Author(s)

Jing-Yi (Sylvia) Liu¹, Huifeng Mu²

¹Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
²Department of English, School of Foreign Languages, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China.

This paper focuses on the journalistic practices of the Australian media and explores how the public interest profoundly influences the legal and ethical decisions made by the media when reporting on sexual harassment. The “public interest” usually refers to a wide range of democratic interests such as the health, safety and welfare of citizens as a collective, and is a primary consideration for the media when deciding which information to disclose or withhold from the public. This paper examines the dependency and dialectic between the public interest and the ethical and legal regimes of Australian journalistic practice, and provides insight into how the news media, thorough consideration, can make appropriate reporting decisions deemed to be in the best public interest when covering news related to sensitive topics such as sexual harassment. In this regard, this paper draws on some recent news stories on sexual harassment in Australia since 2020 and provides a comprehensive analysis of them.

Public Interest, Ethical and Legal Responsibilities, Sexual Harassment, Public’s Right to Know, Contempt Laws

Liu, J. and Mu, H. (2022) A Study of How Public Interest Guides Australian Media Decisions on Sexual Harassment Coverage. Advances in Journalism and Communication, 10, 1-9. doi: 10.4236/ajc.2022.101001.