Outgoing Australian Press Council chair Julian Disney says selective leaking has ‘chilling effect’ on freedom of the press, but is ignored as a threat





News organisations who are too close to governments and rely on selective leaks are having “chilling effects” on the freedom of the press, outgoing Australian Press Council (APC) chair Julian Disney has said.



“A government repeatedly giving a closely aligned publication advance access to key information and policies, ahead of other media and the general public” and “a government leaking details of an impending announcement to a particular publication” were examples of what Disney said were largely-ignored dangers lurking in the Australian media.

Freedom should not be “largely the preserve of powerful interests in government, business or the ranks of publishers,” Disney said in a wide-ranging address to the National Press Club on Wednesday. “These powerful interests also should not use their freedom of speech to gravely damage – even destroy – other people’s freedom of speech.”

Disney, who has come under strong and sustained attack from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp newspapers during the last year of his tenure, spoke out against publications who sought to intimidate those who disagreed with them.

Without naming any media companies, Disney railed against newspapers that “repeatedly and seriously” misrepresented what a person said and repeatedly “abused or intimidated” a person with whose views it disagrees. He said a publication could not be an advocate of free speech while abusing other people’s freedom of speech.

“If a publication repeatedly and flagrantly engages in these kinds of practices, can it credibly portray itself as a supporter of free speech?” he said. “Or is it only a supporter of free speech for people with whom it agrees or from whom it seeks support?”

Last year the Australian newspaper, Rupert Murdoch’s broadsheet, called the APC under Disney “erratic” and a “censor-in-chief”. It seemed to be threatening to withdraw from the council, saying: “It may now be time to consider a new body.”

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But Disney mounted a strong defence of the work of the 23-person council which he said was independent even from him and occasionally made some adjudications he personally did not agree with.

The strengthening of the council under Disney included a requirement that newspapers advertise the council’s complaints-handling role in every issue.

“This partly explains why the number of complaints has risen by over 50%,” he said. “Some complaints are made by a number of separate complainants and during the last six months of 2014 the total number of new complainants exceeded 3,000.”

Disney argued that the council should strengthen its role even further by investigating more breaches of standards before receiving a formal complaint.

The assertion is likely to attract more criticism from News Corp before he stands down on 28 February.

Despite a series of critical articles in the Australian, the council, which includes Fairfax Media, Crikey, and AAP, stood by the chairman and labelled the Australian’s reports “misleading”. Both the Australian and its parent company News Corp remain members of the council.

Disney said digital competition had damaged standards of accuracy, fairness and privacy but the quality of many print and online articles had “benefited greatly from the wider and faster access to information and opinions which digital media has made possible”.

He referred to a prevalence of front page news and big stories not backed up by the facts, and loaded language.

“The council has long expressed concern about the unfairness of headlines and opening sentences which strongly assert facts or opinions that are not supported by the accompanying text but are likely to be left as the lasting impressions in the minds of many readers,” he said.

“Sometimes they may reflect editors’ commercial or political concerns rather than the perspectives of the relevant journalist and article.

“Some prominent columnists can adeptly express strong opinions in ways which are highly likely to be read as indisputable facts yet are indisputably inaccurate or misleading.”

The speed and lack of constraint of social media had strengthened the pressure on publishers to abandon standards on, for example, publishing the names of those who had been killed before their family had been notified or printing graphic photographs, Disney said.