Opposition spokesman Malcolm Turnbull declared: ''Freedom is at stake, liberty is at stake, democracy is at stake.'' And this from a Liberal Party spokesman whose leader has growled at the ABC about its ''bias'' and about whom the public broadcaster lives in fear of retribution. What is really at stake is how far these special pleaders can get away with their overegged rhetoric. Maybe forgotten in the excitement is the realisation that under the Conroy plan Murdoch's News Ltd will now have its Foxtel pay TV operations subject to a public interest test for mergers and acquisitions. It can't get more shocking than that. The main components of the Minister for Communications' announcement on Tuesday are self-regulating press standards with oversight by a Public Interest Media Advocate; and a public interest test for media mergers and acquisitions.

Some TV ''reach'' provisions are to be referred to a parliamentary committee that is expected to solve something that the free-to-air moguls can't agree on themselves. So, one point at at a time. The main print standards body will still be the industry-run Australian Press Council, although the plan envisages the possibility of competing self-regulatory bodies that are approved or ''declared'' by the Public Interest Media Advocate. The standards or codes of journalistic conduct are the ones that exist at present. The industry will remain self-regulating and no government funding is to be provided. The PIMA would have oversight of the media councils, seeing that they were doing their jobs properly and responding to complaints appropriately.

Where is the threat to free speech, liberty and democracy in that tiddlywinks scheme? The complaints are a bit rum when you consider that historically the press barons fought tooth and nail against the implementation of even an industry-run council. They turned on and off the funding faucet whenever it suited and generally regarded the whole process with disdain. Now the Australian Press Council is being embraced as the rock on which our freedoms are built. Instead of fines and torture as penalties for disobedience proposed by the Finkelstein review, it is now a carrots-and-sticks approach. Journalist exemptions under the Privacy Act would apply only to the media organisations which signed up to a self-regulating press standards body.

How wicked is that? Anyway, just to make sure the show is in safe hands, I'd like to nominate Professor Flint as the inaugural Public Interest Media Advocate. Then there's the cry about a public interest test for media acquisitions and mergers, ostensibly to protect diversity. It never seems to sit well for media companies to be campaigning against ''the public interest'', but this is the place where they have ended up. Sections of the popular media already have a highly developed sense of the public interest. I remember the words of Dulcie Boling, then editor of New Idea, as she explained the ethical struggle that accompanied her decision to be the first to publish portions of the intimate phone conservations between Prince Charles and Mrs Camilla Parker-Bowles.

The ''tampon'' tapes. Dulcie said: ''I agonised very hard over whether or not New Idea should run those tapes. I was personally very offended by some parts of the conversation, but decided people needed to know.'' Underlying the overwrought protests is the deep vein of belief that all is ethically fine with the Australian media. It is pretty close to perfection and anyone saying otherwise is mad. Yet, Dark Arts are practised. To name a few: threatening sources not to speak to rival publications otherwise they'll be ''punished''; misquoting or out of context reporting; blagging (reporters pretending to be someone else); insufficient disclosure by journalists of commercial interests or friendships; the use of private detectives to steal information; bugging celebrities; and the use of ''bogus balance'' techniques. Do you think the Press Council gets anywhere near that stuff? Yet, real threats to freedom of the press thrive unmolested - the courts' dismemberment of the implied constitutional right to free speech, suppression orders, take-down orders, a plaintiff-friendly defamation regime, and harassment with endless unmeritorious complaints from thin-skinned citizens. Richard Ackland is a journalist and a lawyer.

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