Several events of recent months have catapulted into public consciousness a topic that has long been an obsession of mine; the role of the media in shaping public opinion.
The problem of false balance in 'objective' journalism, which dictates that the media is obliged to uncritically present opposing arguments in a contentious issue, was highlighted by the absurdity of US President Donald Trump's comments following violent white nationalist rallies in that country that led to the death of an anti-racist protestor.
When Trump attempted to blame 'both sides' for this violence, he was roundly ridiculed for his false balance. Trump's is an extreme example of balance as bias, but he was simply attempting to use a well-worn journalistic tool to his advantage.
Closer to home we have the postal survey on marriage equality. While The Guardian took the early initiative to state they 'won't be giving equal time to spurious arguments against marriage equality', other major media outlets, including Fairfax, have been publishing a litany of anti-marriage quality op-eds, presumably in the interests of 'both sides' journalism.
Anything else, the argument goes, would be biased, or even worse, 'censorship'. But is the media obliged to air an opinion just because it exists?
Ask many people, including journalists, what they think the role of the media is and they will likely respond along the lines of 'to let people make up their own mind'.
But that is not strictly true. In a liberal democracy, the media's most essential function is to serve the public interest. Of course, this includes providing information so that the public can make informed decisions, the key word being 'informed'.
In order to do so, journalists must decide what is in the public interest and why. In other words, they decide what is newsworthy and what the public 'needs to know'. It does this by ignoring or minimising some events and issues in favour of others. Some terror attacks get blanket coverage for weeks, others cause barely a ripple. Editors decide which opinion pieces to publish and which to pass on.
"Journalism that serves the public interest promotes a harmonious, healthy society, not by merely airing all opinions that exist but by equipping citizens with the tools they need to participate in the democratic process."
For the most part, we accept this as part of how the media works. Only when it comes to certain issues, is the accusation of 'censorship' raised. When I recently wrote that the media should not legitimise the claim that male privilege does not exist, I was roundly accused of censorship and silencing debate.
But such accusations reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the role and function of the media. It's not a matter of merely refusing to give time to certain views because I personally disagree with them, it's a matter of journalists weighing up each issue based on available facts in order to determine where the public interest lies.
Male privilege is not a theory but a descriptive term for the advantages afforded to men, and is easy enough to prove in the sense that men dominate almost all facets of public life; politics, science, media, business, religion, and so on. Any media-led discussion of male privilege should be centred not on whether it exists but on what it actually means and how we can overcome it.
This does not mean those who object should be silenced altogether, only that it is not within the bounds of the media's responsibility to the public to ignore facts and reality. To do so is to fail the function of helping people make informed decisions.
Same goes for marriage equality. Before deciding how to cover that issue, media organisations should have asked themselves what the effects and implications of such a debate would be.
The answer is already clear. The No campaign has been largely running, not on facts and evidence, nor on the singular issue of marriage itself, but on a fear-mongering platform invoking irrelevant issues of gender roles, Safe Schools, and the insistence that the religious beliefs of some citizens outweigh the legal rights of others.
The public interest has not been served by this 'debate'. Rather, bigotry is being amplified and galvanised as the LGBTIQ community, the very group whose rights are being put up for public debate, are rebranded as bullies, and our public discourse has gotten more polarised, ugly, and less intelligent.
If journalists continue to provide this kind of 'balance' while the government is cynically pitting citizens against each other, such treatment is likely to spread to other social issues. What other questions will citizens then be asked regarding the rights of others, and how ugly wil be the ensuing 'debate'?
Journalism that serves the public interest promotes a harmonious, healthy society, not by merely airing all opinions that exist but by equipping citizens with the tools they need to participate in the democratic process. It is the responsibility of journalists and editors to hold opinions, as well as power, to account, by demanding a greater standard of truth, respectfulness and rigour from opinions that they air.
Ruby Hamad is a freelance writer and columnist. She holds a masters in media practice from Sydney University where she wrote her thesis on objectivity and bias in the western media's coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. She currently runs workshops on this topic for Macquarie University's Global Leadership Program. She tweets @rubyhamad