14 Regional News Media join the campaign for press freedom
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Australian Community Media joins fight for press freedom and your right to know, The Islander, 21 Oct 19, Today, Australian Community Media joins other media outlets in an unprecedented campaign to defend growing threats to freedom of the press in Australia.
The front pages of all 14 of ACM’s daily newspapers, like other leading newspapers around the country, have been symbolically censored to highlight the need to fight for the public’s right to know in the face of increasing attempts by government and government agencies to suppress information, prosecute whistleblowers and criminalise legitimate public interest journalism.
In your nation’s capital, the front page of The Canberra Times today features a redacted document and asks the question: “When government keeps the truth from you, what are they covering up?” The powerful message is repeated on the front pages of the Newcastle Herald, The Border Mail and, in Victoria, The Courier in Ballarat, The Standard in Warrnambool and the Bendigo Advertiser. Front-page news has also been censored in The Examiner and The Advocate in Tasmania as well as in NSW’s Illawarra Mercury, The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth, The Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga, Bathurst’s Western Advocate, Dubbo’s Daily Liberal and the Central Western Daily in Orange. Australia’s Right to Know, a coalition of leading media organisations and industry groups including ACM, has launched a website, yourrighttoknow.com.au, to illustrate the dangers of increasing federal government secrecy, and to urge Australians to stand up for their right to know. The website showcases public interest journalism that has exposed banking malpractice, neglect and abuse in aged-care homes and the Australian Tax Office’s power to take money out of people’s bank accounts without their knowledge. The #righttoknow campaign will advertise across print, digital, radio and television, including commercials aired for the first time across all TV channels on Sunday night. The campaign follows June’s Australian Federal Police raids on the ABC and the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst. Both media organisations are still awaiting confirmation of whether the journalists targeted will face prosecution. Research commissioned by the media coalition shows that while 87 per cent of Australians value a free and transparent democracy where the public is kept informed, only 37 per cent believe that it’s happening……..https://www.theislanderonline.com.au/story/6447711/its-time-to-fight-for-your-right-to-know/?cs=1777&fbclid=IwAR3Ae84LVpOPIrkyRGTee5XkyFqWCw-3w3aKzN_1B3s34nUVOTD-2yrlMPU |
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