Documents obtained by independent media outlet The Greyzone show Australia’s Attorney-General in discussion with secret British committee on controlling ‘submissive’ mainstream media.
The Government has been exploring ways to censor the media, taking advice from secretive UK body, Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee, which claims success in controlling the UK’s submissive press through its ‘D-Notice’ system where media orgs seek permission to run stories and defence types “back-brief” editors on what they should publish.
“… in a written response to questions from Australia’s Attorney-General [former A-G Mark Dreyfus], DSMA Secretary Dodds crowed how reporters “very rarely” fail to follow its “advice”, and if outlets do “publish information that may be harmful to national security,” the Committee can demand the offending article’s removal.
You can read the story here. Some snippets:
” … in a written response to questions from Australia’s Attorney-General, DSMA Secretary Dodds crowed how reporters “very rarely” fail to follow its “advice”, and if outlets do “publish information that may be harmful to national security,” the Committee can demand the offending article’s removal.”
“The unprecedented disclosure was the result of an effort by the Committee to assist Australia’s government in creating a D-Notice system of their own. In doing so, it established a papertrail which Canberra was forced to release under its own FOI laws. Australian authorities fought tooth and nail to prevent the documents’ release for over five months, until the country’s Information Commissioner forced the Department of Home Affairs to release them.”
“… it appears some officials in Canberra were seeking to emulate the system, asking Australian media to “give notice ahead of publication” so authorities could opine on it – an arrangement strongly resembling the advisory component of the D-Notice system.
“The [DSMA] Committee operates simultaneously secretly and above ground. The documents note “conversations between the DSMA system and journalists/media organisations are confidential.” In fact, the Committee states in a briefing given to Australian officials that it isn’t even “required to submit evidence from discussions with media as part of police investigations or court proceedings.”
When Labor came to office in 2022, Attorney-General held a secretive roundtable with mainstream media. The correspondence with DSMA noted above was in November.
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Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.