The law or the lawyers: understanding the of legal counsel and advisors in Australian editorial processes

The Australian news media is the throes of a chilling effect. The chill is both complex and multifaceted. A combination of a decrease in revenue and funding, the onset of new communication technologies, and a government that has taken an adversarial approach to Australia’s news organisations has resulted in the practice of reporting in the public interest becoming strained. This strain has been exacerbated by organisational and cultural shifts in the relationship between editorial staff. This study investigates such relationships. There is a gap in the scholarly understanding of the relationship between legal counsel and journalists. Based on interviews with journalists and newsroom legal counsel, this study finds, the relationship between legal counsel and journalists has shifted. In-house counsel is increasingly viewed as an unsustainable expense leading to fewer news organisations keeping their lawyers on. Where in-house counsel has been retained, they have been consolidated around news organisation’s head offices in Sydney and Melbourne leaving other state capitals and regional publications exposed. The mounting absence of legal minds in Australia’s newsrooms has been filled by external counsel. This study finds external law and legal advisors are far more risk adverse and less invested in editorial processes and outcomes than their peers embedded in newsrooms. This leads to a heightened chilling effect as legal counsel seek to disable rather than enable stories deemed legally risky. In light of recent legislative and judicial incursions into Australian journalism, this timely paper sheds light on newsroom’s capacity to negotiate the law in reporting in the public interest.