Australia’s big newspapers have demonstrated unity today, leaving their front page black in protest against press restrictions. This protest is against national security laws. Journalists say that this is hampering reporting. Only the first page of the newspaper reads, “When the government keeps the truth away from you, what will they cover?
In Australia, there has been a debate about the freedom of media for the last several days. Due to this, many big newspapers of the country took a big decision and published the first page of newspapers published on Monday without any news raid. The first page of almost every major newspaper in the country was black on Monday morning. This thing did not stop only with the newspaper, but big websites also blackened their home page.
Actually a few months ago, police raided the house and office of journalists. The government said that those people have written anti-government and military articles, which is wrong. Since then, the government has had to endure strong protests from the public and the media.
Media organizations say that whistleblowers had given an information, due to the raid, media institutions were targeted. The report spoke of war crimes and not the government agency spying of Australian citizens.
In this whole matter, the press has made six demands before the government, one of which is that journalists should be exempted from strict national laws so that they can do their work impartially and fearlessly. The government says that they support freedom of the press, but nothing above the law.
Australia executive chairman Michael Miller tweeted a picture of the black out news paper. The tweet also contains a copy of The Australian and The Daily Telegraph newspaper. He appealed to the common people to ask the government “what are they trying to hide from me?”
Journalists say investigative journalism is under threat through strict security laws, which has ended the public’s “right to know”.
