The Government’s press freedom inquiry will only delay urgent changes needed to protect the role of journalists and whistleblowers, says MEAA, the union and industry advocate for Australian media workers.
MEAA, the union for Australia’s journalists, joins with other media organisations today in calling for urgent legal changes to protect press freedom and the public’s right to know.
MEAA said the loss of up to 40 jobs in four newsrooms of the WIN Network in major regional centres in NSW and Queensland (Orange/Dubbo, Albury, Wagga Wagga, and in Queensland’s Wide Bay covering Hervey Bay and Bundaberg) is a devastating blow to public interest journalism in Australia’s regions and highlights a crisis that demands government intervention.
Urgent resolutions moved by MEAA regarding the US indictments against Julian Assange (Urgent Resolution One), and the Australian Federal Police raids on the home of a News Corporation journalists and the offices of the ABC (Urgent Resolution Five) – carried at the International Federation of Journalists’ 30th World Congress at Tunis, June 11-14 2019.
...Two raids by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on journalists and media organisations within the last 24 hours represent a disturbing attempt to intimidate legitimate news journalism that is in the public interest
