This year’s Press Freedom Dinner at Darling Harbour in Sydney focused heavily on assisting the families of Filipino journalists who died in a massacre in Maguindanao, in the Philippines’ south.
Speakers spoke about Australia’s genuine concern for the victims’ families, including those who had been killed over the last decade elsewhere in the Philippines.
The Australian journalists’ union under the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and through the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has been actively campaigning for justice and better government protection of journalists in the Philippines, according to Australian union leader and journalist Mike Dobbie.
Mr Dobbie led a team of the International Federation of Journalists on a visit to Maguindanao and other parts of the Philippines last December and came away with terrifying stories of intimidation and bullying of the press across the Philippines.
Australian journalists have approached the Philippine Government and other authorities to push for the safety of journalists in the Philippines, Mr Dobbie said.
Much of the subject matter discussed at the Press Freedom Dinner had to do with the problems of governments around the world curtailing press freedoms.
Journalists everywhere, not just in the Philippines, were being muzzled by stricter laws that went against press freedom.
One speaker, the journalists’ union secretary Chris Warren, said that there was a clear correlation today between press freedom and government corruption: Where more press freedom is allowed, the less corruption exists; inversely, where press freedom is suppressed the more corruption thrives, Mr Warren said.
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