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Friday, October 27, 2006

Thinking process documents about media reform too sensitive for public

The Australian Communications and Media Authority denied The Australian access to a report to the Federal Government in June, outlining community opinions on what new media services should feature on spare digital television channels. It claimed the report was exempt as an internal working document, attracted legal professional privilege, included confidential information and might disclose "the commercial or financial affairs of an organisation".

Maybe this sort of defensive attitude from media regulators comes with the territory - it seems they don't like their "thinking process" documents disclosed to the outside world.

As this report from the US says, the Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage.

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