Will Australia’s media do better at cracking down on lies this election? The signs aren’t good

By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

Populism uses the freedoms of democracy against democracy. In particular, populists use freedom of speech to promote hate, incite prejudice, intensify social division and spread lies.

At the same time, freedom of speech is indispensable to the functioning of democracy. Among other things, it is the means by which the institution of the media is expected to inform people, provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, and hold the powerful to account.

This places the media at the centre of any test of democratic institutional capacity and resilience. The test is most acute at…

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