Opinion, balance and fairness: mapping metajournalistic discourses in Australia

This article brings together three events that animated the Australian media landscape in 2023: responses to Stan Grant's commentary on the coronation of King Charles III, coverage of the Voice to Parliament referendum by the Australian public broadcaster, and reporting on the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. These three disparate but temporally connected events will be brought together to document and outline recent incidents of metajournalistic discourse in Australia. By mapping these three media events, the article asks: what does Australian metajournalistic discourse look like? What can these three events tell us about the current boundaries of Australian journalism? And what issues and tensions animate the practice and discussion of journalism in Australia? While each case is different, together they demonstrate broader concerns about journalistic practices and shifting news values, and around the changing deployment of objectivity in Australian journalism. This article argues that these discourses, rather than simply capturing a moment of media debate, are formative of the practice of Australian journalism at a time when the industry is facing threats of a technological, economic and political nature. By better understanding these discourses, we can gain an insight into the shape that Australian journalism may take into the future.