Address by MEAA Media Federal President Karen Percy at the 2024 Walkley Awards

Following is an edited speech delivered by MEAA Media Federal President Karen Percy to the 69th Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism in Sydney on November 19, 2024.

I want to pay my respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and their rich history and culture dating backs tens of thousands of years here at Tumbalong. We owe much to our nation’s original truthtellers.

I am thrilled to be standing here tonight with the knowledge that Julian Assange is free, he is safe and he is back where he belongs with his family.

The saga against the Wikileaks publisher has exposed the true dangers to media freedom around the world particularly after the US refused to drop espionage charges against him.

Recent events in the US should be sounding alarm bells in our industry. The threats against journalists by the President-elect and the way he and his supporters are talking about punishing news organisations is alarming to say the least.

We can’t accept claims that these are “only jokes” and we cannot assume we are safe from such political extremism here.

The US experience shows how our roles are being undercut, undermined and underappreciated by vast numbers of citizens who prefer unproven, untested policies and slogans no matter how unbelievable they might be.

But we must acknowledge our actions in that eroding of trust with the public, when clicks and what’s trending online dictate news priorities.

A series of reviews and reports in Australia this year have shown racism, sexism and other discriminatory practices are rife in our major news organisations.

Toxic newsrooms, misogynistic behaviour, belittling of the perspectives of diverse staff, and underpaid insecure work hardly make ideal environments for excellence in journalism.

But instead of seeking to blame and punish journalists we should be looking at the bad business models and exploitative practices of media organisations.

The challenges facing journalists working within these outlets are a symptom of what’s wrong in our industry, not the cause.

Ethical, public interest journalism is severely compromised without safe and secure workplaces.

That’s why MEAA’s Journalist Code of Ethics is so important to the work we are all doing. The code turned 80 this year – quite the milestone in an industry where disruption prevails.

It calls for fairness, honesty, independence and respect for the rights of others.

We don’t need more regulation and more codes, we need a simpler system. It’s already an opaque maze of rules that fails to serve the public. Adding more layers and a system dictated by those who don’t understand modern day journalism, and the way the gig economy has forever changed how we do journalism, is not the way to a sustainable industry.

The regimes across the world where governments or their proxies dictate who can be a journalist and who cannot, are not to be admired or copied.

Journalists are the rightful protectors of journalism. It’s not up to politicians, bureaucrats, PR lobbyists, lawyers or other special interest groups who have little experience of the current news ecosphere to be making these decisions.

Now is not the time for the pre-emptive buckle. Now is not the time to go softly softly. Now is the time to stand together, to hold our nerve, to push back on the inevitable attacks on the news media, to actually hold the powerful to account. To fight for the public’s right to know.

It will be uncomfortable. It will be hard. But that is the job.