2022 in transition

In our final newsletter issue for the year – with half our team in Perth for the JERAA journalism conference! - we revisit four reports we published in 2022.

Below, Michael discusses a new report we’ve just published online and in hard copy – Information Disorder: Lessons from Australia. This is the culmination of the work of the former First Draft team here at UTS. While we've now farewelled Anne, Esther and Stevie, it's great to see their work continue next year as part of the RMIT FactLab.

I then give an update our work on digital platform complaint handling, noting a new report from the ACCC and reflecting on an event we held this week looking at the viability of a digital platform ombud scheme. Monica summarises the first report from our Regional News Media project, then discusses the Ethics in Conflict report.

As well as these reports, our submission to the recently published Review of the News Media Bargaining Code is on our policy page. Treasury’s report has received some media attention over the last week. It recommended the government consider a new mechanism to allow platforms other than Google and Meta to be designated, with additional monitoring, reporting and information-gathering by the ACCC.  Among other aspects covered by the report, there is – in our view – some unfinished business on media standards, an issue we’ll continue to press in 2023. While not recommending legislative amendments at this time, Treasury did note the work the ACMA has started on modernising codes of practices and has flagged this as a possible issue at the time of the next review.

That’s it for 2022. Thanks to Rosa for all her work in making this newsletter happen every fortnight, and to Alexia who provides essential back-up. We’ll return in the new year! 

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Derek Wilding, CMT Co-Director