CITATION: The Fassifern Guardian and Tribune

The Fassifern Guardian and Tribune newspaper, disclosed and resisted forces from government seeking to require journalists to betray their sources.

Governments in recent years have been able to demonstrate their abilities to suppress disclosures from whistleblowers who attempt to serve the public interest through the parliaments of Australia, their elected representatives and committee inquiries – the threat of contempt of Parliament is being used to silence whistleblowers for the rest of their lives.

The avenues through the Courts are being closed by the threat of civil, disciplinary and criminal actions being taken against the whistleblowers’ legal representatives.

Budget restraints have long been used to nobble the offices of ombudsmen, crime commissions and other so termed integrity bodies, while government funded projects have skewed data collections and faked research into the facts both about the disclosures, and about the whistleblower’s circumstance itself.

Australia’s media, albeit also under attack and sometimes surrendering to the threats of imprisonment for its professionals, remains the primary possibility for disclosures, made in the public interest, coming to be known by the public that whistleblowers and the media serve.

The Fassifern Guardian and Tribune, through its efforts to withhold and safeguard, from government, the identities of sources used by its journalists, gives whistleblowers hope of meeting their obligations to the public interest, and promotes the best example to the media and its journalists of how their public should be served.