The Greens have today said the Morrison Government\u2019s Media Code plan is incomplete, calling on the government to include the public broadcasters in the Mandatory Code, ensure the survival of the AAP newswire and protect smaller players.
\nAustralian Greens Spokesperson for Communications and Media Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has said any Code must protect public broadcasting and public interest journalism.
\n\u201cThe ABC is Australia\u2019s most trusted news source and should be included in any reform to tackle the greed of the big tech giants.\u00a0 It was a deliberate decision to lock the public broadcasters out of the draft code, allowing\u00a0Facebook and Google to profit from their content for free – the Government should reverse this and drop their relentless attack on the ABC.
\n\u201cThe power and greed of the tech giants is threatening journalism and public access to news. The government\u2019s mandatory ACCC code could be part of the solution but the draft needs fixing and additional measures brought to the table.
\n\u201cAustralia\u2019s media landscape is facing unprecedented challenges. Public interest journalism, reliable local news and trustworthy and informed analysis is essential for a robust and accountable democracy. \u00a0The power imbalance between the big tech giants and Australian news organisations is unsustainable.
\n\u201cIt is therefore important that key parts of Australia\u2019s media landscape are protected as part of this process.\u00a0 There is no reason for the ABC and SBS to be excluded from the Code. Public broadcasters deserve a fair return for what they produce and what the tech platforms benefit from.
\n\u201cAt the same time it is important that Australia\u2019s fact based independent newswire service is supported. It would be unconscionable for the Government not to find a way of supporting AAP while introducing a code that supports other media players. AAP is key media infrastructure that helps new players into the market and diversity across Australia\u2019s media landscape.
\n\u201cThe ACCC\u2019s draft Mandatory Code must guarantee simple and cost effective benefits for small and independent media players, through effective collective bargaining arrangements.
\n\u201cIf the aim of this code is to ensure the viability of Australia\u2019s media, then the Government should ensure ABC is included, that AAP doesn\u2019t fail and that small and independent publishers don\u2019t miss out.
\n\u201cPublic interest journalism is under threat in Australia, whether it be from funding cuts to the ABC, loss of advertising revenue for commercial outlets or the threat of heavy-handed police action that we have seen lately. The Greens\u2019 changes would see the mandatory code go some way to protecting public interest journalism in Australia.
\n\u201cThe Greens reserve our final position on the Mandatory Code until we have seen the legislation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Greens have today said the Morrison Government\u2019s Media Code plan is incomplete, calling on the government to include the public broadcasters in the Mandatory Code, ensure the survival of the AAP newswire and protect smaller players. Australian Greens Spokesperson for Communications and Media Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has said any Code must protect public broadcasting … Continue reading “Greens call for ABC and SBS to be included in News Media Code”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}