Cracks in the Foundation of Press Freedom

Strange and bizarre things are happening to the press in the land of Oz.

Australian federal police raided a reporter's home after a story about secret correspondence between government ministries over a plan to expand intelligence agencies’ surveillance powers. and the next day, the newsroom of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, investigating how the broadcaster learned that Australian special forces were being investigated over possible war crimes in Afghanistan.

The New York Times notes that Australian law forbids government officials to disclose classified or secret information. "This is a serious development and raises legitimate concerns over freedom of the press and proper public scrutiny of national security and defense matters,” the broadcaster said.

Freedom House finds the raids occuring in a liberal democracy are part of a downward spiral for press freedoms.

The report's key findings:

• freedom of the media has been deteriorating around the world over the past decade.
• In some of the most influential democracies in the world, populist leaders have overseen concerted attempts to throttle the independence of the media sector.
• While the threats to global media freedom are real and concerning in their own right, their impact on the state of democracy is what makes them truly dangerous.
• Experience has shown, however, that press freedom can rebound from even lengthy stints of repression when given the opportunity. The basic desire for democratic liberties, including access to honest and fact-based journalism, can never be extinguished.

The report comes at the same time that an American president routinely refers to reporters as the enemy of the American people, disputes anything he doesn't like as fake news and  threatened to punish reporters and others who say things he doesn't like.

I know from personal experience that ordinary people seem much more willing to challenge the reasons and motivations for stories. It has become almost routine for people to to believe reporters have an agenda, a reason for reporting stories that they don't like or don't believe. I don't know how this ends.