Freedom of The Australian Press

On Wednesday Morning at approximately before 11:30 AM, The Australian Federal Police stormed the offices of Newscorp and the ABC’s head office in Ultimo.

This raid comes as coincidental as Newscorp journalist Annika Smethurst house was raided in relation to leaked details of new surveillance laws as a result of a 2018 story she authored.

This particular raid on the ABC was in correspondence released of Australian Special Forces misconduct which was published by. The information revealed that Australian soldiers killed unarmed women, men, and children.

AFP Acting Commissioner Neil Gaughan's has insisted that these raids were not politically motivated, nonetheless, it is alarming that a state institution has used authoritarian measures to raid a public institution.

Why this is alarming is that we have given up on the press we are too ashamed of how journalism affects the political culture in our country especially The evermore powerful Murdoch media. Instead, we have bludgeoned the ABC an institution that is committed to informing the public of what is going on in the world.

We have let our civil liberalities disappear away; no longer do we care about the media. Yet the media can be a force for good when it operates in such a manner that its primary objective is objective reporting. On the other hand, the media has always kept the government accountable for their actions, authoritarianism has no place in a civil democracy the media is the body of the people it is in the idea that a government should be transparent they should allow the release of information. Especially information regarding defense force brutality as Orwell said, “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”