Tracks to advocacy: journalism studies, animal rights and Australian media law

This article considers the role of animal rights-based journalism and its connection to teaching media law and ethics to undergraduate students in an Australian university arts faculty. An anecdotal discussion of a reflective practice informing the teaching of an undergraduate course in a journalism major relates questions of ethics and law to broader considerations of the role of advocacy in and around journalism, and media practice. It is argued that animal rights-related stories have a role in training media professionals, and also in inspiring journalists to envision their own work as part of the democratic mechanisms of social and legal reform in Australia.