‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’—Australian media industry attitudes to regulation and accountability reforms

When the Australian Independent Media Inquiry (IMI) published its report most mainstream media reporting focused on the suggested statutory-based News Media Council and largely ignored any discussion of the underlying issues—public trust in journalism and news media and accountability for its practices. The aim of this study was to capture the attitudes held by the media industry toward these issues. Based on a content analysis of 33 submissions to the IMI and the Convergence Review it can be concluded that only 15 percent of the submissions addressed trust or media accountability issues.