Hi Alan,

Jai’s article is framed by the research showing political affiliation of ABC staff. But trying to convince the “customer” that their perceptions about the ABC are wrong, is not a good look.

You depend far too much on “narrative theory” to make your case, which tries to retell your “objective truth” in order to convince the former ABC audiences that their perceptions are wrong. Is you case for ABC based on a moral/value proposition that the rest of us don’t actually share?

To test your ABC narrative theory you would need to make exactly the same case for the Global Mail, The Guardian Australia and Fairfax. Three fine media outlets with closely aligned, if not identical content output as ABC.

It is not the political alignment, the party memberships or organizational affiliations of journalists that matter, it is their output and what their customers “perceive” of it.

Graham Woods has announced the withdrawal of his funding for the Global Mail, The Guardian Australia is sinking into further financial trouble and Fairfax has gone from share value of $5.00 to $0.60c in the last five. The SMH and the Age are now going to tabloid format.

These publications can’t win a sustainable audience because too few customers are prepared to pay for what they offer. Likewise you will have to convince us that the ABC is sustaining its audience and reach by its similar treatment of News and C/A’s. Otherwise your only case is emotional/ideological and/or moral/value based and your narrative theory based rhetoric is invalid.

Top 20 rated ABC program at No14? “New Tricks”, just to add insult to injury there is not one single ABC News or C/A production in that top 20.

So what is the case for retaining the ABC in its current form? The ABC looks like being Australia’s last bastion of left wing propaganda and you want the rest of us to indulge you financially, right?

Your task is to convince Australian audiences to support the ABC not offer the same responses as we get from the ABC when we complain to them.

Turnbull's financial enquiry into waste at the ABC will lead to it being gutted. And good riddiance. Who needs talking heads to be paid 100's of 1,000's of our dollars?

Such a waste.

The ABC does not need to be gutted, as it really needs a new funding arrangement. If possible this should be as efficient and gentle as possible.

What I would suggest would be two tier arrangement, where the programs are streamed as well as being broadcast. The streamed programs would be available at a cost of say 50 cents per week, which should not deter any committed listener.

The programs would also be broadcast in the current manner, but would contain sufficient advertising a la SBS to cover taxpayer costs.

With this model all parties should be satisfied. Those who do not want advertising would only pay 50 cents per week, and everyone else could still watch for free.

As far as bias is concerned, others have stated that you can expect an intellectual/artistic community to be left wing. That is not the problem. What we need is real response, where ABC sacred cows are rubbished.

A prime example would be a serious program discussing the benefits of bringing back hanging. Most lefties are so incapable of a reasoned discussion of this subject that they fall back on emotional words such as "barbaric" to describe it.

The ABC serves us well in presenting ideas, but they need to present a broad spectrum, not just one side.

plerdesus
I'm sure that if the reintroduction of capital punishment was on the political radar the ABC would be in there covering the debate with bells on. It would be broadcasting gold for a range of existing radio and televsion programs.

I can't see it happening in the current economic climate as it is very expensive. Didn't California propose ditching the death penalty purely as a cost saving measure?

Your ‘find’ is farcical Alan.

The ABC is wall to wall anti-conservative; listen to these leftie fools, Faine and Cassidy:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/so_what_if_theres_a_little_union_corruption/

And you really can’t go past this as the symbol of the ABC’s attitude towards anything which it does not approve of:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_abcs_trioli_farewells_a_conservative_guest/

Why is Trioli still employed?

Anyway what interests me is AGW and the subversion that ideology is having on the media through the Western world and the distortions that are occurring in policy because of that media influence.

The ABC is the number one advocate for AGW in Australia. It will not host sceptics and promotes AGW unquestioningly. Its main technique is subreption and I remember well in 2008 when the infamous Steig paper on Antarctic warming came out and was treated in usual gushing fashion by the ABC. Of course the Steig paper was a farrago. But the real scandal came after Steig’s paper was published. A rebuttal was submitted for publication which showed Steig’s methodology to be hopelessly wrong but that rebuttal paper took 2 years to be published because Steig was one of the anonymous reviewers. Not a mention from the ABC.

Nothing from the ABC on the email scandal, Gore’s hypocrisy, or Flannery’s weirdness or the failure of renewables or any of the contradictions to AGW. None because the ABC is not a news outlet but a political and ideological advocacy agency. Has it ever broadcast anything bad about the Greens, especially this fool:

http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/02/01/television-isnt-always-real/comment-page-1/#comment-1174215

And it is full of misanthropes:

http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/our-abc-green-narrative.html

This is what the ABC does, it allows these fringe ratbags to crawl out from under their rocks and gives legitimacy to their junk.

The ABC is a threat to democracy; it has no control or balance but great influence despite not representing the majority of Australians. It gives succour to Islam, the declared enemy of the West, and allows hypocrites, malcontents and weirdos to peddle their mischief.

And the rest of us have to pay for it while getting insulted.

How much are you going to cough up to keep it going Alan?

If we didn't have the ABC, coenhite, you'd have nothing to be angry about and might implode with suppressed rage. I am happy to contribute my ten cents a day to keep you in good health. In fact, I'd cough up twenty cents if it meant fewer repeats and some more local drama.