BY SUSAN PRICE
MELBOURNE — Green Left Weekly condemned as censorship a decision by organisers of the World Economic Forum summit to deny accreditation to the newspaper's journalists.
The World Economic Forum knocked back applications from other community media outlets, such as Community Radio 3CR, meaning that there would be no representatives of Australia's alternative media at all inside the summit.
"The decision to deny us accreditation really is quite ridiculous, given all the claims from summit organisers that the World Economic Forum is for dialogue", said the newspaper's globalisation correspondent, Sean Healy, in Melbourne specifically to cover the summit and the protests outside it.
Healy said that the summit's media liaison officer, Fon Mathuros, had advised him that accreditation was denied on the basis that spaces were limited and that Green Left Weekly's target audience and distribution (of 15,000 a week) didn't warrant entry.
Healy is an experienced journalist and a member of the Media Alliance. He has written many widely read pieces on the World Economic Forum, its members and its policies, which have helped shape protesters' understanding of the body.
Mathuros told Community Radio 3CR's current affairs coordinator, Juliet Fox, that accreditation was being denied to all five of the station's journalists who sought it, on the grounds of "security". The station's planned coverage of the summit was to be syndicated to community radio stations around the country.
"It's no wonder that protest organisers are cynical about the World Economic Forum's claims to openness, when it denies accreditation to every community media representative who asks for it", said Healy. "The only possible conclusion is that summit organisers want to ensure uncritical coverage and that they don't think they'll get it from the community media."