'Australian Story' is an amazingly boring program. The stories are usually about some nobody with nothing interesting about him or her with an introduction by a total bore who claims to know about the subjects and greatly admires their struggle against some petty adversity.

I doubt that there would be enough people watching the ridiculous program for any ABC 'political influence' to be effective.

An accusation of bias or improper reporting by our national broadcaster on the subject of water purity I would have thought would have had a wide audience, not the least being the people of Tasmania who appear to be bombarded almost every month with some other development matter impacting what used to be a pristine environment.
The article in this case, written as it was by a writer whose life is totally dependent on the industry which was the subject of the ABC report, can hardly be expected to be supportive of anyone who, based on their own personal efforts over a long time, spent a great deal of time investigating a pollution source which was impacting an important industry in Tasmania, that is oyster farming together with anyone using the water for drinking.
There appeared to me to be no doubt whatsoever that this problem was eventually able to be corrected, not by the actions of an interested government, who on the surface appeared to be less than motivated to be of assistance, but by a combined effort of oyster farmers,and scientists, such as the NIWA experts in New Zealand. Why would they have an axc to grind?
I may be naive but the fact that this is an election year, the writer, by emphasising that this may have been a motivation for the ABC to produce the program, made an unworthy comment, but understandable because of his total subservience to the very industry responsible for the pollution in this case. If he was doing anything in writing his story it was showing his allegiance to his employers, a natural reaction.
When one talks about fairness and objectivity, be seems to fail on both counts.

Mark - Sublime work

Hits every nail that needed hitting.

What we have is a wilful collaboration of activists and the ABC with the sole intent of corrupting the public sphere. And we thought that threat came from the commercial media! Alston was right - the ABC and commercial broadcasters ARE structurally the same. Might as well privatise the bast*rds after all.

Mark's analysis of the whole sorry beat-up is the one that deserves national coverage.

Good article Mark.

Thanks for offering an alternative view, as no one I'm sure outside of OLO would probably print something in Australia that criticises the green lobby or the ABC, we've become so PC.

I think you're pushing the proverbial uphill trying to get any recognition of bias out of the ABC.

They see themselves as unbiased, middle of the road, because they all think the same way, way left that is.

It is irritating the way they support all the eco, enviro stories, like this like AGW and never bring any balance to the table.

I'll get flamed for saying this as so many on OLO consider them the epitome of balance.

Sack them all, including the guy at the top whose arrogance is breathtaking and sell it to the lowest bidder.

When the revolution comes, we'll give the ABC to the gun lobby and the guys who organize the SummerNats - just so we get a few decades of the opposite to what we get now .. that would be balance (that's a joke OK, take a deep breath and let it all gooooooo.)

Well said Mark! Your attention to detail contrasts dramtically with the lack of detail given in Something's in the Water. I get very frustrated with the constant attacks on the forest industry. The bias and misinformation that is pushed out is incredible.
Before this type of slanted story is released with the resulting concern and community division, let the research be done properly to establish the full facts.
Thanks again.

Mark,
The issues that you raise of lack of balance and the flawed practices of the ABC must be immediately investigated by the Australian Communication and Media Authority as it seems the ABC is in breach of its own code of practice . It is not the first time that the ABC has been found guilty of breaching its code when it comes to reporting on Tasmanian forestry. You might remember the ABC’s own Independent Complaints Review panels damning finding of bias and inaccuracies against Ticky Fullerton’s Lords of the Forest see http://www.ipa.org.au/library/57-1-ABCparalysisonbias.pdf

Even a complaint to ACMA when the ABC management failed to act on its findings seems not to have prevented a repeat six years later.

What is of greatest concern is the ABC’s failing to make all evidence available to public health authorities and also failing to declare the involvement and role of the legal firm Slater and Gordon. When the Tasmania’s Director of Public Health tried to access the results of the testing, AAP reported that he was referred to this legal firm. Now, documents made available on the ABC web site after the program aired, show that legal firm commissioned and funded the testing undertaken by New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (“NIWA”).

The ABC also ignored the request of the Forest Industries Association to ‘viewers are made aware of all the issues, facts and history when considering whatever findings are put forward in the second episode.’ Instead the FIAT letter and its counter claims was only available to the 800,000 odd Australians that watched the program if they accessed the web site.
If they had they too, like Mark could have also accessed the detailed response for the Director of Public Health see http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/news_and_media/st_helens_drinking_water_quality that demonstrates that this issue has not been ignored by the Tasmanian government and in fact has been taken very seriously by health authorities and the Department of Primary Industries and Water