The chair of the ABC has quoted the memoir of US vice-presidential candidate JD Vance while discussing the decreasing trust in media in the annual Sir John Monash Oration in Sydney.
In the speech, Kim Williams sought to sound the alarm on increasing mistrust of the media and divisive tone of public discourse.
Trusted sources of news were needed to combat the rise of anti-democratic populist movements that are spreading hatred and lies, he said, something Vance wrote about in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy – citing the fact only 6% of voters in the US believed the media was “very trustworthy”.
“This isn’t some libertarian mistrust of government policy, which is healthy in any democracy,” Vance writes in the memoir.
“This is deep scepticism of the very institutions of our society. And it’s becoming more and more mainstream.”
Williams said on that point Vance was correct, though he wondered if his views have changed in the eight years since he published the book.
“On the crucial point, he is correct – the very institutions of our society are losing the public’s trust in large part because there is no longer a broad consensus about the facts,” Williams said.
Williams said media outlets in Australia were fighting to remain viable, with news agencies losing revenue, laying off journalists and in some cases closing.
“This situation hasn’t been helped by Meta’s declaration in March that it was closing its Australian news partnership team and not entering new commercial deals with news organisations – currently worth more than $70m annually,” he said.
Just hours before his speech, Australian Community Media (ACM), which runs regional newspapers across the country, told staff 35 editorial positions would be cut. The layoffs follow waves of redundancies in the industry, with the number of newspaper journalists almost halving between 2011 and 2023.
“The axe keeps swinging, and every time it falls, the truth and democracy suffer a blow,” Williams said.
He talked about the trends of readers moving away from traditional news outlets to social media, calling for a recommitment to objectivity, and for “new ideas” to “restore the commercial health of our commercial newsrooms”.
“Right now, the ABC is in the Australian frontline of the contest for global liberal democracy and its values,” he said.
“As Sir John Monash managed to do in 1918, this is another fight Australian democracy must and will win.”
