Tisme
Apathetic at Best
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yeah but Gerald Stone is therefore a Fabian ..... sheesh can't you use legit articles to support your argument Rumpole; something from Bolt for instance.
ABC is Political
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yeah but Gerald Stone is therefore a Fabian ..... sheesh can't you use legit articles to support your argument Rumpole; something from Bolt for instance.
Again it's not the stories themselves that are biased (although some are) so much as the selection of stories. I think it's probably most evident in their coverage of the asylum seeker issue. If there is a report by some human rights group or other criticizing the Government on their treatment of asylum seekers it will often be the 2nd or 3rd story in the headlines.
Tisme
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I'm glad none of us think the ABC is doing a shoddy job, because I was reading this piece the other day and was having trouble correlating what Malcolm said back then (2012) to what he said last night, silly me for doubting Malcolm's weasel words on 7.30 stating he (and the Cormannator) made it very clear pre election that they would put an efficiency clever and budget cuts through the ABC.
http://theconversation.com/turnbull-says-trust-in-abc-crucial-as-newspapers-fall-7805
snippet : Mr Turnbull said he rejected the proposition that Coalition governments were less favourably disposed towards the ABC. “The ABC has enjoyed strong support under the Coalition. The other public broadcaster, SBS, was actually founded by a Coalition government, so I just don’t buy that at all.
“We don’t have any plans to do anything other than support the ABC. If there’s an Abbott government, I’ll be the communications minister and I’ll be responsible for the ABC. I think the ABC has to be run efficiently and taxpayers have to get value for money. It’s got to be absolutely scrupulous in its objectivity and balance
he also said this in 2012: "I am not suggesting politicians are innately less accurate or truthful than anyone else. But rather that the system is not constraining, in fact it is all too often rewarding spin, exaggeration, misstatements,"
http://theconversation.com/turnbull-says-trust-in-abc-crucial-as-newspapers-fall-7805
snippet : Mr Turnbull said he rejected the proposition that Coalition governments were less favourably disposed towards the ABC. “The ABC has enjoyed strong support under the Coalition. The other public broadcaster, SBS, was actually founded by a Coalition government, so I just don’t buy that at all.
“We don’t have any plans to do anything other than support the ABC. If there’s an Abbott government, I’ll be the communications minister and I’ll be responsible for the ABC. I think the ABC has to be run efficiently and taxpayers have to get value for money. It’s got to be absolutely scrupulous in its objectivity and balance
he also said this in 2012: "I am not suggesting politicians are innately less accurate or truthful than anyone else. But rather that the system is not constraining, in fact it is all too often rewarding spin, exaggeration, misstatements,"
Malcolm Turnbull delivers a long-overdue whack to ABC managing director and board
The Australian
November 20, 2014 12:00AM
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Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist
Sydney
FINALLY, it has come to this. The Communications Minister has delivered what should be a knock-out punch to the managing director and the board of the ABC.
Everyone expected funding cuts in the order announced by Malcolm Turnbull yesterday, so shaving $254 million from the ABC’s budget over five years is no surprise.
Neither was it a surprise that Turnbull said: “If the management of the ABC think they cannot find a 5 per cent saving through efficiencies, they are selling themselves short and letting down the people of whose resources and trust they are the custodians.”
The bombshell ”” long overdue ”” was Turnbull’s broader whack at Mark Scott’s oversight of the taxpayer-funded media organisation.
Turnbull made clear that Scott’s suggestion at program cuts ”” including Peppa Pig, then Lateline, and worse, the state versions of 7.30 on Friday nights ”” was entirely unnecessary and unreasonable.
Too right. And too polite. It was a lazy management strategy and it was cheap politics.
Turnbull then scored a more direc*t hit at Scott’s leadership: “I propose to recommend to the board that the position of editor-in-chief no longer be combined with that of managing director.”
It’s the equivalent of saying Scott has been missing in action as editor-in-chief, the very role Scott said he would enthusiastically embrace when he applied for the job way back in 2006.
More than eight years on, he has refused to reign in the ABC’s hipster politics, letting the national broadcaster play more to the Twitter community than ordinary Australians.
Turnbull repeated his recent warning to board members: “I have on occasions heard directors say they ‘do not want to get involved’. Well, if they do not want to get involved they should resign.”
Excellent and timely advice. Board members, including ABC chairman Jim Spigelman, have squibbed their statutory obligations for far too long.
The managing director reports directly to the board. If the board won’t hold Scott accountable for meeting reasonable charter oblig*ations that are, after all, the quid pro quo for receiving $1.1 billion from taxpayers, who on earth can?
Turnbull has long been the ABC’s biggest admirer among ministers in the government. Yet Scott and the ABC board have made it harder and harder for even the Communications Minister to go into bat for the ABC.
That Turnbull has turned the bat on the ABC boss and the board is a sign of the exasperation felt by so many Australians, not just Liberals, at the way in which the ABC has neglected its basic core charter obligations while frolicking in other online and digital arenas.
It’s been a long, slow-burning fuse. The final spark came when no one in a position of power at the ABC stopped 7.30 from running an unfunny skit that mocked the deaths of 298 people on board flight MH17.
Not the executive producer of 7.30, not the news and current *affairs honchos and not Scott.
Bias is not the issue here. It’s worse. It signals how far the ABC has moved from reflecting the views of Australians whose taxes fund it.
Turnbull’s remarks are long overdue. But one question remains: why is it too much to expect that the ABC managing director should be willing and able to act as an editor-in-chief?
The problems that grate most with ABC viewers won’t be solved by breaking up the roles of managing director and editor-in-chief. The problems will only be solved when the ABC boss ”” whatever his or her official title ”” takes the ABC charter seriously.
Janet Albrechtsen is a former ABC board member.
Reader comments on this site are moderated before publication to promote lively and civil debate. We encourage your comments but submitting one does not guarantee publication. We publish hundreds of comments daily, and if a comment is rejected it is likely because it does not meet with our comment guidelines, which you can read here. No correspondence will be entered into if a comment is declined.
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Noel Noel
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david
david 16 minutes ago
How can our national public broadcaster be so vulnerable to being the captive of any ginger group? Looks like the governance is not tailored to the enterprise.
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Marilyn
Marilyn 25 minutes ago
I'm looking forward to the ABC's 'journalists' (I use that term loosely) strike. Can they start on Saturday?
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veronica
veronica 20 minutes ago
@Marilyn I hope if they do strike it will be prolonged.
Come on Barry, Tony, Leigh, down tools and keep them down.
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Richard A
Richard A 15 minutes ago
@veronica @Marilyn Knowing the ABC they'll still continue to pay their comrades full salary so there won't be any saving.
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veronica
veronica 7 minutes ago
@veronica @Marilyn Who in the name of the Lord set those fantastic salaries????
Cannot watch the over fed, over paid Tony Jones.
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Christine
Christine 34 minutes ago
I understand Janet Albrechtsen is now on the ABC committee for the selection of staff.
Julia
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Of course you don't. Because it largely reflects your own views, you automatically see it as entirely right and fair.
banco puts it well below:
Or the first story, backed up by Gillian Triggs, David Manne et al, in full flight.
Btw I should have added a comment in my earlier post on this topic to the effect that Waleed Aly, presenter of Radio National's Drive program is probably all up best radio presenter. He's highly intelligent, widely read and educated, a sharp, astute and fearless interviewer in the most laid back way.
I don't know, but presume from his name and his appearance that he's probably Muslim, but I have never once heard any religious or political bias in all of his widely varying subjects.
Such a contrast to some of the white Australians like John Cleary who, in the guise of their Christian religion, make some of the most stridently biased comments.
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OK, so ignore the research and opinions of unbiased observers like Gerald Stone who I mentioned.
Julia said:
Agree about Waleed. I believe he is a Muslim, but as you say, we would not know by his opinions. Very balanced and intelligent.
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You have to realise, the world is changing, the ABC, used to be an essential service, pre new technology.
Now, with satelites and the internet, t.v is readily available anywhere.
So now the ABC is just another media source, but it is funded by the taxpayer, who is represented by the Government.
Because the taxpayer, voted them in.
If the ABC is not giving a balanced report of issues, the Government is going to say, sod it we are going to pull funding.
The ABC has been stupid.
They can't take sides, because the other side may be in next election.
Also, it would be nice to have a news source that just reported facts.
If you want left leaning reports, buy the SMH, if you want right leaning reports buy the Australian.
If you want an unbiased report of the facts, you should be able to read the ABC, that hasn't been the case.
If they can't do that, they will be sold. Be it by Liberal or Labor
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Agree, well said, sptrawler.
I cannot believe people would say it is unbiased, and it has nothing to do with Bolt.
It has come to the point where I can't even watch it anymore, especially Q and A, that show is just pathetic. Nothing more frustrating than not allowing people to talk and air their opinions, on the chance that they have a decent guest on there.
I don't usually like to say sell things off, but if they are pushing their own barrow, then let them pay for it in a private company. I know the left think everything is free, but this is getting ridiculous.
I cannot believe people would say it is unbiased, and it has nothing to do with Bolt.
It has come to the point where I can't even watch it anymore, especially Q and A, that show is just pathetic. Nothing more frustrating than not allowing people to talk and air their opinions, on the chance that they have a decent guest on there.
I don't usually like to say sell things off, but if they are pushing their own barrow, then let them pay for it in a private company. I know the left think everything is free, but this is getting ridiculous.
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It will be punished by a political party which doesn't think that the ABC is "toeing it's own party line".
Tony Abbott basically said the ABC should be an instrument of government propaganda. That's not its job.
Survey after survey say the ABC is the most trusted media organisation in the country, by the PUBLIC , who's opinions matters more than the government of the day imho.
So_Cynical
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I imagine that this was because there were NO reports that found turning back the boats etc favourable, therefore nothing pro Noalition to cover.
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Fact is that when it comes to detailed TV and radio reporting of politics and political events we have the ABC, Bolt and SBS and then daylight...the commercials only give it 60 or 90 seconds coverage on their news programs.
Julia
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Of course it's better than at least the other electronic media, which is just abysmal on the whole.
If there were another couple of organisations, funded as well as the ABC is, but prepared to be more rigorous about even handedness, the results of such surveys would be different.
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Possibly. But as you say there is a lot of other electronic media out there, so why is it all abysmal ? Why does only the ABC appear to have a commitment to quality that discerning viewers/listeners like you and I find attractive (even if sometimes we don't like the content) ? It's the commercial rationale of appeal to the lowest common denominator that means that basically every commercial media outlet which tries to compete in the market will have to lower its standards.
Without a public funding, the ABC will just be another commercial channel, and we have seen what that means.
Julia
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Yes, that's how it is, but surely it doesn't have to be that way? It's that very compulsion to appeal to the lowest common denominator that renders much (at least in the regions) media so awful. Perhaps research has determined that only the less discerning are vulnerable to advertising?
I'm just not sure that's right, Rumpole. Perhaps a part public funding/part private compromise would see better use of funds and a partly private Board a more balanced selection of presenters with roughly fifty/fifty Left/Right persuasion, or much better still, more people like Waleed Aly, Paul Barclay and (mostly) Leigh Sales.
It's not a perfect world, however. And the ABC still does do some really great stuff. Last weekend there were a couple of radio docos, one about a family facing a member dying from cancer, the other on something similarly affecting, and they were masterpieces of sensitive yet practical presentations.
So utterly at the other end of the scale from anything one would ever hear on, e.g. Hadley or Jones on 2GB.
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Julia said:
A cynical but nevertheless completely accurate observation imo.
Make the programs, fun, lightweight and not requiring much thought and then hit the punters with advertising along the same lines.
Psychology 101.
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One option would be to fund the ABC partly by government and party by donations, like the PBS (Public Broadcasting System) in the US. The PBS network produces some excellent documentaries (remember NOVA) and news programs (PBS Evening News) and radio gems from time to time. A couple of times a year the PBS stations run "telethons" where viewers can donate, just like we do here for charities.
One advantage of being partly funded by donations is that if the station ignores its audience and panders to the opinions of a select few, it will see a drop off in that source of funds. One would need to ensure that donations from vested interest cannot be so large that they could unduly influence the content.
One advantage of being partly funded by donations is that if the station ignores its audience and panders to the opinions of a select few, it will see a drop off in that source of funds. One would need to ensure that donations from vested interest cannot be so large that they could unduly influence the content.
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A potential problem with private donations to a broad range public broadcaster is that it might be seen to favour the overall socioeconomic that's in a position to donate more.
My quick thought it that it's a model better suited for a broadcaster that specialises in a non-political (and non-religious) area such as science.
My quick thought it that it's a model better suited for a broadcaster that specialises in a non-political (and non-religious) area such as science.
IFocus
You are arguing with a Galah
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Republicans promised to kill PBS off if they won the Presidency
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Like most posters on this thread I don't mind alleged biased reporting on the ABC as long as it is directed against someone I hate, despise or distrust. e.g. Sarah Ferguson's and Emma Alberici's "interviews" with Clive Palmer. These women are much more credible than Barrie Cassidy or Sarah's husband Tony Jones with their stacked panels.
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Well it would appear the ABC lives up to the publics image of a Government department.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/th....html&locale=en_GB&sdk=joey&type=button_count
Shorten and the goons, will be front and centre supporting their advertising company.IMO
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/th....html&locale=en_GB&sdk=joey&type=button_count
Shorten and the goons, will be front and centre supporting their advertising company.IMO
Tisme
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Anyone that's been in the crosshairs of ABC's Chris Ullman knows that any political bias he might have does not translate to his family and professional outcomes. If anyone makes the mistake of loosening their belt he will take the opportunity to dak 'em and rip a new one without fear nor favour.