Media regulation is ‘bad for democracy'

This article was published in The Australian 16 July 2011

GOVERNMENT regulation of newspapers would be bad for democracy and was completely unnecessary in Australia, former editor of The Age and former Press Council member Mike Smith said yesterday.

His views were supported by one of the country's leading ethicists, Simon Longstaff, who said government regulation would not improve ethical standards of journalists and could pose a threat to press freedom.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland yesterday ruled out new laws to regulate the media, a day after Greens leader Bob Brown called for greater regulation of newspapers as part of a proposed broad-ranging inquiry into media, ownership, regulation and ethics.