Defamation In Medianet’s 2022 survey, half Many respondents said that despite of journalists (49%) said they had some recent defamation case withheld from publishing information outcomes supporting the work of that they knew to be true because of the media, their organisation has fear of defamation. This represented still become more risk averse when 57% of all journalists who said pursuing stories involving a high publishing stories was relevant to pro昀椀le person, due to the risk of costs their work. associated with legal action taken against them. In the 2023 survey, respondents were asked about how the outcome Many commented that while their of high pro昀椀le defamation cases over appetite for pursuing high risk public the past 12 months had impacted the interest stories had not been affected, appetite to pursue high risk public their editor or newsroom has become interest stories. more cautious. Twenty-one percent of journalists Journalists working for publicly/ said the outcome of high pro昀椀le government funded media defamation cases in 2023 had organisations reported the highest impacted their journalism work. rates of being affected by the outcomes of these defamation The majority of respondents cases, both positively and negatively. (65%) said it had not affected their Journalists working for commercial journalism work. Of the 87% of and community media organisations respondents who said this was were the least affected. relevant to their area of work, 15% said it had somewhat negatively Respondents reporting on politics or affected their journalism work, 4% religion reported the highest rates said it had a signi昀椀cant negative affect of being affected by the outcomes on their journalism work. of these cases. This was followed by those working in the topic of courts and crimes, international news or foreign affairs, Indigenous affairs or national news. Our lawyers are extremely risk averse. Medianet 2024 Australian Media Landscape Report 63