Misinformation bill equals censorship to suit the big end of town

Committee on 11/10/2024

Environment and Communications Legislation Committee 

Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024

Senator RENNICK: How much money does the federal government pay free-to-air TV each year for advertising?

Ms Flannery : I don’t think either one of us can answer that question—Larina because she only acts for Nine, and myself because FreeTV doesn’t collect that information.

Senator RENNICK: That’s fine. Let’s assume it’s in the millions of dollars. Would it be fair to assume there’s an inherent conflict of interest between what the mainstream media report as news and what the government wants reported as news, given mainstream media relies on government for a significant part of its advertising revenue?

Ms Alick : There’s no conflict whatsoever on the part of the journalists or their editorial teams. The reason is that, regardless of advertising spend, a journalist will still follow a story, and the publishers and broadcasters will still publish those stories even if they are critical of the government—especially, I would submit, if they are critical of the government. There are internal mechanisms regarding journalistic integrity and editorial decisions where those commercial considerations do not come into play.

Senator RENNICK: That contradicts what I’ve been told by producers at your network and at other networks, commercial networks, who have been told they haven’t been allowed to report what they’ve wanted to report. They’ve had to run it by lawyers, and they’ve been threatened by commercial interests. I’ll come back to it. I disagree with your assertion there is no conflict of interest. If you’re receiving money from the government in the form of advertising revenue, there is inherent conflict of interest. That’s not to impute that every one of your journalists will be ‘bought off’, but do you accept there is a risk of pressure and peer pressure because the government can exert influence because of that advertising?

Ms Alick : I would say no.

Senator RENNICK: You don’t think there has ever been a situation whereby commercial interests—where accountants or CFOs have come and said: ‘We’ve got this big advertising contract from the government. We need to tell our journalists to not go there because it’s going to be a bad look’? That’s never happened?

Ms Alick : Not that I’m aware of.

Senator RENNICK: I’m aware of it.

Ms Alick : My understanding is the government’s spend on advertising is not so great as to have any influence whatsoever on our reporting on government matters. I can turn to every story we’ve written about the government for the last decade to show that that’s not the case. We are highly critical of the government, with respect, because that is our role as the fourth estate. There’s no reason why any journalist would think there may be some money in the accounting department that puts pressure on them to not run a story.

Senator RENNICK: No, sorry—it’s not the journalist who’s receiving the money. I’m not for a minute suggesting that. The journalist is being pressured by their producers. This is what I’ve encountered on a number of occasions—I’ll say fewer than five, but it’s happened three or four times. They have been unable to publish a story because they’ve been told by their producers not to publish it, and that’s been due to direct pressure either from commercial interests or from government interests.

Ms Alick : There can be commercial interests and government interests that fight a story being run, but I don’t believe the advertising spend of the government with that broadcaster or publisher has ever been a factor taken into account—not in my experience. There are certainly defamation threats that we take into account. There are other threats of people ceasing to cooperate with us as a source of future stories if we run a story today that’s negative about them. Those pressures are to be expected, but they don’t relate to the government’s spend on advertising.

Senator RENNICK: Do you accept that there’s an inherent conflict of interest in this bill in that it suits your agenda because, if you can shut down digital platforms, they are a direct competition to mainstream media?

Ms Alick : I think the purpose of the bill is to stop deliberate misinformation and disinformation. That’s not something that, obviously, the news organisations engage in, and it’s not something those platforms engage in. My understanding is that this was always directed at members of the public spreading misinformation and disinformation.

Senator RENNICK: That’s the problem because the definition of ‘misinformation and disinformation’ is arbitrary. It’s decided by the government, which has the power to revoke your licence, I might add, and which spends millions of dollars in advertising revenue. So they are a client of yours. There is inherent conflict of interest in this bill that is going to favour the big end of town and has the potential to silence people—they will be either deplatformed on social media or have their feeds pushed down. And, unfortunately, the individuals who are subscribers to these digital platforms don’t have the power to actually have any right of appeal with the digital platform. So it’s all very well, with this bill, saying, ‘We’re not going to go after the individuals.’ They don’t have to because the digital platforms will, and they’re all based overseas. Do you not accept that there’s the risk in this bill for censorship to suit the big end of town?

Ms Alick : I think there’s a risk in this bill of censorship, but who it benefits I’m not sure. I can’t speak for all the broadcasters, but I certainly understand that our primary position is that this bill should not be passed. Our primary position is that this bill is censorship. But, if this bill were passed, there should at least be an exception for the news organisations who are trusted news sources in this country, because to use this bill to censor journalism would, in our submission, be a mistake.