A proposal from news publishers including News Limited, Fairfax Media and APN to dramatically slash the Australian Press Council’s budget would seriously hamper its vital work in handling ethics complaints and lobbying Government on press freedom issues. Click Read more for a detailed look at the issues.

Is the Australian Press Council in danger of becoming irrelevant?
By Alan Kennedy

When the Press Council was formed, the dominant players in the media landscape were the big print organisations, Fairfax, News Ltd, The Herald and Weekly Times, The West Australian and ACP. They accounted for most of the daily, weekly and monthly media consumption for Australians, so the concentration of the Council on print was logical. It was logical, too, that fees should be based on circulation, as this provided a reasonably accurate gauge of what was going on, as well as a nexus between the size of the contribution and the circulation numbers.

But this is rapidly falling apart. Since the Council’s formation, there have been significant mergers and acquisitions, which have concentrated the media into fewer groups putting out fewer publications. At the same time, circulations of mainstream publications are in decline.

If we believe that the US market is a guide, we are seeing newspapers fail at an alarming rate and many are switching to an online-only version. Press Council, has only one power: to hear a complaint and issue an adjudication which the complained-about publication is obliged to publish. It can't hear complaints about print publications which are not members. It has no role to play when it comes to television or radio  journalism.

Even Council's limited role to police its own members is under challenge, if the latest musings from The West Australian and a recent editorial in The Australian on the use of the term “illegals” to describe asylum seekers are anything to go by.

That is the limited landscape in which the Council now operates.

Outside of this, the Internet has seen an explosion of online media, from serious to frivolous and something in between. Most of it is unregulated. All newspapers have an online presence which we assume to be part of our remit, but it is not guaranteed.

Television stations have online websites which look like a newspaper website but which we may or may not have some authority over.

Television journalism is policed by the broadcasting authority (ACMA) using prescribed and clunky procedures which lack the speed that the Press Council can bring to complaints.

Much of this is because a complaint to ACMA over some piece of journalism can put a network’s licence in play, so the networks approach complaints seriously. Lawyers become involved and a simple complaint that we could deal with in a single meeting can go on for months, sometimes years.

The ABC and SBS have internal complaint mechanisms, which most would agree satisfy no-one. They can’t escape from the prevailing view that the police are policing themselves.

But as circulations shrink and budgets come under pressure, it is not surprising that the annual “fee” is up for debate. Reductions may be sought and we can expect that to become more common.

Quite rightly, the newspapers could come to the view that in the big wide world of converged media, they are the only ones subject to any control over what they do. They pay money for the privilege of fronting up and getting an adverse finding from the Council, which they are then are obliged to run in their newspaper.
Meanwhile, out in the wild west of the unregulated Internet, anarchy prevails.

So we are faced with a forecast of declining revenue base at a time when we are busier than ever.

The logical outcome of this is a zero sum game, where our fees reach a stage where they are insufficient to support even a modest secretariat. As members would appreciate, we don’t have a lavish secretariat at the moment. They perform an amazing role, pulling together complaints, as well as responding to things such as privacy, FOI, defamation and free press issues generally.

The fear is that we are sitting like bunnies in the spotlight, waiting for the truck to run us down.

The Press Council’s place in the world

At the moment, we are looking more and more like a rump body fighting above our weight, largely on the strength of our public advocacy on the big freedom-of-speech issues. It could be argued that our core role of handling complaints is not recognised as much as it should be by the public. Looking at complainants, it is still not clear whether we are no more than a sounding board for special-interest groups. Have we cut through to the public? Can we claim that there is no need for Government regulation in the matter of the media and privacy because we have it under control?
A public awareness campaign would be useful.
Will our major stakeholders want to hang around being the only whipping boys on the block, while anarchy prevails elsewhere?

Expansion of the Press Council

Before embarking on what would be an expansion of the Council’s role, we would have to establish some ground rules. ACMA and its political masters would need to publicly and, preferably in writing, cede powers to us in the relevant areas, so we would have unfettered right to the online news sites, television and radio news. The ABC and SBS would have to publicly, and in writing, hand over their policing powers to us.
Our “selling point” is the ability to turn complaints around quickly. We are experienced in managing complaints and we have a track record of being critical of constituent members, although that criticism does not come with any sort of punitive penalty. We have a robust contribution from our public members which many in the industry and our critics do not acknowledge. In some influential circles we are seen as a cozy publishers club driven only by self interest.
 
Potential revenue streams

We could levy fees from new members, based on circulation for newspapers, readership (based on an empirical system such as clicks) for online publications and audience share for television and radio.
For online publications, which don’t have a high traffic flow, we could come up with a system similar to the Standards Association tick which is keenly sought by companies wanting to give their products credibility.
We have “street cred”, built up over the past decade. For a fee, we could offer a Press Council tick, logo etc to online companies which subscribe to our principles and agree to be part of the complaints procedure. The selling attraction is that, as online news sites become more prevalent, they will be seeking some way to establish a point of difference between a credible site (Crikey.com.au, for example) and one drummed up in the garage of a bunch of anarchists. A Press Council logo could be the badge of credibility that provides the demarcation.
The fee for this badging would be based on a formula to be worked out.

Interim funding

It is clear that as our budget is already under pressure, a “marketing plan” would have to be discretely funded. Also, we would have to expand the secretariat markedly to cope with the influx of new “business” and also to bring in people with expertise in television, radio and online. We would need extra members on Council, which could make it unwieldy when it sits as a Council body.
At this stage, for expansion of the Press Council into a general media council, two funding models come to mind:
● A levy raised on the constituent members to fund marketing and the expansion of the secretariat.
● Government funding – not as scary as it sounds. We have a good case to put to Government about the role of self regulation in the media and could ask for interim funding to cover the cost of marketing and setting up of the secretariat. This would not be ongoing and the secretariat would have to self-fund in the future.
As public members have made such a positive contribution over the past 10 years, consideration should be given to expanding their role, which would give Council far more credibility in the eyes of politicians and the general public. This would counter the perception that Press Council is a self-interested group protecting its mates. That view still has currency among the public, some media commentators and certainly politicians, who are masters at  protecting their self interest.

Alan Kennedy is a past president of the Alliance, has worked as a journalist for 40 years and is a member of the Alliance Federal Council, the Walkley Advisory Board and the Australian Press Council