In the words of the Sandman, I choose to start this story now...
As some will know, I spend a lot of time in a particular south east Asian country, one as famous for its blind loyalty to a royal family and for military coups than it is for its beaches and ladyboys. It is a place i have observed for more than 15 years. In this country, the military have completely shut down what little press freedom there was, including foolishly trying t introduce as single gateway in and out of the country so it can completely shut down whatever websites it doesn't like. Newspapers, who have never been able to criticize the royal family, now cannot even say anything negative about the "government", with bashings and jailings of reporters common. As a result, the people are left in the dark, and its very sad. Every night the "prime minister" goes onto EVERY TV station (including cable/satellite stations), and gives a half hourly propaganda report, and I checked, my in laws have over 100 channels and it is on every single one.
The country next door is Malaysia, once a free thinking, fairly free muilti-ethnic country, sadly also heading in the wrong direction. I was chatting with a good friend who grew up in KL shortly after MH370 disappeared, and I commented to him that, in my view, the politicians and generals trying to answer questions from the press after the crash were hopeless (in some cases, like a deer in the headlights), and eventually they refused to answer questions from certain international journalists (including the ABC). My mate explained, in his view, its because they are simply not used to being asked tough questions, and in domestic news events, questions are pre-prepared dorothy dixers from their preferred reporters.
There are so many examples around the world where politicians refuse to be held accountable. Even in Australia, where we enjoy fairly good freedom of the press compared to most, politicians will still refuse to be interviewed by certain people, or constantly go on shows with their preferred arse lickers. Tony Abbott is probably the best example in recent times, constantly talking to people like Bolt and Jones because they never asked him anything difficult. Speaking of Tony Abbott, whilst he said so many dumbshit things over the years, the one that ground my gears the most, when he was bashing on about Team Australia, was when he said to the ABC: "Who's side are you on?". That is not how a PUBLIC broadcaster works, dickhead (so he just cut their funding instead).
Now to the issue of journalism. There are some terrible reporters out there, often driven, not just bye their own bias, but by the wishes of their employers. An example I saw only yesterday that left me SMH was the Courier Fail, the city's only major newspaper, trying to put a positive spin ScoMo's disastrous trip to Queensland these past two weeks. I see the media cross ownership laws although becoming less effective in the internet era, to still be important. Would you want one network owning the major TV stations, newspapers, major online papers etc (regardless of their leanings)? For all the shit out there, there are some brilliant reporters out there, well, they are unfortunately hiding behind a wall of continuous clickbait articles about Kardashians and diets and some random's blog on how to get rich. This isn't time to throw the baby our with the bathwater.
In conclusion, freedom of the press is a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, and for any leader to refuse to talk to a network or a reporters because he or she doesn't like the questions, or going on propaganda tours only with reporters they know will say nice things about them, is a dangerous direction to be heading. It is a sign of a dictatorship, regardless of whether you are in China, Venezuela, the US or Australia.
Here is the international rankings for 2018, according to Reporters without Borders:
https://rsf.org/en/ranking
