A report on the state of the Australian media says press freedom is being stifled by a raft of unnecessary secrecy laws.

The latest of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance's annual reviews of press freedom was launched in Sydney last night.

It says there have been some welcome reforms in recent years both to Freedom of Information and journalist shield laws.

Read the full report here.

But it points out there are more than 500 secrecy provisions which criminalise making government information public.

"Many of these secrecy provisions are just kind of added in as a bit of a meaningless persiflage in the legislation," MEAA federal secretary Chris Warren said.

"But in accumulation they create a climate of secrecy which means people can't know what's going on in their society."

Mr Warren says the Government needs to address this urgently.

"Understanding that the public's got a right to know, that information that is held by the government is not the government's information, it's the people's information," he said.

The report also highlights that Australia has slipped from 18 to 30 in a list of international press rankings compiled by Reporters Without Borders because of limited access to detention centres, and the prospect of greater regulation following the Finkelstein inquiry into the media.