Any inquiry into the media must include Fairfax publications & in particular its regional/community weeklys.

Ah Mr Colless still running interference for Murdoch,I personally hope he and his son go to jail and the Empire gets broken up,if his papers go what a loss,the Tele The OZ jeeze i,m in tears

Murdock has run regime change at Fox news from day one of the Obama presidency included a vile racist cartoon depicting Barrack Obama as a dead monkey. In the UK his papers screamed 'we won' when his man, David Cameron, took power. His papers are doing the same in oz.

There is no balance to his hard neo-conservative direction, no ethical standards on news collection, just a ruthless attitude of 'whatever it takes' from Citizen Murdock. Like millions of long suffering concerned citizens around the world, I would dearly love to see the News Limited media empire broken up into small independent units and the grand Rupert and his son do some prison time for any criminal acts that are proven in a court of law.

That may be a challenge with today's Sydney Morning Herald reporting that hundreds of thousands of likely incriminating emails were deleted from News Limited data bases. But for such heavy hitting global political players to maintain the Sergent Schultz defense under perliamentary enquiry, 'I know nothing' is stretching believable deniability just a little too far.

I hope we are treated to a vigorous enquiry and end up with the means to enforce high international press and media standards across all out publishers and broadcasters including the ABC.

It's certainly true that we should look at whom it is that is trying to dismantle the ABC and its artistic capacity and it's independence, with a plan to devolve in house production and replace these fine programs with pap, produced by commercial production houses.

The same current producers of guff, formulae rubbish, and time wasting,and so called reality television, that we find on the commercial outlets, whether it's paid for,or free to air.

Without an independent (free of Murdoch) media alternative,I guess I will be saving a lot of electricity by taking my set to the tip and leaving it there.

After reading every comment over the past two days, I am still unable to determine if the ABC has a right wing bias or is controlled by the Greenies, The comments are confusing but there is bias, one way or another but is that surprising, controlled as we are by perhaps the most inconsequential gaggle of politicians in the nation’s history, all with a self-serving axe to grind?

Being publicly funded carries with it a sense of obligation to the funders and this has been painfully noticeable with Mark Scott and his ‘leanings’ to the current government. One shouldn’t be under any illusion that the climate that exists in a network is anything but the child of the management. One only has to look at the policies and dictates of the likes of the Packers of Channel 9 fame, any leanings there being drafted and approved by the management, of that there was no doubt. So it has always been.

Perhaps the most relevant comment today is that Gillard, has “thrown a dead cat on the table”. She has now done her job once again and allowed all the sycophants to take up the running on her behalf, a standard practice. It is all part of not having agendas or objectives and being subject to whatever her minders tell her to do in Melbourne. Like Murdoch, as the world’s public enemy #1 the topic will remain for a while, then it will be back to ‘business as usual’.

Much ado about nothing, but from Gillard’s viewpoint, a very welcome diversion from her continuing policy gaffes.

But what harm can they do that Gillard has not done to herself already. She is history just waiting to be discarded, rightly so. Murdoch’s tarnished press notwithstanding, she is already on the table with the dead cat.

So regardless of the star you follow, in the programs the ABC does well, sadly reducing annually, no one ever has done those better. Far too few, though.

So thanks for those refreshing mercies, ABC, a welcome change from crass, commercial tripe.

Indeed Rex I'm struggling to figure out if the ABC is supposed to be 'left wing' or 'right wing' too.
I tried watching the movie review channels and I may have got a "right wing" vibe out of them, but the gardening shows were clearly advocating socialism. I think the children shows may have mentioned sharing once or twice- which is clearly communist, but the Chaser has repeatedly made fun of the Labor Party, Greens and Democrats (who are all apparently 'left wing'- which must make the Chaser 'right wing').
Perhaps it is 'fair and balanced' after all.

Of course, I think the answer you will actually receive is
"It is definitely "left wing" because my favorite TV channel or newspaper says so" by people that never watch the ABC.

Alternatively, some people demand a channel that only entertains one viewpoint and if ever it allowed Bob Brown or Pauline Hanson three seconds of air time to talk about their policies, then it must be a left/right conspiracy.

I really, really, really, miss my *INDOVISION*

as even if the media of the world are talking about the same issue, you get in addition all of the different perspectives that the different state parties and competing media interests at this level usually exhibit.

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Alas that SBS does not provide multiple voice channels and sub titles.

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Here in Aust, you can go from channel to channel to see them talking about the same things over and over with the same perspective though, I do applaude the dollop of additional shows like a bit of Al-Jazeera which have appeared on "Free to Air."

Hopefully, the NBN will further open up participation in the variety of ala "Babel Fish" projects, for want of a better term, that are becoming ever increasingly prevalent and sophisticated. (such as those attached to *Search Engine* structures for example)

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I note that it has now been evidenced that bi and multilingual individuals demonstrate greater executive control.

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I believe that the media as a whole should be spending less time chasing after the two major parties, as the wealth of diverse talent available in Australia is not being fairly represented, which is in my view a fundamental form of bias, which also can lead to a proliferation of views not based in fact, such as those of the climate change deniers, being propagated in the media.

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At the least, all members of the parliament should have a routine and regular share to express themselves to the Australian electorate.

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But then, who am I trying to kid? I doubt it will happen anytime soon though as most of the current members of the major parties cannot compete with the plethora of interesting others in the community, to the extent that the encumbents know that where they to more "equitabley" share content control, that soon enough other people would be elected and they would lose their long grip on this not so equitabley shared nation of ours.

King Hazza,

You now have me worried.

But I will watch the chidren's shows for another two more years to gauge the climate and report back. By then, hopefully, Gillard will have been shunted off to some lowly backbench position such as parliamentary secretary for hyperbole or elevated to a member of the Queen's opposition as Shadow Minister for house insulation.

Alternatively, living in Canberra, I will watch the Kindergarten-on- the-Hill where the delineation between left and right is much clearer when the grand building is occupied and the city is certainly a better place when it is not.

I wouldn't go so far Rex- there is a risk that if you watch the ABC you could be brainwashed, and find yourself advocating Karl Marx, believing in Global Warming, and gravitating towards vegan cafes because eating meat and dairy is wrong, and ordering lattes (ignoring that these aren't quite vegan).

I'd just steer clear of it entirely- after all, opinion authors employed be rival networks wouldn't make up accusations against their competitors to try to make them look bad, would they?