Leave Aunty Alone!
by Wayne Errington
In the last edition of Incite, Stephen Barton argued that the ABC was bias towards the left in both content and programming. He argued that the bias was all the more serious because the ABC provides the only quality news and current affairs, while the commercial stations are mere populists, ‘demagogues in the hunt for ratings.’ Wayne Errington, a Post-graduate in the Department of Political Science, defends the ABC.Diatribes against the ABC, such as that by Stephen Barton in the inaugural issue of Incite form part of what has become an orchestrated conservative strategy in Australian politics - an attempt to intimidate the ABC into ‘balanced’ political coverage. For ‘balanced,’ read something more along the lines of the Liberal Party lap dogs (or is it the other way around) in the commercial media.
The centre-piece of the conservatives’ strategy is the twelve per cent funding cut beginning in 1996. The message is clear - behave yourselves or more cuts will follow. The cuts were buttressed by a propaganda campaign alleging anti-Coaction bias at the ABC, as though a lie becomes the truth if it is repeated often enough.
In fact, the ABCs news and current affairs coverage is politically balanced to the point of blandness. Representatives of both major parties are inevitably trotted out by the AM or PM programs to discuss the issue of the day, regardless of how tiresome or predictable this becomes. This is political balance.
Bias is much more interesting than balance. Conservative complaints of left-wing views in documentaries and dramas are particularly shrill. The fact that such productions take a certain viewpoint is what makes them interesting. If more of these programmes are left-wing than right-wing, it reflects the bias of filmmakers, writers and creative types generally rather than that of the ABC.
Barton’s limp opinion piece continues a familiar theme - one reads it in letters to newspapers, hears it in complaints to the ABC itself and hears it endlessly from coalition politicians - selectively citing examples of coverage which offend the conservative mind set. It doesn’t take much. The mere fact that the ABC takes issues such as indigenous rights and the environment seriously seems to offend the Prime Minister and his apologists. Barton singled out Triple J for special criticism in this area. That network caters to young people, whose concerns are wider than those canvassed by the proto-fascists at Young Liberals conventions.
Radio National is also regularly criticised in this light. Not that it matters much given that network’s minuscule audience, but aging Whitlamites like Phillip Adams and Geraldine Doogue are all the ABC can afford. Any right-wing commentator who can string a few sentences together (and some who can’t) has a spot in the commercial media - Sattler, Jones, Laws, Devine, McGuinness - the list is endless. To call the commercial media populist rather than conservative is to miss the point. These guys (and they’re always guys) hate unions and they hate the ALP.
The Liberal Party’s ceaseless campaign against the ABC has had its effects. It is tragic to see a great interviewer such as Kerry O’Brien treading on eggshells when he speaks to the Prime Minister, lest the switchboard light up with complaints of bias whenever the blue rinse set sees the bias chimera. (Why do all these reactionaries watch and listen to the ABC if it is so incurably left-wing?) Yes, O’Brien worked for the ALP as a press secretary half a lifetime ago. Surely, though, his record as the nation’s pre-eminent television journalist has been established by reducing politicians from all parties to quivering wrecks. That’s his job. Yet when a member of this government is questioned about one of their regular stuff-ups, they whinge about biased reporting.
The government is slowly stacking the ABC board with its cronies. Chairman McDonald is an old friend of the PM while Michael Kroger’s presence on the board has already led to suggestions of privatisation of ABC on-line. If the government really wanted balance, professionals in the communications industry would be appointed rather than Liberal Party hacks.
Locally, too, the government’s campaign has borne fruit. They now have one of their own (Eoin Cameron) in the drive-time shift - and what a pretentious bore he is. The much more entertaining Verity James, after being let down by her staff during an election campaign interview with Mr Howard last year has been banished to the afternoon slot to discuss the finer points of gardening and pet care. James should never have drawn a link between heroin and the GST in that fateful interview but the Liberal Party’s response had all the hallmarks of false indignation. An innocent mistake was instantly linked into the anti-ABC campaign in an effort to neutralise any negative coverage of the Coalition across the corporation.
