Blind spots and biases in media freedom advocacy

Abstract

Amidst cynicism about the press and democracy, journalism educators and researchers need to use their roles in the classroom and in public life to help push the case for media freedom. This requires us not only to re-energise time-tested principles of public interest journalism, but also to question some long-held assumptions and to re-set our norms and practices around universal human rights. This is the edited text of my opening keynote speech at the 2023 Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia annual conference in Sydney in December.

Keywords: press freedom, journalism, censorship, authoritarian systems, conflict of interest, democracy