said the ''spectre of a government-funded overseer of a free press in a … democracy like ours cannot be justified''.
