Managing editor Michelle Pini delves into whether Laura Tingle may represent the last ABC journalist prepared to report the truth.
Category: ABC
Laura Tingle does not need counselling. Laura Tingle needs a boss and an employer prepared to back her unequivocally. She needs an ABC that is fearless and independent and rises above and ignores the continual contemptible attacks on it and its journalists from its rabid rivals at News Corp. As do we all. ABC viewers are sick of the national broadcaster inviting representatives of its chief traducer on to its prestigious platforms and allowing it to set the news agenda in its own warped image. We decry News Corp being taken seriously as a news organisation rather than the legally adjacent, ideologically extreme, dangerously ruthless rogue company that it consistently reveals itself to be.
One wonders how the Australian mainstream media will react to the news that India, the so-called biggest democracy in the world, has thrown out ABC correspondent Avani Dias from the country.
Dias was denied a visa after her program Sikhs, Spies and Murder: Investigating India’s alleged hit on foreign soil was aired on the ABC ‘s weekly Foreign Correspondent slot.
A rash of Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) staff departures and the suppression of journalists critical of their organisations’ reporting on Gaza has been called a betrayal of the role of journalism in democracy.
Former Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) presenter Mary Kostakidis says the state-funded broadcaster and other news groups in Australia have refused to hold power to account by challenging official narratives by Israel and Western states supporting its attack on Gaza since Oct. 7.
Instead, the professional integrity of news staff battling to tell the truth is being challenged by their employers.
There is open and escalating conflict over reporting on what has been described by South Africa’s legal team at The Hague as genocidal acts by Israel, with one high-profile ABC employee fired in late December.
Strike action at the ABC over the sacking is now a possibility.
Israel Lobby has tentacles stretched across the planet AIPAC their role model on who and how to influence
A campaign by Israeli lobbyists pressured Australia’s national broadcaster into dismissing one of its presenters over comments the lobbyists deemed offensive. Dr Jennifer Wilson reports.
Those who believe the ABC propagates extreme left-wing content live in an alternate universe, writes John Longhurst.
INSIDERS IS NO longer a program viewers can rely on for accurate information and analysis. This is extremely disappointing. This has come about through excessive reliance on Rupert Murdoch’s mendacious “news” outlets for its content.
Source: ABC complaint over Insiders’ collaboration with Murdoch’s News Corp
The ABC was never there to breathe life into Ingmar Bergman’s 1960’s Film “Shame”. The ABC charter wasn’t to be balanced. It was there to question, test, and make the bastards accountable while working for us. It was essential to Australia’s once robust Democracy a standout example from America’s failing one. We are however being culturally colonized and allowing it to happen.
ABC boss David Anderson announced last week that it was not the broadcaster’s job to use terms such as “genocide” and “apartheid” in its coverage of the ongoing attacks by Israel on Gaza and the West Bank.
Source: ABC watches its language concerning alleged Israeli genocide
“Kitchen Cabinet raises fundamental questions about political journalism in general.
Source: “Kitchen… – The Fiberal Party of Australia – Lies & Misdemeanours | Facebook
He is a carrier of PTSD and as such entitled not to be blamed for passing it on so generously, to so many others in an even more intense way like 10 years and more of detention. Dutto is one of the lucky ones immune from future debilitating breakdowns. Peter Dutton truly believes by passing PTSD on to others they to0 should understand and become more like him.
The ABC’s Annabel Crabb has taken on the role of his publicist and try to show us just what a ‘nice guy’ spud, the ex-cop, turned $300 multi-millionaire now is. She tried ever so hard to contact Stuart Robert, Lind Reynolds, and others to her show their nicer sides too. However, they were far more camera-shy due to their PTSD and no longer believed in miracles due to their condition. Annabel’s producers promised however to keep on trying.
Apparently, Pete has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
At least, this was part of the insightful discourse to which the national broadcaster subjected viewers on its latest Kitchen ‘Counter-Information’ Cabinet episode, featuring the culinary skills of hard-hitting host, Annabel Crabb, and the Liberal Opposition Leader.
Source: Dutton reveals PTSD battle on ABC’s ‘Kitchen-Counter-Information-Cabinet’
The current hate-filled campaign by Far-Right conservative forces to derail the Voice Referendum is a shameful attempt to create division in order to ensure First Nations Australians remain voiceless.
Source: How the ABC platforming Sheridan & the IPA is derailing The Voice & subverting democracy
When the ABC dares “Bothside” what is occurring in our media it’s called “biased”
ABC’s Media Watch has stirred controversy by bothsiding the fight for trans rights, claiming the importance of reporting differing points of view. Dr Victoria Fielding reports.
Source: Media Watch faces backlash for supporting transphobia
Is this the sort of reporting we want the ABC to do? Strikes me as more 60 minutes than holding our government and politicians to account. As interesting as it might be it seems more a weekend magazine feature.
Strip club scheming
Australia’s largest tax fraud isn’t dreamed up in a plush office with a dazzling harbour view.
It begins at a strip club.
Source: Plutus Payroll tax scam’s downfall captured in police phone taps and surveillance video – ABC News
On Thursday last the ABC told a “pretty flabbergasted” political editor Andrew Probyn that he’d been made redundant along with 120 others, 41 of them in news, in a major cost-cutting measure. The purpose: so that the ABC could save money to “become more like YouTube, Spotify and Netflix instead of a traditional broadcaster,” to quote The Financial Review.
What Murdoch always wanted. Rid the ABC reporting on News and Politics and allow Murdoch to try to become Australia’s biggest influencer. The current changes seem to throw out of balance why the ABC was established in the first place.
The ABC’s mandate for independent and unbiased reporting, as well as its commitment to providing reliable news and information, helps in holding politicians and other public figures accountable for their actions.
It’s important to note that the ABC operates under a legislated charter that mandates its independence and impartiality. While the ABC aims to maintain editorial independence from political influences, there have been instances where political pressure or attempts to influence the organization have occurred. However, the ABC’s commitment to its charter and its strong reputation for journalistic integrity have helped maintain its role as a trusted and reliable source of news and information in Australia.
For
- National Unity: (Multicultural Unity)
- Public Service: Independent and Objective Reporting: ( Has been under constant attacl by the LNP)
- Educational and Cultural Content: (Has been highly criticized by the LNP)
- Technological Advancement: ( Has become the current excuse to cut News and Current affairs internally creating a fundamental imbalance)
The job cuts will result in “gaping holes” in the ABC’s news around Australia and will “inevitably weaken its ability to deliver quality journalism to the Australian public”.
Source: ABC announces ‘digital transformation’ with job cuts
There was once an ABC with a Charter to keep the bastards honest and Journalists abided by it. The ABC was meant to hold our politicians to account.
Reporters are supposed to hold politicians to account for their actions, not join the dogwhistles of a political hit job. The talking heads on Insiders last Sunday should know better.
Source: They should know better – » The Australian Independent Media Network
While the Structure is there it’s heart and soul “critical questioning” has been diluted and/or gone
This interaction exemplifies the issue of our national broadcaster being stacked with corporate-aligned people with corporate-aligned agendas, from the top down. Everything the MP talks about, like any other proposition with a modicum of progressivism, gets framed in a certain way right from the start, in bad faith. This methodology allows the discussion to lean by default to the conservative side, to favour the centre-right position on pretty much everything. When the ghouls of the private press rail about the ABC being a communist hellhole, it’s the closest it has ever been to them right now.
Source: It’s their ABC – The Shot
But having put the ABC under a critical spotlight it must be said that Australia does need a strong and vibrant public broadcaster – to be adequately funded after years of erosion inflicted by successive Liberal governments.
Source: ABC Veto of “Secular Voice” a Mockery of “Inclusion” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Fox and the Big Lie has been edited to be a standalone program and updated to include the latest developments,” a spokesperson said. “It abides by the highest editorial standards.”
Fox and the Big Lie goes to air on Monday 24th April at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
Australians deserve an independent ABC. Not one that purposely mirrors other often politically compromised reporting, like Murdoch media, to avoid “left-wing” labels, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.
Source: Politicised attacks are damaging the ABC’s editorial independence
ABC stands by report
The ABC said Fox and the Big Lie was an example of the ABC’s commitment to “high quality reporting on key topical issues of great interest to Australians”
Source: Clash of media giants ABC and Fox over airing of the ‘Big lie’
The LNP like no other Government before attempted to rid us of the ABC on the behest of Rupert Murdoch a foreign, politically partisan parasite who pays little or no tax and offers no benefit to our Nation’s Democracy whatsoever.
Now is the time to consolidate the ABC’s role permanently by enshrining the national broadcaster, through an all-party Declaration, as an institution that’s integral to our democracy and to which all citizens have a right.
Source: We need an all-party declaration of support for the ABC – Pearls and Irritations
Since when did the ABC become an extension of the Murdoch press? Should we be surprised, Probyn worked at the Herald Sun for 9 years where he was blooded or was that at Scotch College where he found his anti-Labor stripes?
After addressing the National Press Club last Wednesday on his proposed National Anti-Corruption Commission, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus faced questions from some of Australia’s elite political jour…
So how many people has the ABC sent to the UK to cover the death and funeral of Elizabeth II? It’s 27, according to the ABC — plus two extra journalists or former journalists who were coincidentally in Europe at the time, who have been roped in to help, including veteran correspondent Phil Williams, who though he retired from the ABC last year can’t seem to stay away from the joint.
Source: Just how many ABC staff have gone to London to see the queen?
The ABC is beginning to look like The Woman’s Weekly why would that be?
“I suspect the ABC has misread its audience. If you want wall-to-wall royalty you can get it elsewhere in spades. The ABC is better when it offers an alternative to populism,” ABC veteran journalist and former Insiders host Barrie Cassidy tweeted this week.
Source: ABC criticised for massive coverage of Queen’s death
Sarah Ferguson, the new host of ABC’s 7.30, has just completed her first week in the chair after returning from the USA. I interviewed her on Friday morning, just after she woke from her only sleep-in of the week.
‘That’s the job’: Sarah Ferguson on hosting ABC TV’s 7.30 and holding power to account
Is the ALP government really ABC friendly or just better than the last mob?
In an interview with Guardian Australia on the eve of the ABC’s 90th birthday, Rowland said the Coalition “completely lied” about not cutting ABC funding in 2013 and the broadcaster had been harmed as a result. But she stopped short of agreeing with Kevin Rudd that the ABC had been “tamed” by cuts and incessant attacks.
The Free Market acts
In what is a fitting 90th birthday present for the ABC, Qantas has inked a new deal with the public broadcaster for ABC news bulletins to screen on Qantas flights and in airport lounges. The arrangement means Sky News Australia will no longer be screened in the airline’s lounges, a development that will please critics of the divisive pay TV channel.
The ABC has recently accepted all the recommendations provided by the review of its complaints process. A major recommendation that they be directly responsible to the Board and bypass the ABC’s editorial staff. However, given the Board wasn’t selected on merit alone for the past decade, as required by statute, and the LNP government ensured it was biased in its favor the only option now is to sack it. Then reappoint a new one and to make the ABC complaints process really independent in accordance with the intentions of the Act. https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/abc/13906138?jwsource=cl
Conspiracists see that as the long-term end-game in which many of those who built trust in the ABC have been recruited to destroy it. What can’t be explained is how they might have been persuaded to sacrifice their precious reputations to contribute to that end.
Source: Playing devil’s advocate or becoming the antichrist — a quandary at the ABC
Andrew Bolt cries blue murder at the ABC’s bias against the LNP
Leigh Sales questioning Adam Bandt’s 6% tax increase for billionaires with the retort that the ultra-rich will be less inclined to give charitably is way off the mark.
Source: Leigh Sales parrots ultra-rich narrative – Michael West Media
It started with Howard but got far, far worse when Abbott arrived intent on fulfilling the IPA’s wish. Despite pre election promises of NO CUTS TO THE ABC Morrison ensured their ABC’s budget was brought back to 1984 levels. Meanwhile under his leadership government debt exploded by 200% to nearly $1 Trillion. Only 30% of that increase was due to the pandemic. Yet the government believed that its actions should remain unquestioned.
The ABC’s relationship with the Howard government was never easy, and the 2001 cabinet papers, released by the National Archives on Saturday, reveal tensions between the government’s desire for budget cuts and fear of alienating its supporters who valued the national broadcaster. Despite having promised during the 1996 election campaign that the ABC’s budget was safe, within four months of coming to office John Howard’s government cut it by 2% and announced a review of the role and scope of ABC services by Bob Mansfield, the founding chief executive of Optus. Howard’s senior adviser, Grahame Morris, characterised the ABC as “our enemy talking to our friends” and Howard himself had accused the broadcaster of being left-leaning. But the dilemma for the Coalition was the ABC was valued by its supporters, particularly in the bush, and cuts to the ABC often played badly in the regions. The cabinet papers released by the National Archives provide more evidence of the uneasy relationship
The very notion of ridding us of the ABC was once a “dead cat ” on the table. It too started as a “distraction” just as changing Voter ID laws are suggested to be. However, that “dead cat” has been alive for more than 20 years and in fact, has grown into a feral zombie of a tiger feeding on the ABC. It has reduced our most trusted newscaster’s budget by a billion dollars leaving it with the equivalent of 1984’s to work with. Bragg’s inquiry is not only dominated by the LNP and has only one intent ” to ilegally cripple our the ABC”.
The fate of Senator Andrew Bragg’s inquiry into the way the ABC and SBS handle complaints will be decided in a matter of days, with two independent senators and the Labor Party signalling they would support a motion by the Greens to terminate it. But Dhanya Mani, a campaigner against misconduct towards women, backed the inquiry, saying it would be a better alternative to the ABC’s independent review.
Source: ABC Senate inquiry on knife edge as advocate backs review
Morrison was there 8 years ago when Tony Abbott promised, but lied saying there’d be NO CUTS TO THE ABC before the 2013 election. Morrison “I never lied as a politician” was there supporting that promise and the turn around that followed it. For the following 8 years Australia’s Most Trusted News Caster has never experienced the intensity of the LNP’s constant financial and cultural attack to cancel it. An attack so partisan and with such disregard to the Statutary nature protecting and governing our broadcasters existence that what’s clear is that the LNP is anti- Australian Democracy and an Autocratic party, That’s been amplified year in year out by their other demands and particularly in 2021. Stricter Voting IDs to prevent fraud where there is none accompany the behind doors whispers to rid us of Compulsory Voting coupled with cancelling the ABC, our system od Democracy.
Senator Bragg’s creation of a totally partisan and illegal committee into the ABC runs completely against all the regulations pertaining to it sabbotaging the board and it’s very duties. So much so clashing with their LNP chosen Chairperson Ita Buttrose. All this includes Morrison who as Treasurer and now PM has supported these attacks. He has helped reduce the ABC’s budget to the equivalent of 1984,has tried to enforce cultural change, and even supported having the ABC broken up and sold.
Yes,these ass-holes are intent on Americanising us by aping the current anti-democratic right-wing ideology of the current American Republicans. Bonded by the Murdoch, the IPA and welcomed foreign political advice.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed a Senate inquiry into the ABC and SBS’s complaints handling processes, rejecting ABC chair Ita Buttrose’s accusation that it amounted to an attack on the public broadcaster’s independence.
Over the years, empty legal threats would rain down like confetti. The largest number came from Peter Dutton, who took a special interest in everything I said about him. The ABC managers developed “Dutton fatigue”. No doubt the relentless pressure was designed to make me cool my jets, to be more cautious in my commentary about the combative ex-policeman from Queensland. At one exasperated stage I told my manager I wanted to start my own proceedings against the minister alleging he defamed me for claiming I was defaming him when plainly I was not. I argued that it was defamatory to accuse a professional broadcaster of defamation for no reason, as the inference was that I was reckless or incompetent, derelict in my obligations to my employer, in breach of the ABC charter and someone the audience could not trust.
Legal experts were in no doubt whatsoever that Christian Porter had given up but News Corp madly spun the line that it was a humiliating backdown by the ABC. Michael Tanner dissects the coverage of what had been billed ‘the defamation trial of the century’.
Source: Tamed Estate: Christian Porter ‘zero for three’ but News Corp claimed Porter victory – Michael West
At the end of the day, a plaintiff brings a defamation case against a media organisation for compensation, or for an apology, or to get an online article or publication removed – or perhaps all three. But Porter has finished his case with none of these. You be the judge on who “won”.
Source: Christian Porter ABC defamation case: Why Christian Porter has really capitulated
ABC management has knocked back an upcoming Four Corners episode by prominent journalist Louise Milligan about the relationship between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a decision that could be seen as an attempt to dampen tensions between the national broadcaster and the federal government.
One thing is certain the LNP attacks on the ABC slow at election time (ODT)
2020 has ended badly for the ABC — so badly that it’s time to ask if chair Ita Buttrose is capable of halting the broadcaster’s slide. Right now it looks like she’s not. But is there anyone who could, given how the stars have aligned against the ABC this year?
Can the ABC survive the war under chair Ita Buttrose?
The LNP and Murdoch push to rid us of the ABC is Trumpism to the core (ODT)
ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose has warned against growing attempts of intimidation towards public broadcasters around the world, saying countries that have popular, well-funded public sector media encounter less extremism and corruption and have greater press freedom.
ABC chair Ita Buttrose defends broadcaster as essential to democracy
When ABC director of news Gaven Morris warned his staff against focusing on “inner city left-wing elites” last week he could easily have been citing from the Coalition playbook. The phrase reflects the perception of a city/country divide and a gulf between inner city and outer suburban values, and marginalises “progressive” issues as the sole preserve of a small coterie of ivory-tower inhabitants out of touch with the concerns of “real” Australians. But was Morris right to urge his staff to look beyond this audience? And do these “inner city left-wing elites” even exist?
Does the inner city left-wing elite exist?
Opposition says proposed code should cover public broadcasters so the revenue is used to boost regional news services
ABC and SBS should also receive fees from Facebook and Google, Labor says | Media | The Guardian
According to the Government, the ABC and SBS weren’t to be included.
Source: Google and Facebook should pay to use ABC and SBS content, ACCC told | Media | The Guardian
I listen to the ABC news and comment programs and note that they employ an increasing number of conservatives including former politicians, like Amanda Vanstone.
Yet conservatives as a whole continue to accuse the ABC of left-wing bias!
And because it is so obvious that the ABC is not offering exclusively left wing opinions, those who are firmly left-wing in their personal beliefs, see the ABC now as becoming right-wing!
It is a crazy situation when each side of politics demands balance in their national broadcaster, and, when they get it, interpret it as bias!
It is worse than crazy, it is dangerous, when that results in the government effectively introducing strong right-wing bias into media, by cutting funds to the ABC and giving funds to blatantly right-wing Murdoch media outlets.
You have to ask yourself – how, in a democracy, can this be seen as legitimate? – particularly when that same government is passing increasingly dictatorial legislation which reduces our freedoms.
Not a good look from a government with so slim a majority!
No wonder they do not want Parliament to be sitting and discussing the government’s flawed program!
via Bias and balance – » The Australian Independent Media Network
via
Kill the ABC for Murdoch and then we don’t have to worry about the voters. A Wage freeze is a cut.
But Paul Murphy, the chief executive of the MEAA, declared on Wednesday that Fletcher had engaged in overreach. Murphy said the warning about the pay freeze was “just another shot in the culture wars” and indicative of the Coalition’s “unhealthy obsession with the ABC”.
Murphy said the intervention by the communications minister turned this “into an issue of ABC independence”. He said pay outcomes at the national broadcaster were “none of the government’s business” and any variation of the current enterprise agreement was a matter for ABC management and the unions, not the government.
Exclusive: Broadcaster’s managing director, David Anderson, tells staff he will take a 5% pay cut due to budgetary pressures
Mike Seccombe: ‘ It sounds like a marketing slogan, almost a cliché: in times of national crisis, Australians turn to the national broadcaster. But over the past six months or so, it has proved profoundly true.First came the bushfire crisis, when the ABC’s network of regional reporters distinguished themselves not just in reporting the disaster as it unfolded but also warning those in harm’s way. Then came the current coronavirus crisis….Continue Reading
Take the Nielsen Digital Content Ratings, which measure online interaction. In December last year, on the back of its bushfire coverage, the broadcaster surged into second place with a “unique audience” of more than 10 million – passing Nine and just behind news.com.au, which both fell.
By January, the ABC was No. 1 in the country, with an audience of 11.2 million, well ahead of the Murdoch news site. The most recent figures, for March, showed its audience up to 15.2 million, a 53 per cent gain in a single month, and almost three million ahead of its closest rival.
In one sense, this is unsurprising. Innumerable surveys over the decades have shown the ABC to be the most trusted media outlet, and one of the most trusted institutions in the country.
On another level, though, it is remarkable that the ABC has done so well during these particular crises – given that it has been working while grievously wounded. Since the current government came to power in 2014, the broadcaster has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and about 1000 jobs.
Staff members reveal the significant pressure they are under as the public broadcaster continues to face budget cuts of more than $100 million a year.
Staff members reveal the significant pressure they are under as the…
Staff members reveal the significant pressure they are under as the public broadcaster continues to face budget cuts of more than $100 million a year.
The notion that Australia’s SBS and ABC are politically “Left” is wildly incorrect.
A far-Right military coup in Bolivia forced a sitting socialist President, Evo Morales, to resign and escape the country, yet they hardly reported on this fact. Instead, they devoted much favourable coverage to Right-wing demonstrators and security forces.
Need I mention the anti-coup mostly indigenous and poor demonstrators were not covered, and more than this were blamed for the violence?
LNP have been slashing the ABC funding for the past 6 years never promised at an election and always called something other than what it is. Death of the ABC will be the death of Democracy in Australia and the growth of Murdoch media whose profits are heavily entrenched supporting those that will have the money to pay at elections. $90 million vs $18 million tells the tale of modern politics and the media. A David and Goliath tale where Goliath has had his achillies cut and tongue cut out. (ODT)
Key points:
Mr Anderson did not say how many staff or from where in the ABC the jobs would be cut
He told Senate Estimates consideration would be given to keeping regional and remote jobs
The Government has frozen the ABC’s budget for three years, at a cost of $83.7 million
olddogthoughts 
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