Misinformation, Disinformation, Balance and the Media

Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine during the Referendum Campaign. Photograph credit: John Gass Newswire, The Australian.One of the dominant narratives that has emerged in the aftermath of the Voice referendum loss in October 2023 was that the campaign was marred by – and lost – because of the deployment by the No campaign of disinformation and misinformation and a failure by the media to provide unbiased and informed reporting.The intention of this chapter is to demonstrate – by drawing on primary data as well as the analysis of reporting already undertaken by others in the wake of the loss – that the media coverage of the Voice proposal during the referendum campaign was demonstrably unbalanced. This was particularly apparent given Australia’s media ownership structure and the dominance of the News Corp media, and its reach through regional Australia. The No bias in the campaign was clearly evident in that structure.The Regulatory Environment: The Australian Press Council, ACMA and ABC, SBS and the AECThe current regulatory environment restricts the amount of information and data available as to the extent of misinformation and disinformation during the referendum campaign. At the moment there is no legislated constraint on untruthfulness in political advertising in Australia.