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Free speech is not at risk, and the media companies know it. Their real fears concern the proposed Public Interest Media Advocate's task to determine whether future mergers and acquisitions are in the public interest. The outcry is motivated by self-interest, not concern for the rights and freedoms of citizens.
Australian journalists' tendency to conflate the UK Leveson inquiry's recommendations with those of Australia's Finkelstein inquiry is ill-informed. This blurring in the minds of journalists, publishers and the wider public is a reminder of the anger that spawned the inquiries, and a broad hint about their likely consequences.
This year Eureka Street celebrates its 21st birthday as a small fish in the ever turbulent lake of global media. Like other print and online media it has had to adjust to its environment. It has had to negotiate the particular challenge of the polarisation of attitudes within the Church.
As a cyclist who shares the pavement with pedestrians and the road with cars, I am constantly struck by how common is the unkindness of strangers. The relations between cyclists, drivers and pedestrians mirror the qualities I see as characteristic of News Limited commentary.
In Australia free speech is understood as freedom from legal constraint. In the Bolt case, it was defended for commercial reasons. A better understanding of the cost of free speech can be seen in Russian journalist Alexander Minkin's description of an attempt to kill him.