What a cowardly act it was. A national broadcaster, dedicated to what should be fearless reporting, cowed by the intemperate bellyaching of a lobby concerned about coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. The investigation by The Age newspaper was revealing in showing that the dismissal of broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf last December 20 was the nasty fruit of a campaign waged against the corporation’s management. This included its chair, Ita Buttrose, and managing director David
“Accuracy and impartiality are core to the service we offer audiences,” Justin Stevens explained to staff. “We must stay independent and not ‘take sides’.”
This pointless assertion can only ever be a threat because it acts as an injunction on staff and a judgment against sources that do not favour the accepted line, however credible they might be. What proves acceptable, a condition that seems to have paralysed the ABC, is to never say that Israel massacres, commits war crimes, and brings about conditions approximating to genocide. Little wonder that coverage on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice does not get top billing on in the ABC news headlines.
Palestinians and Palestinian militias, on the other hand, can always be written about as brute savages, rapists and baby slayers. Throw in fanaticism and Islam, and you have the complete package ready for transmission. Coverage in the mainstays of most Western liberal democracies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the late Robert Fisk pointed out with pungency, repeatedly asserts these divisions.
olddogthoughts 
Oh, yes, ethically-/morally-challenged Big Media. … I recall when Postmedia’s then-CEO ordered every one of Postmedia’s then-180-plus newspapers to formally editorially endorse kindred-spirit incumbent-PM Harper and his Conservative Party for re-election in the 2015 federal vote, they all did, including the grudgingly-complying national daily paper The Globe and Mail.
The sole vocal opposition was The National Post’s then-editorial-page-editor Andrew Coyne [apparently a long-time conservative]: he refused to go with the command and resigned when his superiors at the top of Postmedia’s chain-of-command denied him running his own [albeit non Harper Conservative] editorial endorsement — which until then was basically common practice. …
Mainstream media used to generally challenge the powers-that-be in order to truly comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable in an increasingly unjust global existence. Now, it has largely become a profession motivated more by a regular company paycheck and frequently published name/face with stories or opinions.
LikeLike