In our last newsletter we mentioned the Friendlyjordies YouTube video covering a leaked recording of the former Deputy Premier of NSW, John Barilaro – also covered by Media Watch. We also mentioned how Chris Hall, in his PhD research, characterises this as ‘platform journalism’. In the past fortnight, we’ve made two policy submissions that deal with the treatment of these evolving forms of journalism.
CMT with our colleague Tim Dwyer from the University of Sydney made a submission to ACMA on its proposed News Measurement Framework, drawing on our work in the Media Pluralism Project. We commended ACMA for its forward-thinking approach in developing a framework that takes account of both media diversity and localism. While we’re strongly supportive of ACMA’s approach, we noted it could be adapted to better recognise newer sources of journalism that make a meaningful contribution to the news ecology. This could include journalism found on YouTube channels. That said, these sources of original journalism need to be considered as part of a separate measure that takes account of the way YouTube and other platforms contribute more generally to the news environment.
We suggested a similar, expanded approach to recognising ‘journalism’ in our submission to the Review of the Privacy Act. This concerns the journalism exemption under the Privacy Act that allows media organisations to avoid the application of the Australian Privacy Principles for their journalism work, providing they commit to alternative privacy standards. In our view, the provision should incorporate a definition of journalism that extends to non-traditional forms of journalism, but the exemption should only be available to those who can demonstrate they are part of a recognised industry standards scheme. A perfunctory ‘commitment’ to follow someone else’s principles should not be enough.
There’s a valid and important public interest justification for the exemption and for the application of alternative principles that better account for the work of journalism. But extending the benefit of the exemption to those who can’t be held to account under a recognised industry standard, with an independent complaints scheme, undermines the rationale for treating news differently to other industries.
You can find our discussion of these aspects and others covered in the two submissions on the policy page of the CMT website.
Derek Wilding, CMT Co-Director