on - last edited on by
underbat
Abbott prepares for war on the ABC
Who stands to benefit?
The attacks on the ABC are not solely prompted by the acute embarrassment its news coverage has caused the government. Nor is the budget review simply intended to make the ABC more efficient. The execrable MP Cory Bernadi suggested that the government could “cut the ABC budget and allow the commercial media to compete.”
From 1996 to 2012 the ABC budget actually fell as a proportion of government spending, from .45 to .27 percent. Although inflation has in effect kept its funding unchanged since then, the ABC has somehow managed to introduce new digital and web services and develop its existing operations.
But there’s the rub.
The commercial media bitterly resent the ABC and would dearly love to capture its audiences. They are outraged that its new services have proved very popular, and that ABC kids programs frequently draw the biggest TV ratings in Australia. Media magnate James Murdoch thundered: “There is a land grab, pure and simple, going on, and in the public interest it should be sternly resisted.”
The Murdoch empire’s hatred of the ABC has become obsessive since Sky News, an outfit in which it has a financial interest, was deprived by the Gillard government of an opportunity to take over the ABC’s overseas news service.
And the coalition is backing the privateers. Bronwyn Bishop and Ian MacDonald say the ABC exceeded its charter and is cannibalising legitimate private media business operations.
In contrast, former ABC chairman David Hill has strenuously rejected Abbott’s criticism of the ABC and his vindictive approach to it.
He commented: “It’s an absurd proposition, laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. This is the first serious suggestion I know of, certainly in the last half century, where a prime minister of the country is suggesting that the Australian public be denied access to the truth, and the first time that a prime minister has seriously intimated that the ABC should censor and withhold information from the Australian public.”
According to a report in The Australian, the overseas broadcasting service, which broadcasts into 46 countries, is likely to be scrapped in the May budget in order to “save money and end the pursuit of ‘soft diplomacy’.”
Other options the government may pursue include reducing the ABC’s budget so it fore goes all but basic news broadcasts, introducing advertising to its broadcasts on the basis of improved economic performance, stripping it of its digital and web services – or even attempting to privatise it, as some coalition MPs would prefer.
The attacks threaten an institution which enjoys nationwide affection and respect and is crucial for the public’s understanding of news and current affairs, as well as its cultural development.
The future of “Aunty”, your ABC, is on the line. 
http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2014/1625/05-abcs-future.html
meep and freaki,
The Guardian that I post from is the CPA one and it was here some time before the UK Guardians Australian edition, either way I will make sure I put CPA in from now on. Both are better than the tele in any case.
@boris1gary wrote:
@poddster wrote:Communist Party of Australia ????
Who is showing their true colours?
Who are you referring to poddster?
poddster,
lots of question marks in your post - 5 of them - who are you questioning?
well I don't know how many times I need to post it - I am a communist, have been for many many years, my "true colours" are always showing, proudly.
poddster, what are your "true colours"?
@freakiness wrote:
@icyfroth wrote:
@freakiness wrote:https://theconversation.com/abc-forgetting-lessons-of-2001-pays-for-its-lack-of-scepticism-22746
Questions of accountabilityOn February 4, the ABC’s managing director, Mark Scott, and director of news, Kate Torney, issued a media release, the Jesuitical wording of which brings us to the second ethical issue here, that of media accountability.
ABC managing director Mark Scott’s statement of regret offers a limited sort of accountability.AAP/Alan Porritt
Referring to the video evidence of the burnt hand, the statement said:
The ABC’s initial reports on the video said that the vision appeared to support the asylum seekers’ claims. That’s because it was the first concrete evidence that the injuries had occurred. What the video did not do was establish how those injuries occurred. The wording around the ABC’s initial reporting needed to be more precise on that point. We regret if our reporting led anyone to mistakenly assume that the ABC supported the asylum seekers’ claims. The ABC has always presented the allegations as just that – claims worthy of further investigation.
Too right it needed to be more precise, and assessments about what the video meant needed to be suspended until better evidence was available. As for mistaken assumptions, it is well established in media law – and equally well understood by journalists – that people take in the news impressionistically. They do not parse every sentence.
Journalists who create false impressions in the minds of their audience have only themselves to blame. In these ways, the ABC’s statement typifies the media’s conventional reluctance to own up.
Poor evidence of biasNone of these failings, however, support the accusations of bias that have been levelled at the ABC.
Failure to verify is not on its own evidence of bias. If it could be shown to be accompanied by some other culpable element such as conscious prejudice, suppression of available evidence or failure to give an opportunity to reply, then a case of bias might exist. However, there is no such evidence.
News Corp has characterised the ABC as treacherous and accused it of hating the navy. But News Corp has acommercial axe to grind with the ABC and isn’t to be taken seriously on this matter.
The government was given every opportunity to reply but was defeated by its own policy of censorship in respect of Operation Sovereign Borders.
Nor do these failings provide any support for prime minister Tony Abbott’s authoritarian proposition that the ABC should give Australia the benefit of the doubt on these issues.
Lessons of historyGive Australia the benefit of the doubt? Why? Australian governments have lied about these matters before.
During the 2001 federal election campaign, the ABC was rightlysceptical about the veracity of photos that the government asserted to be of asylum seekers throwing their children overboard. They turned out to be nothing of the kind.
The irony now is that the ABC has been insufficiently sceptical of another asylum seeker image, in this case the burnt-hand video. In journalism, it is always hazardous to suspend disbelief.
Do you have a point in amongst all that text?
Do I have to have?
The point would be that the ABC is not biased against Abbott. If anything they have been the opposite.
You're not serious are you?
From the OP:
"And where newsworthy events that reflected poorly on Labor happened,you'd hope the ABC would be assiduous in covering them.
In the context of an extra $190M in ABC funding that the Gillard Government decided on in June this year - smack bang in the middle of the search warrant reports in other media - the absence of any reporting at all on the issue takes on potentially sinister overtones.
ABC Managing Director Mark Scott was equipped with 102 pages of "priority briefing notes" prepared by ABC staffers when he fronted the October 2012 Senate Estimates hearings.
His briefing notes were released under FOI in May this year. Page One of 102 pages recorded how well the ABC had done out of the Rudd years.
The ABC wanted an extra TV network - ABC3 - and it got its way with $67M.
The ABC wanted more money for its local drama producing mates - they're very expensive if you want to see them happy and smiling. $70 million extra for that.
$15.3 was found for ABC Open - along with an extra $13.6 for some capital spending. All in all the ABC was very happy"
very happy indeed to bias it's reports in favour of the party signing it's paycheck!
