The similarity with totalitarian dicators is all Binoy Kampmark's own, in thinking that it is any business of government's to be running a propaganda arm in the first place.

For how could the reporting of political events be anything but a matter of interpretation. And how could that interpretation be anything but a matter of ideology?

The reality is that the ABC consistently runs an agenda biased not just to the left wing, but to the left wing of the left wing. Why should everyone else be forced to pay for that group to have their own private propaganda service 24/7 on mutiple channels on multiple media?

Notice how Binoy gives no reason whatsoever why governments should be in the business of providing broadcasting services in the first place?

If people want the ABC's endless biased nauseating propaganda for big government, they should pay for it, and if they don't want it, they should not be forced to pay for it. What could be fairer than that?

There is no justification for the ABC's existence and it should be abolished immediately.

Binoy's defence of big-government having a dedicated propaganda machine is exactly the intellectual drivel we have come to expect of any defender of the ABC; in comparing to North Korea he has kicked himself up his own arse.

Why should the public pay for a bunch of ideologically welded on Lefties who provide one sided news stories? The ABC's disparaging of the Navy was a vain attempt to get at their ideological opponents,their employer, the elected Govt. In doing so they are also thumbing their nose at the electorate. To do that they were happy to publicise completely unsubstantiated and unlikely claims without ANY corroborating evidence. Politically biased journalism at its worst. AND from the same people who resisted any reporting of their salaries!

The ABC/Labor Party/Trade Union monolith is about to be torn down and not before time.

Ex lawyer David Johnston could have been the inspiration for Gilbert and Sullivan’s “When I Was A Lad”, from HMS Pinafore:

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney's firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.

Chorus.
He polished up the handle of the big front door.

I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!

Chorus.
He polished up that handle so carefullee,
That now he is the ruler of the Queen's Navee!

Jardine is entitled to his ideological position that “There is no justification for the ABC's existence and it should be abolished immediately”. But if he intends to engage in rational debate, he will have to offer evidence instead of ranting, “The reality is that the ABC consistently runs an agenda biased not just to the left wing, but to the left wing of the left wing.”

Hi Binoy,

I have yet to hear any case for keeping a public broadcaster and nor do I see any correlation between democracy and having a public broadcaster.

You could have made the case that our media market needs the ABC, you could have made the case that the ABC represents value for public money and is financially well managed. You might even have made the case that the ABC is politically well balanced?

But no. Like all members of the progressive Squalk-a-tariat you launch an attack on the majority of Australians that “voted out” your ideology, you liken our choice of PM to a North Korean dictator and you ignore the deep sense of indignation expressed by the majority of Australian’s in relation to the ABC’s editorial content.

This tells us much about you and your case “for” the ABC.

Like so many Australian’s, I think the Daily Globe, The Guardian, a range of Fairfax masthead publications and the myriad of internet publications like the “Conversation”, give more than enough coverage to your political position.

Having a publicly funded version of these is offensive.

If you want more of such “voices”, perhaps you should write to the government and tell them what you like on the ABC, I would strongly support putting all the content you desire on pay per view and you can have as much of it as you want.

What could possibly be fairer than that?

A bonus for people like me is that this would rid us of the rude, petulant, offensive and arrogant progressives who want taxpayers to fund your political “jollies”.

Bourgeois is a better description than "Left Wing", as an organ of the state the ABC is biased toward the very narrow range of Liberal Humanist dogma. Liberal Humanism is the established belief system in Australia and it's not inaccurate to describe it as the official state religion and the glue that binds the upper and middle classes.
There's no Left/Right schism in the "Cathedral", so to speak, just doctrinal and procedural disputes between factions who share the same fundamental and unshakeable convictions and who will stand united when push comes to shove.

Spindoc. Particularly well and clearly stated comment. Obviously, I completely agree with what you have said.

NBC America appears a worthy model to follow I would suggest. Funding for 'emergency service' announcements on radio is worthwhile. However, streaming of detailed info from the CFS website provides excellent coverage, available on your phone at any time.

Just imagine how excellent the ABC could be. Coverage of so much more than 'marriage equality, immigration and whatever other narrow sectorial interests they thrust upon us adnausioum.

Imagine Q&A, the Drum etc etc with a broad selection of commentary, representing the broad spectrum of the Australian community. Sigh... So much potential, wasted!

Prompete says, "Funding for 'emergency service' announcements on radio is worthwhile", & I agree completely.

However "OUR" ABC abdicated that roll long ago.

In our last flood, when after inches of rain, & the loss of power for 6 hours already, I wanted some information for my South East Queensland area.

At about 2.00 AM,I turned on my battery radio tuned to the ABCs 4QR. You know the one that continually advertises itself as "YOUR LOCAL ABC" station, & anxiously waited for a news bulletin. Imagine my horror & disgust when the bulletin advised me of a thunderstorm in Gosford, heavy rain in the Coffs Harbor area, & gave a marine weather forecast for Sydney Harbor. Queensland, & our pending flood did not exist on my local Queensland station. Fat lot of use that was to the millions headed for trouble.

Before I stopped wasting my time listening to them, 4QR, our local, had a session with an English professor on language, the origin & meaning of words. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this bloke explained the meaning of "local" to the management of the ABC.

I finally got a little information from the local hole in the wall FM station, in a nearby small country town, but with their little resource capacity it was limited. I wonder how much more they could have done with a bit of that billion plus we waste on an ABC which is really just a Sydney Melbourne organisation.

How about we transfer any ABC management & production capacity to Longreach. Surely a good example of decentralization, & the jobs should only attract good people, rather than current inner city chatterers, out there.

"Jardine is entitled to his ideological position that “There is no justification for the ABC's existence and it should be abolished immediately”. But if he intends to engage in rational debate he will have to offer evidence..."

Well if I'm entitled to my ideological position that there is no justification for the ABC's existence, then there is no need to offer evidence that it's biased until someone first establishes a justification for its existence in the first place.

What is it Leslie?

And why wouldn't that be achieved by the voluntary payments of those who want it?

Hi Prompete,

The ABC has the ability to draw the conversation into what it sees “defensible”. These include freedom of the press, persecution, bias, politics, authoritarianism, censorship and the evil Murdock empire, these are their stock-in-trade, the high ground they can defend with rhetoric.

They have issued the call to arms to the likes of Binoy and his fellow travelers.

These are distractions to keep “critical thinking” out of the equation. There is no case for the ABC to use public funding to compete with any commercial market. I can accept a national radio network that provides “Public Service” broadcasts for Rural/Remote populations covering agriculture, mining, weather, transport and indigenous issues.

The ABC is swamping and distorting normal commercial market development and harming the rest of the industry. They plugged some media market gaps 50 years ago but not in 2014.

The other issue they seek to avoid is their financial management and governance. The ABC lost $14b on commercial revenues last financial year. This is in spite of additional revenues from $90m handout from ALP in May last year, $22.5m a year from Australia Network revenues and $10m for “Fact Check”. $122.5m in extra revenues?

Meanwhile their salaries bill (executive salaries have doubled since 2008) has ballooned to $470m on revenues of $1.0b. Can anyone point to any entity that has 47% of income soaked up by wages?

They have siphoned new revenues into salary and redundancy packages and spread the rest of their business far to thinly.

The ABC isn’t facing ideological assault from the government. The LNP will leave the ABC alone whilst they continue to make mistakes, then let the ABC prepare their defenses for an attack that will never happen.

The LNP will use the Expenditure Review to examine ABC costs. They will use the Productivity Commission to determine the “market value” of those costs and will work bottom up and not top down as the ABC expects.

The ABC is about to fight the wrong battle with the wrong enemy for the wrong reasons.

Should be fun to watch

Unfortunately the left has brainwashed the victimised industry into believing the tax payer should pay for their propaganda. Whether it is 'gay marriage ' illegal entries' or the 'gw myth' you can accurately predict the line taken by the socialist. Hopefully Abbott will have the will and guts to do some drastic change. Hoping it will happen internally has as much change as the corrupt unions/Labour reforming itself.

WOW

What ever happened to the idea of freedom of speech?

So lets sell off the ABC or give it away simply because what it reports does not agree with your own preciously held biases and prejudices?

I think that it is for that very reason the ABC should remain in public ownership.

What a boring world it would be if all the commercial media outlets only ever support the current political powers policies.

I certainly do not always agree with the ABC, but then I don't always agree with the commercial media either.

What about my freedom not to be forced to pay for your speech?

Freedom of speech has nothing to do with it, you person of little understanding.

All the supporters of the ABC have complete freedom to express their political and other opinions as much as they like. That's not what's in issue. It's being able to force people who don't agree with them to pay for their bias and prejudices.

Notice how no-one is able to come up with one single reason why the ABC should exist that could not equally be done by its supporters paying for it themselves?

Notice how EVERY SINGLE TIME they attempt to run the discussion into some diversion? Notice how all the arguments they give in favour of it presuppose some justification that they can't seem to identify?

Wolly ya wally, why isn't a complete and fair solution that you, and everyone else who supports endless State-worshipping totalitarian fascist propaganda, pay for it yourselves? No-one's stopping you. What about the freedom of speech of people who find your opinions offensive, immoral, irrational and anti-social? All of a sudden freedom doesn't matter - like in every other agenda the ABC keeps plugging.

Just because you want it, so what? What kind of a justification is that?

It's like we're dealing with people operating at the moral level of an infant.

You cannot reason with the clones who declare their support for the ABC under the banner of free speech; ie:

"What ever happened to the idea of freedom of speech?

So lets sell off the ABC or give it away simply because what it reports does not agree with your own preciously held biases and prejudices?

I think that it is for that very reason the ABC should remain in public ownership."

The ABC is NOT free; it costs over a $billion PA and its real cost is that it promotes hard left issues such as AGW which cost the community many more $billions.

The ABC is also not free in access; it gives NO venue for AGW sceptics or those who recognise that the boat people are fakes and Islamic opportunists.

The ABC also distorts the public discourse by subreption. If it does not want to cover an important issue like Gillard's potential criminality or her association with Union corruption it won't. It also ignores the continual idiocy and destructiveness of the Greens, that traitorous bunch of recycled communists and prima donna parasites.

There are plenty of commercial outlets which cater for the leftie side of society such as all of Fairfax and many of the television outlets particularly 7 and 10 despite the horror of having Reinhardt as a part owner.

If lefties want the ABC they can pay for it

The anti ABC brigade are saying, that the ABC should only broadcast right wing propaganda, the ghosts of the German third Reich must be clapping in glee.
Wonder what Newman former chairman of the ABC, and now advisor to Abbott would say.

" The anti ABC brigade are saying, that the ABC should only broadcast right wing propaganda, the ghosts of the German third Reich must be clapping in glee."

What a stupid thing to say.

What I'm saying is a highly politicised publically funded broadcaster, continually in breach of its Charter should no longer be publically funded.

Anyway any idiot who resorts to the highly offensive, Nazi comparison, Godwins Law, is so witless they must be an ABC supporter.

"The anti ABC brigade are saying, that the ABC should only broadcast right wing propaganda..."

More misrepresentation and diversion.

The anti-ABC brigade are saying nothing of the sort. They're saying the ABC should be abolished, that there is no way it can be anything but biased, that it is in fact biased, that this is unfair to those forced to pay for the propagation of political and moral opinions they find offensive and disagree with, that there's no justification for it, and why don't its supporters pay for it themselves?

Notice the complete inability of any of the ABC supporters, like the ABC, to give a fair and balanced representation of anything they don't agree with, or to give any justification for its existence? It's exactly this kind of fallacious state-worship that it spreads in the population.

The case against it is no different from the case against state support of a particular religion. There is simply no reason why government should be supporting the propagation of what can only be contentious, divisive, and partisan opinions.

It should be abolished now.

The Navy would not do cruel burnings to refugee hands, of course they wouldn't, they hand out lollypops to welcome them on board, when o when has any Navy, Army or Airforce been trained not to inflict cruelty, I remember running with a 303 rifle above my head for 30 minutes, and I was not a refugee, of course they do.

Jardine,
Good point, what's more if you let the public pay for, produce and run their own media you get authentic diversity in programming, look at channel 31 in Melbourne, they have everything from LGBT current affairs to hot rod restoration programs and fundamentalist Christian sermons .
http://www.c31.org.au/tv-guide/index/day/today

Why don't any of you guys cite OLO as a model of what the media could be?(Please add multiple question marks, the fascist censorship algorithm forbade my attempt at punctuated irony).

For a supposedly educated person to use terminology such as "tow the line" instead of the correct "toe the line" prevented me from reading further. I already had the gist of this anti-conservative diatribe by then (and that was pretty early) so I stopped reading. Lefties should learn basic English, and learn to use it before trying to shoot down their hated enemies. Then, at least we might pay attention. But maybe they don't use English at Cambridge ... or RMIT. Who knows?

Captain Col, we all make mistakes whether left or right in our OLO E-Mails, as one ages ones ability to spell correctly becomes harder, even if spelling correctly in earlier days, it has nothing to do with the "left" brigade as you mention, also many people who have never typed before, and now have to type, hit wrong keys etc and do not check their work after typing.
Perhaps you are a person who is a master at every thing you do, but I daresay not, so don't critisize other people, we enjoy reading left or right opinions whether the spelling may be incorrect. Get a life, there is more to worry about than incorrect spelling in this war mongering world.

If we are going to emasculate the ABC, one of the things we must do, if we are to survive, can I apply for the job with the scalpel. I can think of more than a few overpaid deadheads it would be real fun "doing"

I have experience, with quite a few colts & calves, in my horse & cattle breeding period.

I'm with you Ojnab, I have always been more interested in what was being said, than in the how, or the spelling, although I do find those ABC ladies who insist in talking about Moun tiser rather painful.

Didn't they have a minimum standard of elocution in the old days? I suppose they had to drop that to bring in all the reffos.

‘morning Wolly B,

You asked << What ever happened to the idea of freedom of speech? >>

Answer as posted earlier.

“The ABC has the ability to draw the conversation into what it sees “defensible”. These include freedom of the press, persecution, bias, politics, authoritarianism, censorship and the evil Murdock empire, these are their stock-in-trade, the high ground they can defend with rhetoric.

They have issued the call to arms to the likes of Binoy and his "fellow travelers"

How’s that “fellow traveler” role working out Wolly?

GrahamY,

You ask << Why don't any of you guys cite OLO as a model of what the media could be? >>

You have published many articles from professional journalists, academics and politicians and quite frankly, most of them are not up to it. As evidenced by their inability to construct, articulate or sustain their argument. Many have just morphed into Trolls.

The most telling attribute most of them share is when under sustained pressure from a counter argument, many resort to ideological rhetoric and persecution complexes just before they dismiss and disengage.

Many just “dog whistle” to the already converted, no room for debate or contrary argument.

Oh, sorry, did I just describe the “media”?

The media is quite happy to publish within their own “cotton wool” emotive environment but would they be willing to expose themselves publicly to the “dialogue” available on OLO?

The media is infected by groupthink, they exist in a self referential, organic network. They rarely seek references (or links) that are not an accepted part of their referential network. That’s why they would be reluctant to adopt the OLO model, it is counter to their MO.

So, 'ideologically obsessed Howard government' is a sin in this person's view. How then do we interpret the following?

"The current Australian government has lurched from one reactionary policy to another, insisting that the country is in a conflict with those illegal human masses who dare consider Australia as a place of asylum."

Runner: " Whether it is 'gay marriage ' illegal entries' or the 'gw myth' you can accurately predict the line taken by the socialist. Hopefully Abbott will have the will and guts to do some drastic change. Hoping it will happen internally has as much change as the corrupt unions/Labour reforming itself."

You are right. Unless Abbott has the will and guts to do some drastic change, there will be no change.

He cannot rely on the minister responsible for the ABC, Malcolm Turnbull, who is indifferent to the ABC's apparent transgression from its charter. Turnbull fails to discern that the ABC has taken political positions in support of 'gay marriage ', ' illegal entries' and the 'global warming myth'.

Turnbull expresses his unshakeable faith in the ABC Board and management to take corrective action. He obviously has a short memory. When ABC MD Mark Scott started his tenure in 2006, he undertook to address the issues of editorial bias. Not only has there not been any noticeable improvement in this regard, but it appears that Scott has in turn surrendered to ABC groupthink, and journalists are rarely held to account for reporting errors.

A complete review of the ABC and its future in Australia would be in order. Preferably, the terms of reference should inquire into what justification, if any, there is for the ABC to continue as a government- funded organisation, and if so, why it should run so many TV and radio networks including radio station 2JJJ; why it should have so many foreign correspondents given that SBS regularly broadcasts numerous foreign-sourced news programs; and indeed why the ABC and SBS should continue as separate organisations

Raycom. Like you, I just cannot, for the life of me, find even the remotest justification within the ABC remit for having this radio station (2JJJ), It has truly puzzled me for years!