The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen has today published a scathing attack on bias within the ABC:
Almost 18 years on, the ABC has grown in size but has still refused to address the lack of balance in its vast line-up of journalists…
Eighteen years after expressing their hysteria when Howard was elected, ABC journalists have now whipped up a sense of horror at the new Abbott government…
Even more predictably, the ABC went on the defensive, even questioning the need for an efficiency review of the taxpayer-funded media behemoth, as if the ABC should be exempt from such reviews…
And, of course, most unsurprisingly, our taxpayer-funded broadcaster refuses to apologise for getting anything wrong in the way they broadcast unsubstantiated allegations about members of our navy…
Sadly, the ABC has a long and undistinguished history of playing a disingenuous game of ignoring and ridiculing every effort to make the broadcaster a more balanced and less predictable organisation. When criticised by Labor and Liberal politicians, the ABC says that must mean the broadcaster is fair and balanced, sitting somewhere in the political centre. In fact, it means that the ABC too often skews to the left of Labor. The ABC’s bigger problem is that journalists are rarely held to account for errors they make. I saw this problem first hand as a director and it continues apace…
The ABC is still not our ABC and the ritual dance of defensiveness has continued…
By ignoring its compact with the Australian people, its owners, as set out in its Charter, the ABC risks losing legitimacy as a worthy part of our media and cultural landscape. If that happens, the smugness among ABC staff will surely go but so will the ABC.
Clearly Australians do not share Albrechtsen’s concerns. As noted by Houses & Holes last week, Newspoll research showed clearly that ABC credibility stands head and shoulders above other outlets:
Question: How much trust do you have in what you read or hear in the following media?
Albrechtsen’s criticism of ABC bias might also hold more weight if she did not work for NewsCorp: a media conglomerate that has displayed a clear bias against the ALP in favour of the Abbott Government:
I am all for improving efficiencies in the ABC – all publicly owned corporations should be made to run a type ship. But Albrechtsen’s (and Abbott’s) claims of systemic bias in the ABC should be taken with a big spoonful of salt.
Especially so since there also appears to be some simpatico between News and the Government around the ABC’s $220 million contract to run Australia Network Television. From The Australian today:
Australia Network television controller Patrick Emmett approached its commercial rival last month expressing an interest in acquiring news and business content including the Asia Pacific Outlook and Switzer programs.
The ABC later also inquired about acquiring Australian Agenda – the weekly political program produced in partnership with The Australian.
“Australia Network is acquiring a range of programs for 2014 and would like to enquire about some properties on Sky News and Business,” Mr Emmett wrote to Sky in an email.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told The Australian yesterday the episode showed the ABC was “struggling” to meet the terms of the Australia Network contract, while a predecessor, Alexander Downer, said the approach to Sky was a “concession that they’re not able to provide the service from their own resources”. “It’s a concession that has come very late, possibly too late,” he added.
H&H has contracted to Australia Network in the past and he can tell you that this is the kind of offer to purchase content that is precisely what the channel does as its core activity on a day-to-day business. It’s not a failure of the ABC to deliver on its remit, it is a misrepresentation of the standard modus operandi of a channel that operates under too small a budget to make all of its own content.
