When Federal Police raided Annika Smethurst's home and the ABC offices this year, media CEOs united to support changes to the law.
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In Tasmania, the argument between government and the press, and laws to curb its freedom, goes back to the early years of Van Diemen's Land.
Settler society was in rapid change and the press was a volatile mix of ego and entrepreneurship fired by a spirit of democracy.
Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur, an ex-soldier, arrived in the fledgling convict settlement in 1824 determined to impose discipline and order with the considerable powers at his disposal; vice-regal authority, a Legislative Council he appointed, the military and the law.
Answerable to no one in the colony, he suppressed the voices of dissatisfied free settlers under his authority by gagging the press.
On those who attempted to set up an independent newspaper he enacted new laws, set large sums as preconditions for printing newspapers, imposed stamp duties and threatened libel cases with penalties such as fines and imprisonment.
Despite this, Andrew Bent, an ex-convict and erstwhile Government Printer, established the Colonial Times & Tasmanian Advertiser in Hobart in 1825 but was soon embroiled in libel suits, and suffered time in gaol.
Ably assisted by editor RL Murray, and the management skills of his wife while he was away in prison, Bent kept the paper going.
Eventually this father of Australia's independent press became insolvent and was forced to sell his papers.
One of his presses was bought by John Fawkner jnr in January 1829 and taken to Launceston, where he began the first enduring newspaper in the North, the Launceston Advertiser.
Despite his aim to promote goodwill, and fellowship, it was not long before he too was embroiled in the struggle for a free press and containing the powers of the governor.
In February 1829, the same month Fawkner began the Advertiser, Samuel Dowsett also brought printing equipment from Hobart to establish the Cornwall Press.
He jousted not only with the colonial administration, but with Fawkner: "Five feet two and a quarter inches pleased in his public nuisance to calumniate a Gentleman," Dowsett charged.
Rivalries between these early papers and within the small settler community was highly personal, and abuse was common.
In this conflict Fawkner prevailed and the Cornwall Press folded after 19 issues.
Two years later it was replaced by the more radical Independent.
- Next week: The 'extremely scurrilous' Cornwall Chronicle.