As a conservative I don't see the ABC's occasional left wing opinions as a problem. Its slogan that its "our ABC" does not make it a Federal Government Information Ministry - thank God!!

The ABC's content also presents an excellent foil to the often tendentious and commercially driven "party lines" of the 3 commercial TV stations.

Keep it up ABC!? You may get it wrong now and then. But you provide diversity when one considers our media choices overall.

Yawn. Ben-Peter Terpstra must have had a bet going to see how man adjectives he could prefix with “anti”. Anti-American, anti-Israeli, ant-capitalist… Hey – you forgot anti-Christian!! “Chattering classes”? -- Gee, that’s original. “Old socialist windbag”? -- Ouch!!

[Predictably enough, the ABC Shop sells Michael Moore “documentaries”.]

Good use of scare quotes

[…the ABC website also recommends: Super Size Me DVD, The Corporation DVD, Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism DVD, Soundtrack to War (an anti-Bush music spectacular) DVD. Curiously, all of the above “documentaries” have been discredited by serious academics.]

Again, good use of scare quotes. It’s also clever how Mr Terpstra prefixes academics with the word “serious”. You see, conservatives will tell you that plain old “academics” are “anti-American”, “anti-Israeli”, “anti-capitalist” traitors. So when a faculty member of a tertiary institution says something conservatives like Mr Terpstra agree with they need to be distinguished from those other bad academics – that’s where “serious academics” come in. Then “academics” can still be used as a term of abuse. By the way, care to name any of these “serious academics”?

[One of the ABC’s weirdest “mom and pop” conspiracy theory documentaries is Outfoxed - RupertMurdoch’s War on Journalism. Nevertheless, “our” national broadcaster describes it as a “brilliantly executed exposé of the moral and ethical corruption of Fox News”.]

No, the ABC doesn’t describe it that way. That’s what the blurb on the back of the DVD says. If you look on the internet numerous websites selling Outfoxed describe it in exactly the same way, word for word. But don’t let that get in your way of accusing the ABC of taking sides.

[What we do find on this unintentionally comical documentary, however, is that Bill O’Reilly - an Irish-American TV host - raises his voice at some left-wing guests. That’s true. But he raises his voice at right-wing guests too.]

Sure, I bet terms like “neo-con”, “warmonger” and “bigot” fly out of his mouth thick and fast.

[Michael Wilson’s documentary is more than an “interesting” documentary.]

What? No scare quotes around documentary this time?

It's interesting that Ben finds the documentary on Fox News an example of conspiracy theory. The ABC's culture of left-wing bias of course is not conspiracy theory but an objective observation. Hmmmm.

If you really wanted to turn the ABC around so it resembled the Nine Network you'd have to pay commentators and journalists Nine Network salaries. Somehow I don't think the Australian Government is about to do that in this era of "lean and mean".

Looking at his other contributions, I do worry that Ben finds the likes of Ann Coulter hilarious. Actually, she is but probably not in the way she intends.

Spot on Ben, spot on!

Finally someone has had the courage to take on the cultural elites working for the ABC.

I doubt anything will happen though to reform that organisation until it is sold - and I can't wait for that to happen. Then, perhaps only then, we will get some more balanced material.

And like Ben said, Manne's criticism of a conservative being allowed to put forward his views are typical of the democracy haters that are ever prominent on the left.

Bring on Ann Coulter, D'Souza and Buchanan (the last two Ben forgot)! Especially in our taxpayer funded ABC Shops which as Ben exposed eloquently, are just propoganda shops for the left side of political debate.

[Finally someone has had the courage to take on the cultural elites working for the ABC.]

"Cultural elites"? David Flint -- Is that you?

[I doubt anything will happen though to reform that organisation until it is sold - and I can't wait for that to happen. Then, perhaps only then, we will get some more balanced material.]

It’s funny you should say that, because conservatives in the US constantly complain of the left’s “domination” of the media over there – and how much of that media is owned by the public?

[And like Ben said, Manne's criticism of a conservative being allowed to put forward his views are typical of the democracy haters that are ever prominent on the left.]

Manne didn’t complain that a conservative was allowed to put forward his views – he complained that interviewers didn’t question him on his role as an architect of current US foreign policy, particularly in regard to the Iraq war. That’s something quite different.

Sammy Jankis, you forgot to mention the use of "anti-semite". Quite a fun description of a Saudi Arab, don't you think? Sort of encapsulates the intellectual rigour of the whole piece.