LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: And a short time ago News Limited's group editorial director Campbell Reid joined me in Sydney.

Campbell Reid thanks for joining us. Let's take a look at the front page of one of your publications today - Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper - likening Stephen Conroy to despots, dictators and mass murderers: Stalin, Mao, Castro, Kim, Mugabe, Ahmadinejad. So, your organisation is quite comfortable journalistic standards like fairness and accuracy is it?

CAMPBELL REID, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, NEWS LIMITED: I don't accept that. The point that the Daily Telegraph was making, in a vigorous tabloid way, which is how tabloids operate, that like those people, Stephen Conroy believes that Government intervention in a free press is acceptable. That's the point it's making; it's not likening them to any of the other crimes and misdemeanours, it very clearly says that. So that is a provocative tabloid presentation of an incredibly provocative act by a Government - the first Government outside of wartime in our country's history to impose media oversight by the Government.

LEIGH SALES: I'll come to the specifics of what they're doing in a moment. Inside that paper it depicts Stephen Conroy as channelling Joseph Stalin. You say that there are similarities in the way these people wanted to control media and what Stephen Conroy is doing. Let's talk about the way Joseph Stalin controlled people who circulated information that was counter to what he wanted to do: they were rounded up, they were tortured, they were imprisoned in their millions, they were executed in public executions, so are you really doing...

CAMPBELL REID: Do you seriously think a reader of the Daily Telegraph thinks that we're accusing Stephen Conroy of... next step to be rounding up people. We're making the point about the freedom of speech...

LEIGH SALES: Perhaps now, but are you doing your readers a service in presenting the facts in an impartial manner so that they can make up their minds?

CAMPBELL REID: No, we're not! We're absolutely not. This is a tabloid newspaper in a robust free society. If you don't like the position that is taken - and many of our readers and other readers don't - you don't have to consume it, you don't have to agree and, gee, if you want to complain you can complain.

LEIGH SALES: So tabloid newspapers don't have to adhere to the same standards of fairness and accuracy as other newspapers?

CAMPBELL REID: Um... this is provocative... I reject that it's unfair, and I reject that it's inaccurate.

LEIGH SALES: Has News Limited...

CAMPBELL REID: There's a difference between provocation and inaccuracy and unfairness, and if we're thinking that really what we need in Australian society is a tort of politeness, and a shut-down media where you're not allowed to be provocative, you're not allowed to be interesting, you're not allowed to be...

LEIGH SALES: You can be provocative and interesting; you just can't be blatantly unfair in terms of saying... well, Joseph Stalin didn't pop up legislative packages for people to discuss or to pass through a Parliament, he just rounded up people with opposing views and executed them.

CAMPBELL REID: Yeah. I say again, we're not saying - and the Daily Telegraph is not saying - that we expect Stephen Conroy to be rounding up people. We are saying that he has decided, like those people, that it's OK to have the Government control a free press, and it's OK in his world to demand that a Parliament accept and pass that legislation within effectively one week's working days.

LEIGH SALES: Aren't you doing all of us in the media a disservice by running something like this because it gives critics an opportunity to say, "Well, there you go, that's why the media needs more oversight".

CAMPBELL REID: So... so, under provocation the media has to be very quietly... oh, please don't offend that nice Mr Conroy...

LEIGH SALES: Well, I think fairness and impartiality are a pretty good standard.

CAMPBELL REID: He's well offended... he's well offended before today takes place. This is, you know... so, under... please don't think for a second that an assault, and there's no other... no matter what the Government pretends, this is Government sanctioning of journalism, that's a massively provocative step in Australia and that front page reflects that.

LEIGH SALES: Let me put to you exactly what the Prime Minister said today and ask you to respond to it. She says of these reforms that they're basically to ensure high standard of self-regulation, and that if media companies do that then they remain exempt from the Privacy Act. What's wrong with that?

CAMPBELL REID: Okay, this country has high standards of self-regulated media.

LEIGH SALES: Like this one?

CAMPBELL REID: Absolutely. I have personally with Julian Disney been the architect of a reformed Australian Press Council that has had its funding doubled, it has three roles years rolling funding, it has four years notice of any notice to withdraw, and it absolutely, when it has a ruling - including against the Daily Telegraph - the Daily Telegraph publishes those findings and adjudications precisely to the letter as the Australian Press Council requires. The Australian Press Council oversight over the Australian media is as good if not better than any free society in Australia. To pretend that it isn't I challenge the Prime Minister to give a specific example, specific real examples of where that free regulation and self-regulation is broken down. They have consistently not done that, and still we need oversight of a Government-appointed advocate or whatever you call it.

LEIGH SALES: Stephen Conroy has previously said that the Cabinet and News Limited are at war; is that how News Limited sees it?

CAMPBELL REID: We perceive Senator Conroy to have a deep and abiding distaste for our company. We don't have a deep and abiding distaste for him. We are frankly bewildered at the perceived necessity in a completely free society to impose Government sanctions on free speech.

LEIGH SALES: So what does News Limited intend to do from here? There's a short deadline that Stephen Conroy has imposed for the passage of this legislation; what's your next step?

CAMPBELL REID: We would love the opportunity to send some constructive time with Senator Conroy and have a discussion - time that hasn't been available to us to this point.

LEIGH SALES: Do you think he'll grant it after being likened to Stalin today?

CAMPBELL REID: I have no idea, but our view is it was a terrible situation between us and the Government going into this; that front page doesn't make it worse but let's sit down and have a conversation about it.

LEIGH SALES: Campbell Reid, thank you very much for coming to to join us.

CAMPBELL REID: Pleasure, thank you.