I guess there are a few so called lefties in the media scrum - P Adams comes to mind maybe even John Faine from Melbournes ABC - perhaps you can throw in Kenneth Davidson from the Age and there are many others - Maybe even Virginia Trioli

There are quite a few targets out there - but maybe there is nothing on them worth reading - maybe thats why the ABC leaves them alone - if there is some juice on these guys the commercial outlets are free to have a go at them any time they like - maybe they are just not newsworthy enough -

But Alan Jones! when he breaks wind they hold there noses in Canberra! - so maybe there is a story attached to this guy worth pursuing.

From watching the ABC for a very long time my feeling is they go the incumbents when it comes to governments or whatever the dominant paradigm of the day happens to be - they are there as for as I am concerned to report and critique - I certainly do not recall the ABC giving the Bob H Paul K Government a dream run.

Similary when the BLF, the Food Preservers Union and the HEF where kicking industrial heads around during the seventies and eighties the ABC were not overly partisan to them at the time -

If if people want to bag the ABC maybe they need to look at what they do in some historical and political context - not merely in a defensive state of paranoia.

Dear Mr Flint,

You,like so many, seem to still believe there is left and right in Australian politics. Don't know if you've noticed but Labor's policies today are almost identical to the Coalition and the only real area they disagree on is who should lead the other's Party.

Leftie rhetoric disappeared from most people's vocabulary a long time back. There are still some old duds like Adams who spout such tirades but the public and politics itself took a large jump to the right about when Hawke took over the Coalition's agenda, followed later by Howard stealing One Nation's policies.

You do, of course, contradict yourself in describing Jone's views to be at least partly left, whatever you think that is.

Please go back to writing only personal letters, they are much more entertaining.

Flint says: "My admiration is based on the fact that Jones is a principled and superbly effective communicator and a successful radio identity."

Arjay says: "The ABC Rancidtas were going to defame him with sexual innuendo."

You've read the manuscript?

I think I know what you are talking about there Arjay and so do most of Jones' listeners. Given that listeners have apparently decided that the convicted criminal who embarrassed Jones on the commercial TV station, and given that Jones is still a "succesful radio identity", and "principled " to boot, I don't see the problem.
Innocent until....

Correct. The private life of even public figures should be respected if it isn't hurting anyone. Perhaps you could tell what you think of Channel 9 &7 and the way their current affairs show hound, harrass and intrude on the private lives of the flannel shirt brigade. These people can't afford to get a high-paid solicitor to protect them.
So most every night viewers are being brainwashed into thinking that battlers are all ill-tempered, thieving, argumentive, unreasonable, worthless thugs. It is as if the powers that be want to undermine the self confidence and disempower these peoples. We are not stupid. The majority are good honest folk.

One more point, the ABC commissioned Masters to write the book. Masters is a consummate professional and you good sir are being defamatory and unfair to him.

Buggger. Another thought, I am hoping Keith Windshuttle gets the nod re: the ABC board as this fella will be able to set his own supposed right-wing leanings aside. I think he is a professional. I am not saying that it is possible to be completely objective. There is always the old unconscious pulling us off track or perhaps on track. I tried to convince graham Y of this but we agreed to disagree. I recall reading KW's book "The Media" a few years back. Truth to tell he is in the same league as Masters when it comes to integrity and honest professionalism.

rancitas,just recently one of these flannel shirt brigaders appeared on Current Affairs.He took me and many others to the cleaners.Don't give me sob stories of the oppressed ignorant working class.This one rang all his creditors threatening them violence.He was being investigated for trading while insolvent,but there wasn't enough money in kitty for the liquidators to pursue the issue.The legal system protects these shysters and your public service mentality has no idea of how hard it is for honest business folk to make a living.

At least the commercial TV and radio networks try to address some of these injustices,while the ABC suck off the sweat of private enterprise and denagrate the very system that sustains them ,in their nebulus euphoria of social justice without responsibility.

My point is, if the commercial stations get rid of ABC, then we will have no in depth current affairs. It may not be so entertaining but a story about WHY small business people, like the one you mention, can get away with their trickery which, if we believe your assertions, is a behaviour that is common amongst small business (the flannel shirt ones)would be more productive.

I didn't mention at all "oppressed ignorant working class"; they are your words that you dishonestly put into Rancitas' mouth. The "shyster" you are talking of is a small business person - no doubt people like him rip their staff off with immunity thanks to the Liberals' workplace laws.

He is not representative of low-income wage earners (as your convoluted nonsense wrongly claims) anymore than he is representative of small-business folk. Some of my friends and relations are struggling honest small-business owners. I resent your assertion that they are dishonest. Some of my friends and relations are wage earners and I resent your assertion that they are dishonest.

I have owned and have friends who own small businesses. I have first hand experience of "how hard it is for small business to make a living".

I don't know what you mean that Rancitas has a "public service mentality". Arjay you are just showing how foolish you are. Why didn't you check out the contractor you are complaining about? Why don't you take some responsibility for the mistakes you make? A public service person would possibly be sacked for being so lax.

Anyway, I was more thinking of stories about neighbourhood disputes. FYI, Arjay, hose disputes are often attended to by Police who mostly have a "public service mentality" that you, Arjay, find so objectionable.

Always look for motive. Let me see who benefits from the fear of being "taken to the cleaners" by small business contractors like the one you mention. That would be the big business, franchised companies that will threaten to sue the arse off you if you say boo

One of the problems with small business contractors is building trust and commercial stations' low-budget-entertainment-orientated hit stories actually can undermine honest small business folk. Mentality, like the one Arjay displays, where one supposed dishonest, flannel-shirt contractor represents, for Arjay, all flannel shirters (and through some verbal gymnastics working class people) is the kind that the commercial stations promote.

You can say pretty well say whatever you like, Arjay, if its in the public interest, about the public-owned institutions like the school, Telstra, railways, police service and defence forces and so on because defamation laws allow criticism (often unfair) of public-owned utilities. This is because any criticism is innately in the public interest. The commercial stations often take advantage of this unfairness to attack public utilities while ignoring their private counter-parts.

If you criticise or expose a wealthy private company, and, especially, if it affects their income and your story is not airtight, then you will face the prospect of being sued into silence and beyond.

There is a "nebulus euphoria of social justice without responsibility" that is applicable to commercial stations and Arjay it very much applies to your ill-founded assertons based on your own ignorance of public-service mentality.