Aiden,” , have you any evidence they haven't been fair and impartial about it?”
You cannot be as ignorant as you pretend. You are a troll.
If you really did refrain from reading Paul Sheehan’s article, to which onthebeach was good enough to supply the link, in order to preserve your ignorance,then read it now, and you will not need to ask stupid questions

Unless you are radical, Left or Right, who really watches Q & A, Insight & the other associated like Programmes. Most ABC watchers look for the Doco & Comedy & Dr Who. I think most people watch Commercial Stations for their normal TV watching.

I don't actually watch much TV at all really. The News on 7 & The Project is about it. Oh, ABC at Midday while I'm having lunch.

Should we boycott the ABC for one silly instance. Who really gives a stuff?

Jayb is showing a sense of proportion. The ideologues won't like it!

I don't know that anyone is suggesting a viewer boycott.

However, any distinguished person should consider a refusal as the prudent course where there is a risk of being set up as (to give another example) Peter Hitchens obviously felt he was and many would agree with him on that. This is the subject Q&A,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQY4BuYWD4s

One wonders too how Q&A is consistently able to find audiences who applaud the disrespectful behaviour and crudity that were seen on that show, to use it again as an example.

It was interesting too that the host allowed audience members to argue with Hitchens from the floor. I am damned sure that no audience comprised of any of the hundreds of people I have met through work would ever be party to any of that and no, they would not opt to be a member of a Q&A audience for those reasons alone.

As a coliseum for the baiting and humiliation of selected guests, Q&A does well. The shabby conduct is reminiscent of the awful current affairs hacks from way back when.

If the ABC's Board is unable to rein in management the Board Members should do the right thing and step aside for others who are more able and understand due diligence and accountability.

//We have to trust that people are telling us the truth//

No, we don't. If we like we can accept the cynical proposition that 'everybody lies'. This is actually my default position, but if you have some new evidence to suggest that not everybody lies I'd love to see it. I'd also love to see any evidence that demonstrates that Muslims lie more than followers of other religious doctrines (other than Scientology).

//how can we place trust in those whose religion tells them that they may lie?//

The same way we place trust in those whose religion (or lack thereof) is ambivalent on the subject of lying, and who lie because it is a basic human instinct.

//That is one of the great fundamental differences between most other religions and Islam.//

I think it is reasonable to assume at this point that Is Mise has never heard of Scientology. Scientology's attitude to the truth makes the most deceitful Muslim on Earth look like a shining example of truth and veracity.

So where are all the cultural warriors castigating Scientologists? My guess would be that they're too scared of the towel-heads under the bed to worry about what any other religion might be trying to sell as the 'truth'.

Toni, try to understand the basis of the discussion. We are talking about a world wide religion that promotes killing those who will not submit to it, not just lying to them, and otherwise treating them with contempt. To reference Scientology as if it were comparable is puerile.