The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Politics of talkback radio > Comments

Politics of talkback radio : Comments

By Colin Long, published 15/5/2007

Politics Australia-style: avoid the issue; and repeat 'ad nauseam' the pre-determined message.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. All
Mick V, ultimately we all pay the bills of the big Corporations one way or another. Who is naive now? A simple example is the Maquarie Bank and its Sydney tunnels. The Bank makes the profit and the punter pay's the Toll. I swear prior to the tunnels there was no toll to pay.I also wonder why the ABC News programs have more detail than the commercial stations. Perhaps its because they are answerable to no one.
Posted by hedgehog, Thursday, 17 May 2007 9:43:07 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Mick V mounts this ‘argument’: “The ABC exists to support the ideologies of the people who control it.”

Who controls the ABC? Answer: the Board appointed by the Howard Government. Members are:

Mark Scott (2006) - Managing Director. Previously senior political adviser to former NSW Liberal Education Minister Metherell, and editor-in-chief at Fairfax.

Maurice Newman (2007) - Chair of the ABC and concurrently Chairman of the Australian Securities Exchange - forty years in stockbroking and investment banking. A close personal friend of John Howard.

Dr Ron Brunton (2003) Senior Fellow at right wing think tank IPA 1995 - 2001, and writer for conservative political journal Quadrant. A Howard cultural warrior.

Janet Albrechtsen (2005) - a former solicitor, now right-wing newspaper columnist with The Australian. Another Howard cultural warrior.

Steven Skala (2005) – big businessman, director of neo-liberal/conservative think tank, Centre for Independent Studies.

Peter Hurley (2006) - President of the SA branch of the Australian Hotels Association. Fundraiser for the Liberal Party.

Keith Windschuttle (2006) Historian, Howard cultural warrior and school mate from Canterbury Boys High School.

John Gallagher (1999, reappointed 2005) Barrister in civil and criminal law. Only person on the ABC board not publicly known to be aligned to the Liberal Party.

No wonder leftist ideologies dominate the ABC, eh Mick?

Mick has more questions:

(1) Who conducts polls about public confidence in the ABC? Answer: Newspoll part-owned by News Ltd (http://www.newspoll.com.au/)

(2) Who it is investigating the breaches of ABC Codes? Answer: ACMA – an independent body appointed by the Howard Government (http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/HOMEPAGE//pc=HOME)

Last quote from Mick: “The ABC is a privileged bunch that attracts people of a certain culture and is pretty unfriendly to anyone who isn’t like them.” Couldn’t agree more Mick. That’s why the Board refused to publish ‘Jonesville’ and. Chris Masters got his comeuppence? Pity a commercial firm published the book and they and Masters are now making a killing. The ABC is financially squeezed. Another control mechanism to maintain control – poverty makes them toe the political line.

Mick, the ‘Australian Bigots Corporation’ exists in people’s overheated minds. The facts say otherwise.
Posted by FrankGol, Thursday, 17 May 2007 11:29:18 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
FrankGol,
Thanks for the good news about the ABC board.
I'm sure Paul Keating would have taken 11 months what Howard took as many years to do, but at least he's finally doing something.
Now to finally SEE SOME CHANGE in ABC programming.
Of course the real goal that I would desire above all else is:
>that the ABC becomes as right wing as it has been left wing for so many decades:
>that many Australians start seeing Pravda from a new light and begin to resent financing propaganda that they personally find offensive;
>that they realise they have no chance of returning it to the old ways;
>that they eventually agree to comprise with the conservative government and accept that the whole concept of taxpayer funded media should be abolished.(separation of media and state just like church and state) Thus, NO ONE will end up with govt. money to push their own political views.
>that a true people’s media is finally recognized as a plethora of unregulated privately owned media outlets each as resourced and influential as their audience share and/ or to the degree that private citizens wish to voluntary support it.

P.S. as a very minor criticism, Mark Scott being an ex Fairfax (not News Ltd) employee and adviser to Terry Metherell (who was a student leftist radical who eventually betrayed and sold Greiner down the tubes) are hardly right wing credentials.
Posted by Edward Carson, Friday, 18 May 2007 10:51:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Edward Carson

First your disclaimers or “minor corrections”:

1) You seem to think I said the Managing Director of the ABC, Mark Scott, came from News Ltd. In fact my post said (correctly) that he worked for Fairfax (various senior roles at The Sydney Morning Herald, Sun Herald, The Age and Sunday Age).

2) I made the point about ABC managers having Coalition connections. It won’t do to say that Minister Metherell was a leftist radical when he was a student and therefore doesn’t count as a Liberal. That’s about as effective as saying Peter Costello doesn’t count because he was an office-bearer of Monash’s Social Democratic Students Association, an affiliate of Australian Young Labor.

Why do people like you think you can keep mouthing the mantra that the ABC is a left-wing organisation and not feel any obligation to produce any evidence in support of such a claim? Put up or shut up?
Posted by FrankGol, Friday, 18 May 2007 12:11:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
To FrankGol,
My comment was not an argument, but more a heart felt expression.

I’m glad you think you are getting your money’s worth from the ABC.

You obviously know more about than me. I actually wouldn’t know much about the ABC because I turned it off years ago. I don’t listen anymore. I just got fed up with the narrowness they were filtering through.

After I turned it off, I would sometimes hear supporters of the ABC bleating about funding cuts, as if they hoped to get more money from parts of the community they had just mocked or abused.

Maybe they were trying their best. It would be a hard balancing act for presenters to be ‘independent’, cutting edge and popular at the same time, but they were not going to get sympathy from this tax payer.

Now, your passion and detail in your argument has almost convinced me that I should give them another try. Maybe Auntie has turned the corner in the years since Howard has been putting his own guys on the board. Maybe I will be able to turn it on and hear more than one side of a controversial issue.

The idea of an independent news service which is accountable to the people by an objective set of standards and guidelines is a noble vision
Posted by Mick V, Friday, 18 May 2007 6:45:31 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I agree 100% with runner. He/she made the exact point I would make - why attack talkback radio when it gives a voice to those the ABC and left-aligned media ignore, even despise.
Posted by Dinners, Monday, 21 May 2007 11:50:11 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy