TV journalist and broadcaster Karl Stefanovic cast his departure from Nine’s Today Show as a win for “free speech”, a framing the world’s richest man Elon Musk endorsed with “wow”, to millions on X.

But this is not a story about free speech or censorship. It is about journalism and influence. Stefanovic represents a high-profile example of journalistic laundering: the transfer of journalism’s hard-earned credibility into a rapidly growing alternative media sphere.

If Cory Doctorow’s term “enshittification” describes the degradation of digital platforms, journalism laundering describes the repurposing of journalistic credibility in ecosystems where attention, not editorial standards, is the primary currency.

Journalism without guardrails

Journalists earn public trust by working within a profession governed by editorial oversight, ethical codes, factchecking and accountability.

While journalism is not perfect, as ABC’s Media Watch highlights each week, alternative media has no equivalent obligations. Its hosts are free to advocate, speculate, campaign and provoke without having to meet journalistic standards.

Alternative media is typically defined by its opposition to mainstream journalism and traditional media’s norms of accountability, including in its use of podcasts and social media.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Opinion and political advocacy have a place. Podcasts too. But as Nine management decided last week, you cannot have your cake and eat it.

Stefanovic’s appeal to audiences over the first seven months of the Karl Stefanovic........

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