Author’s note: This article first appeared on our old site in 2013. It has been updated to include the discussion on algorithms.
Democracy does not begin at the ballot box
Long before a vote is cast, citizens must decide what they believe to be true. They must understand the issues, evaluate competing arguments, scrutinise those seeking power, and determine whose interests are being served. The health of any democracy therefore depends upon one essential ingredient: access to diverse and independent sources of information.
When that diversity disappears, democracy begins to weaken.
Australia today has one of the most concentrated media landscapes in the democratic world. A small number of corporations dominate newspapers, television networks, radio stations, and digital news platforms. While these organisations undoubtedly perform important journalistic work, concentration of ownership inevitably narrows the range of voices that shape public debate.
The problem is not simply bias. Every journalist, editor, and publisher brings perspectives and assumptions to their work. The greater danger is uniformity.
When ownership is concentrated, stories may be selected through similar editorial lenses. Certain issues receive extensive coverage while others struggle for attention. Political narratives can become entrenched. Public discussion risks becoming less a marketplace of ideas and more an echo chamber managed by a handful of powerful gatekeepers.
This is where independent media becomes essential.
Independent publishers, community outlets, citizen journalists, and not-for-profit news organisations perform a role that large media corporations often cannot. They are more willing to challenge consensus views, investigate neglected stories, and ask uncomfortable questions of those in power.
History demonstrates that major political scandals are frequently exposed not by institutions defending the status quo but by individuals willing to challenge it.
Independent media serves as a democratic safety valve. It ensures that stories which may be inconvenient to governments, corporations, political parties, or major media organisations themselves can still find an audience.
In Australia, this role has become increasingly important.
Traditional newsrooms have experienced decades of budget cuts, staff reductions, and regional closures. Many local communities have become “news deserts,” with little or no dedicated local reporting. As corporate media seeks profitability in an increasingly difficult market, investigative journalism often becomes an expensive luxury.
Independent media has stepped into that gap.
Across Australia, smaller publishers have exposed political controversies, scrutinised government decisions, highlighted social injustices, and amplified voices that would otherwise remain unheard. Their work often reaches audiences that feel disconnected from mainstream reporting.
Critics sometimes dismiss independent media as partisan or activist. Certainly, some outlets have strong viewpoints. Yet the same criticism can be directed toward sections of the mainstream media. The solution is not to silence independent voices but to encourage a broader diversity of voices across the entire media landscape.
Democracy is strengthened when citizens can compare multiple perspectives and reach their own conclusions.
The digital age has made this both easier and more difficult.
On one hand, anyone can publish information online. On the other, algorithms increasingly determine what people see. Social media platforms reward outrage, sensationalism, and engagement rather than accuracy or public value. The result is a fragmented information environment in which misinformation can spread rapidly.
In this environment, genuinely independent journalism becomes more important than ever.
Independent media outlets that maintain editorial standards, verify facts, and remain accountable to their audiences provide an alternative to both corporate concentration and algorithm-driven content. They offer something increasingly rare: journalism that exists primarily to inform rather than to maximise shareholder returns or social media engagement.
This is not an argument against mainstream media. Australia needs strong public broadcasters, commercial news organisations, local newspapers, and independent publishers alike. Democracy benefits from all of them.
The danger arises when any single group becomes so dominant that alternative voices struggle to survive.
A healthy democracy resembles a healthy ecosystem. Diversity creates resilience. Monocultures may appear efficient, but they are inherently fragile. When a single narrative dominates public discourse, errors go unchallenged, blind spots expand, and accountability diminishes.
Independent media provides the diversity that democracy requires.
It asks questions others will not ask. It investigates stories others overlook. It gives a platform to voices that might otherwise be excluded from public debate.
Most importantly, it reminds those who wield power that someone is always watching.
As Australians confront increasingly complex challenges – from housing affordability and cost-of-living pressures to foreign policy, climate change, and the future of democratic institutions – the need for independent journalism has never been greater.
Democracy cannot survive on a single voice.
It requires many voices, many perspectives, and many questions.
That is why independent media is not merely a supplement to Australian democracy.
It is one of its last lines of defence.
Also by Michael Taylor
From Protest to Power: Polling momentum is one thing… running a country is another
Pauline Hanson and the Global Populist Wave: Lessons for Australia
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Perhaps it is time to break up the Murdochcracy Media Manipulation Monopoly. It is a foreign owned multinational corporation acting against the best interests of Australian citizens because of the Murdoch family vendetta against OUR ABC and their on-going ”death by a thousand funding cuts” plus infiltration of recruiting at all levels of both management and news reporting by individuals shown to be sympathetic to the demise of OUR ABC.
The concentration of media reporting is seen across the world when you watch SBS television overnight. The same news reels appear on France 24, DW Germany and OUR ABC. The reporting of TACO Trumpery’s latest outbursts show very little editing differences and only the official propaganda commentary.
To discover the meaning of these TACO outbursts requires access to objective analysis found on independent media like AIMN, Pearls & Irritations, MWM where the authors frequently are widely and/or long experienced practitioners in the subject field.
The real meaning, not the guesses of professional scribblers, who have been required to regurgitate the propaganda release to have a career, or are willingly committed to insuring that the worst aspects of capitalism are imposed upon voters in the vain hope that they are part of the solution rather than the cause of the problem.
The inclusion of algorithms has further weakened independent publishing and concentrated power in the hands of a few individuals; 1984 is just around the corner.
Yeah, nah Cocky, 1984 is in the rear view mirror.
Twenty thousand journalist jobs disappeared betwqeen the late 1980’s and now, a handful of media cartels dominate as ad revenue dies because of social media’s rise plus the rabid pro right bias print, radio and TV. support independents so they prosper to reverse the propaganda, omission, evasion, bias, hate and racism now spouted
Hello, Mark. I know your name. Are you a cricket writer?
Has the bloke in the photo got three hands?Or is it just spot the difference joke?
Good pickup, Harry. I’m sure Michael won’t mind me removing it.
Agreed NEC, well said.
News Ltd, or should we say Limited News, is an ill inflicted on society. That the UK, USA and Australia don’t do anything about it is nuts, it’s just plain crazy.
Australia has the 2nd worst concentration of media ownership in the world.
The dissenting report from the Murdoch Media Inquiry Bill 2023:
This year, Australian media has faced a reckoning, while also confronting an existential crisis. The Fourth Estate is grappling with its place in modern society. It is trying to adjust to the growing dominance of social media as a news source and its cannibalisation of the ad market. It continues to face accusations of racism, sexism and misogyny in its newsrooms and reporting, and there is a growing mistrust of mainstream media in the community. There is no greater time than right now for a Royal Commission into the state of the Australian media.
1.2The majority report notes submitters to this Inquiry were ‘overwhelmingly in favour of an inquiry into the current state of media diversity, the conduct of media outlets in Australia and their impact on our democracy, with a particular focus on the Murdoch media’.[1] From academics and media experts, to members of the public, to public interest journalism organisations, and the group Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission, the support and the persuasive evidence was provided in spades.
1.3This evidence supports and mirrors what the Senate Inquiry into Media Diversity heard, which led it to recommending a Commission of Inquiry. That Senate inquiry came off the back of a range of issues with the Murdoch Media—ranging from climate change denialism, to campaigns targeting women, and their bias reporting in favour of a conservative government both here and overseas.
1.4During the course of that inquiry, the 2019–20 summer bushfires, fuelled by the climate crisis, devastated millions of hectares of Australian bush, forests, towns and communities. Rupert Murdoch’s son, James, was so incensed by News Corp’s coverage of the fires and climate denialism he called it out publicly, condemning the family empire.
1.5The following January, we saw the United States Capitol attack, which Fox News was accused of having a role in after amplifying lies about the 2020 US election. Fox News ultimately agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies.[2]
1.6We are about to see another election in the US with Trump still refusing to admit he lost the 2020 election. The Federal Election here is just months away. We need an investigation into the workings of the Murdoch Media with the powers of a Royal Commission to compel witnesses now if there is to be any confidence and integrity in their reporting.
1.7It is disappointing that the Labor Party, which previously supported the recommendation of the Senate Inquiry into Media Diversity in Australia for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry, has now seen fit to take the side of the Murdoch Media. It is this kind of cosy relationship between the government of the day and the Murdoch empire that drove more than half a million people to sign a petition calling for a Royal Commission.
1.8Unlike the Labor and Liberal parties, the rest of the country understands that holding the Fourth Estate to account is about integrity in our democracy. It is about reflecting our society by ensuring a diverse range of voices from a diverse range of outlets—not just billionaires. It is about having a strong public broadcaster that isn’t constantly subject to attack and undermining from News Corp and its conservative allies. It is about addressing the rising mistrust and misinformation and disinformation perpetuated by some media outlets and left to fester online. It is about combatting the domination of social media as it squeezes the bottom line of mainstream legacy media outlets while also providing an avenue for new sources that reach younger generations who increasingly only get their news from the likes of Instagram or Tiktok.
1.9To claim that the Government is doing enough to address the state of Australian media right now is to misrepresent the reality. As the majority report notes, News MAP was promised some time ago, yet there has been nothing from the Communications Minister on it since February 2024. The Mis and Disinformation Bill recently introduced to the Parliament doesn’t even cover mainstream media, leaving the likes of Sky News to broadcast fake news and downright lies on its YouTube channel.[3] The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) continues to be a toothless tiger, failing to hold outlets to account for their poor reporting. There’s been no announcement by the Federal Government about how it will address Meta’s threat to pull news if it is designated under the News Media Bargaining Code, or on any alternative policy to the Code, with many now agreeing it is no longer fit for purpose. There’s no legislation to address problematic algorithms on social media that are controlling user’s news feeds, pushing dangerous content to children and young people and scams to older Australians. There’s no legislation to address the rise of artificial intelligence and its use in news reporting.
1.10There’s no plan to ensure a healthy, diverse media landscape that upholds a strong democracy, at all. Our public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, remain underfunded and vulnerable to political attack and undue influence.
1.11Time is running out for the Albanese Labor Government to take action before the next election, and the one thing they could have done was establish a Commission of Inquiry to ensure a thorough examination of Australia’s media and to make strong recommendations to aid its future. Should the Dutton Liberals win the next election, our public broadcaster, the ABC, will no doubt be subjected to more funding cuts as we saw in the decade of the Coalition Government, as well as further bullying and attacks. News Corp will be buoyed and free to spread their climate denial, to spruik nuclear energy, and continue targeting anyone who seeks to hold it to account. The likes of Gina Rinehart, a good friend of the Coalition, will keep buying up various media outlets to dress up the billionaires’ mining propaganda as news. Trust in the media will be in free fall.
1.12The Australian Greens are on the side of the Australian public on this one. We urge Labor and the Liberals not to disregard the legitimate concerns of the community, and indeed news organisations themselves, and risk leaving us behind the rest of the world. The Greens support this Bill and a Commission of Inquiry, not just into the Murdoch Media but all media in Australia and the whole media landscape, for the sake of our democracy.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young
Labor teamed up with the Coalition to defeat the bill. Instead, Labor chooses to have MPs give interviews on SkyNews to drop ‘exclusives’ such as there were Australian sailors on the nuclear sub that sunk an unarmed Iranian warship and left the survivors to drown, as part of AUKUS.
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/MurdochMediaBill2023/Report/Australian_Greens_Dissenting_Report
@ Thommo: A good article.
Thanks for the timely reminder Michael,
MWM reveals “The NDIS Bill is brutal. It cuts support for people with permanent, significant disability – the people this scheme was built for – while leaving the structural problems largely untouched. A Claudia Weisenberger analysis.
and lamestream reveal “Jeffrey Epstein moved “young, beautiful” women from Eastern Europe to the United States, helping them obtain visas and jobs by using his connections at the International Peace Institute (IPI), a prominent New York based think tank that the Australian government helped fund.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided the IPI with nearly $1 million worth of grants between 2002 and 2020, during which at least two women who have identified themselves as victims of Epstein were employed by the organisation at his urging. Epstein even directed IPI staff to make visa submissions to US authorities on their behalf.”
Having a diverse newsfeed is important. As I grew up it was ‘safe’ to watch commercial tv news and listen to commercial radio because there was always our ABC to sort out truth from fiction, or so I thought.
Since the advent of the internet we have been given power to fact-check for ourselves，or so we believe.
This has come with much good but some cost. Access to the internet whilst watching our ABC’s international coverage has blown away any confidence that it still, or maybe ever, provided the reliable truth to fall back on – possibly accounting for growing up believeing Israel, pre-first-intifada, to be a victim of malicious Arab neighbours, whereas the truth seems to have been the opposite.
I find myself facing a dilemma, as almost all of the independent media require subscription to survive. Who to share with what little I can afford, and who to follow?
I don’t want to give a click (as if my one click would make a difference, but motivational reasoning kicks in) let alone a dollar to the likes of SkyNews, so my newsfeed is no longer as diverse as I would like and I rely on reading comments from presenters and subscribers alike to get any kind of inkling as to what that end of the spectrum is saying.
Further, all this access to information has created an unhealthy appetite for 24/7 news coverage, which I haven’t come to grips with yet.
I believe there is a corollary to Michael’s article; what is there to regulate our media?
livestream has an excellent article on the Press Council principally:
“The Australian Press Council is probably one of the least well known and understood institutions in the country, but it’s played a significant role in undermining the public’s faith in the news media.
How so? Well, it’s generally pretty reluctant to fulfil its core mission, which is to regulate the print media. The reason why becomes more apparent when you realise it’s actually an entirely voluntary organisation that is self-funded by media outlets it’s supposed to regulate. While Australia has ACMA, which regulates TV and radio, and the eSafety Commission, which regulates social media, there is no government regulation over digital and print media.
A big reason for that is because the major print media companies, especially News Corp, fund the Press Council and argue no further regulation is needed.”
ACMA is a toothless tiger and has been kept that way by successive Labor and Coatition governments for as long as I can remember.
livestream’s article goes on to address The Press Council’s determination on complaints about Cathy Wilcox’s cartoon of the reaction to Bondi.
“The Press Council received a number of complaints about the cartoon, but didn’t disclose who they were from. When it was first published, it was publicly criticised by a number of pro-Israel groups including Zionism Victoria, the Zionist Federation of Australia, the NSW Board of Jewish Deputies and the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council. The groups claimed the cartoon was an example of “Jew hate”.
In response to those complaints, Wilcox’s employer threw her under the bus and published an editorial titled “Wilcox cartoon was divisive – and we apologise for the hurt it has caused”.
In their response to the Press Council, the Nine papers said it acknowledged that Jewish readers were “hurt and offended” but added “the cartoon was published in good faith on a matter of clear and significant public interest and at a time of significant public debate about a Royal Commission, and that the public interest in freedom of expression, including the freedom of cartoonists to comment on major news events, was sufficient to justify any offence caused.”
But that wasn’t good enough for the Press Council. In an extraordinary determination, they found the cartoon was “likely to cause or contribute to substantial offence, distress and prejudice particularly to those who are Jewish.”
The basis for that determination? The fact that Israel’s PM is Jewish. That’s it. Literally.Here’s what they said: “Netanyahu, who is both Jewish and the Israeli Prime Minister, stands apart, beating the drum to which the political figures march. The Council considers this imagery encodes the antisemitic trope that Jewish people secretly control or manipulate global events, governments, financial systems, or the media.”
It is an excellent article, unfortunately behind a paywall, that then compares The Press Council’s determinations on the Herald Sun cartoon of Serena Williams depicting her in a racist manner and a Sunday Telegraph cartoon of Middle Eastern refugees depicting them in stereotype/racist manner – no surprises the determinations were in total contrast to the Cathy Wilcox determination.
NEC,
cheers, out of interest, what is the situation out your way in regard to newsfeeds? Is is dominated by SkyNews?
@ Thommo: Uhm ….. What is a ”news feed”??
This is regional NSW preparing for the 19th century future preferred by the NOtional$. Word of mouth, preferably scandalous, is the quickest moving ”news”; economic ”news” is rare because the NOtional$ prefer anything except work and development; sporting ”news” sometimes makes it to the city television broadcasts.
I’m delighted to have ‘introduced’ independent media to this publication, I made that shift at least a decade ago.
As an aside, Michael West Media scooped many Walkley awards in 2025, 28 all in all…
https://michaelwest.com.au/michael-west-media-scoops-the-prize-pool-in-the-2025-walkey-awards/