Even an online site read just by your relatives is threatened

Andrew Bolt Saturday, March 03, 2012 at 09:21am

A government-funded policeman for the media. What could possibly go wrong - I mean, apart from the murder of free speech and the death of dissent?

PRINT and online news will come under direct federal government oversight for the first time under proposals issued yesterday to create a statutory regulator with the power to prosecute media companies in the courts.

The historic change to media law would break with tradition by using government funds to replace an industry council that acts on complaints, in a move fiercely opposed by companies as a threat to the freedom of the press.

The proposals, issued yesterday by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, also seek to widen the scope of federal oversight to cover print, online, radio and TV within a single regulator for the first time.

Bloggers and other online authors would also be captured by a regime applying to any news site that gets more than 15,000 hits a year, a benchmark labelled seriously dopey by one site operator.

The head of the review, former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein, rejected industry warnings against setting up a new regulator under federal law with funding from government.

It is so shameful, so embarrassing, so astonishing that this kind of thing is now proposed in Australia. It is a fundamental attack on one of the most charming, important and enduring characteristics of Australia - the tradition of free speech that has nurtured the larrikin and the teller of unpopular truths. That has exposed charlatans and tormented politicians too full of their self-importance.

Yet complacency rules in those too close to power. For instance, ABC favorite Alan Kohler is certain that people with his own outlook will get to define and suppress bad journalism:

PUBLISHERS and practitioners of quality journalism should have nothing to fear from regulation, as it provides a distinction between serious journalism and the foot-in-door end of the market, one independent publisher says in response to the Finkelstein review.

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Even an online site read just by your relatives is threatened