Protecting Australia’s press freedom
Justice & Advocacy
“What happened on Saturday at the ballot box, and how we see the value of a free press within our democracy, may shape not just the country’s political future — but the survival of a free press that can hold that future to account,” says Dr Kasun Ubayasiri as World Press Freedom Day was commemorated on election day
Australians headed to the polls on World Press Freedom Day on Saturday at a time when the country finds itself on an unsettling trajectory — press freedom is eroding, and signs point to further deterioration.
For the past five years, between 2021-25, Australia has ranked between 25-39 out of 180 countries, on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index — recording it’s press freedom as “satisfactory” and at times getting dangerously close to “problematic”.
At a campaign rally in Melbourne last week, then Opposition leader Peter Dutton referred to The Guardian and the ABC as “hate media” — a chilling echo of the anti-press rhetoric once seen only in autocratic states. His comments mark a dangerous escalation in political hostility toward journalists in Australia.
But the Labor government cannot claim any higher moral ground either. The Albanese administration has failed to deliver key reforms to protect the integrity of journalism — most notably in areas like whistleblower protections and shield laws. In May 2024, former Australian Army lawyer and whistleblower David McBride was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison, with a non-parole period of two years and three months, for exposing evidence of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. The message to whistleblowers — and the journalists who rely on them — is unmistakably hostile.
This domestic decline mirrors a broader global collapse in support for free and independent media.
One year ago, on World Press Freedom Day, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield convened a panel in New York, warning: “…around the world, journalists are intimidated and harassed…far too often, they are violently attacked and wrongly detained — simply for telling the truth.”
That same week, then US President Joe Biden declared that “The free press is an essential pillar of democracy,” adding that “[j]ournalism should not be a crime anywhere on Earth.” Yet even during the Biden administration, rhetorical support for the press often masked deeper failings — failings that have now been dramatically compounded by his successor.
This notion of the press as a vital pillar for the integrity of a democracy goes back to Western Enlightenment philosophy, when the press was first conceived as a scrutiniser of political and judicial power — a mechanism to speak truth to power and hold power accountable through public interest journalism.
That enlightenment ideal has all but disappeared, as politicians around the world demonise and vilify independent journalism.
President Donald Trump, who first branded the news media “the enemy of the American people” in 2017, demonising journalists who questioned, scrutinised and even criticised him, while elevating the status of those sympathetic to him — has returned to the White House and resumed his assault on the press with renewed fervour. In February, his administration imposed an indefinite ban on Associated Press (AP) reporters from pooled press events at the Oval Office and on Air Force One. According to insiders, the decision stemmed from the AP’s refusal to adopt Trump’s term “Gulf of America” over the commonly used “Gulf of Mexico”.
In March Trump escalated matters further, telling the US Department of Justice that CNN and MSNBC “literally write 97.6% bad about me…they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what they do is illegal.” Shortly after, he placed the staff of Voice of America on administrative leave and shuttered its parent agency, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). His latest target is CBS’ 60 Minutes — a legendary news institution once home to respected journalists like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
RSF’s 2025 report reflects the consequences of these developments. The United States has fallen further, to 57th out of 180 countries. Russia, where the government has effectively criminalised independent journalism, is ranked 171. China — now the world’s largest jailer of journalists with 110 imprisoned — sits at 178, with both countries described as having a “very serious” press freedom crisis.
The Asia-Pacific region now ranks just above the Middle East-North Africa in RSF’s regional averages. With the Asia-Pacific region’s press freedom rating in freefall, Australia remains stagnant and rarely challenging the kinds of repressive regimes climate these rankings reflect.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded “[m]ore journalists were killed in 2024 than in any other year since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data more than three decades ago”.
CPJ records a journalist’s killing in its database, since 1992, if it has reasonable grounds to believe they may have been killed in relation to their work. The database recorded the death of 113 journalists and media workers in 2024, surpassing the second worst record of 94 deaths in 2023 and the third worst of 90 deaths at the height of the Iraq war in 2007.
The 2024 death toll includes an unprecedented 85 deaths in Gaza — mostly of Palestinian journalists — adding to the 78 journalists killed in Gaza in 2023, making Gaza the deadliest place for journalists since the CPJ started documenting journalists’ deaths more than four decades ago.
A year ago, there was still space for global leaders to posture about the value of journalism. That space is shrinking. What we’re now seeing — from Washington to Canberra — is not just rhetoric, but the active dismantling of press protections, the chilling of whistleblowers, and targeting public-interest journalism as political opposition.
It is no secret that political will is only as strong as public support — particularly as governments near elections. A Pew Research Centre study released in late April shows the number of people who believe a free press is “very important” to a democracy has ebbed and waned. The study claims the share of the people in the Americas who believe a free press is “very important” was 67 per cent in 2015, went up to 80 per cent in 2019, then back down to 67 per cent in 2025 — with the number as low as 62 per cent in the US.
Even more alarmingly only 50 per cent of Australians were reported to believe a free press is “very important” to a democracy, placing Australia nine percentage points below the global median.
Australia may not be an outlier in the RSF’s Press Freedom ranking, but clearly we cannot rest on our laurels if the Pew Research Centre statistics are anything to go by.
What happened on Saturday at the ballot box, and how we see the value of a free press within our democracy, may shape not just the country’s political future — but the survival of a free press that can hold that future to account.
In a democratic society, our responsibilities extend beyond voting in elections — they also involve engaging with and shaping democratic institutions in our daily lives. Journalism plays a vital role in this process by providing accurate information, holding those in power to account, and creating space for informed public debate. Without a free and independent press, democracy weakens, as misinformation and unchecked authority flourish. To promote robust journalism, citizens must support trustworthy news organisations — through subscriptions, donations and active readership.
Advocating for press freedom and the protection of journalists is equally important, especially in the face of political or corporate pressure. Journalism matters because democracy cannot function properly without it, and safeguarding robust, independent journalism that speaks truth to power is everyone’s responsibility.
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