10/21/19
Australia’s leading media outlets began a coordinated campaign Monday to protest restrictions on press freedom by blacking out copy on front pages. Monday’s show of unity by competing media outlets came amid mounting concerns about what government critics describe as a culture of secrecy, in which national security legislation has been deployed to deliberately target investigative journalism. In early June, authorities raided the home of News Corp. journalist Annika Smethurst and the offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC), the country’s public broadcaster. Australia ranked far above the United States and Britain in the Press Freedom Index this year, published before the raids occurred. But without a constitutional protection for freedom of speech in Australia, top editors have grown increasingly concerned that authorities could abuse expansive national security legislation to suppress uncomfortable revelations or pressure media outlets.
“Australia is at risk of becoming the world’s most secretive democracy,” David Anderson, the managing director of ABC, said in a statement. Among the media outlets and corporations that support Monday’s press freedom initiative, branded as the “Right to Know Coalition,” are News Corp., ABC, the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), the Guardian and Nine.The raids appeared to be part of an effort to identify journalists’ sources behind multiple sensitive stories. One of the media investigations had revealed plans to extend Australian authorities’ spying powers. Another series exposed allegedly unlawful killings by Australian forces in Afghanistan. The raids could still result in the prosecution of three journalists. Australia has more national security laws than any other country, legal researcher Rebecca Ananian-Welsh wrote in a commentary in June. Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended those laws Sunday, saying his conservative government believed “in the freedom of the press,” but also “in the rule of law and that no one is above it, including me, or anyone else, any journalist or anyone else.”
