ABC Chair Ita Buttrose calls for media reform

The Chair of the ABC, Ita Buttrose, has urged the new Labor government to strengthen the legal protections of whistleblowers and called for reform of the nation’s defamation laws.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose. Picture: Ryan Osland

ABC chair Ita ­Buttrose has urged the new Labor government to strengthen the legal protections of whistleblowers and called for reform of the nation’s defamation laws, as part of its pre-election commitment to enhance press freedom.

Delivering the annual Andrew Olle media lecture in Sydney on Friday night, Ms Buttrose also warned that “national security” must not be allowed to stand in the way of the media’s right to expose “uncomfortable truths” – a role that is even more pronounced in the social media era.

“Social media is hugely influential. While false information for political purposes is nothing new, today too many people take Facebook or Twitter as gospel,” she said.

“The social media business model favours fracturing people’s attention, cultivating division and encouraging extremism for clicks and kicks.”

The ABC chair said the government needs to play a key role in maintaining, and improving, the legislative frameworks that allow a free press to successfully operate in Australia.

“Clear positive opportunities to enhance press freedom must include reforms to protect whistleblowers; a commitment to ensure that national security is not used as an excuse to avoid disclosing uncomfortable truths, and; reforms to defamation laws to protect journalists going about their vital work,” Ms Buttrose said.

But she also challenged media professionals to reflect upon their own work as a way of upholding the industry’s standards.

“We must always be honest with ourselves. It is important that we step back from time to time to examine our own conscience,” she said.

“I pose this question tonight: Are we of the media as critical of ourselves as we should be?

“Can we be proud of the standards we set and what we produce?”

Ms Buttrose, who spoke of her long career in the media – starting as a 15-year-old copy girl on The Australian Women’s Weekly in 1957 – said the key tenets of journalism have never changed.

“It is never about lecturing the public on what they should think. Good journalism is about reporting, just the facts – not opinion.

“Stories that are backed by evidence and take a fair and impartial point of view.”