The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Politics of talkback radio > Comments

Politics of talkback radio : Comments

By Colin Long, published 15/5/2007

Politics Australia-style: avoid the issue; and repeat 'ad nauseam' the pre-determined message.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
Good article. However it is not only talkback radio that is full of spin. The print media has been involved in an orgy of spin regarding Labor and IR. If we believe our daily press,Labor is doomed if it does not soften its stance on AWA's.This despite the latest polls demonstrating that tricky John's lies and deceptions are finnally catching up to him.Labor has improved in the polls for the period covering the National Convention and the Budget.
This is quite fascinating, given our media's strident insistence that Rudd's honeymoon was over.
Posted by hedgehog, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 9:46:11 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What makes me puke is that politicians - ALP and Coalition - take Alan Jones and his ilk so seriously. Note Howard's quick defence of Jones recently when he was in legal hot water over the naming of a minor on air. Howard wouldn't give the time of day to most of us.

If you participate in talkback "debates" one of two things will happen. The host will agree with you and you'll get a fair hearing. Or the host and/or guest will shout you down and probably cut you off because they don't. You won't get the same chances to air your grievances compared with writing to politicians or demonstrating or forming a lobby group.

Talkback is pseudo-democracy in action.
Posted by DavidJS, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 10:00:19 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You have as much chance of getting balanced talkback as you have getting from the ABC who is largely just a voice for the ALP. The fact that taxpayers money is used for this propaganda machine is a disgrace.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:19:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Radio station talk-back hosts will always possess a psittacine willingness to present their overt biases. We would indeed be surprised if Jones at 2GB started to sing the praises of North Korea’s Dear Leader. Likewise, I can’t see the ABC radio talking heads praising GWB as being a swell guy. We know that a strange brand of democracy exists at radio studios because people who call in and wish to challenge the host’s view are put down, sometimes rudely. Radio stations are much like a closed shop in that one announcer will be followed by another whose views are simpatico. It doesn’t pay to step out of character. You could also say that university academia mirrors radio stations to a certain extent because it doesn’t pay to challenge the bien pensant opinion within the professorial ranks. Think about the treatment professor Fraser received because he invited us to think about our future.
Posted by Sage, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:20:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Poor Runner, he believes tax payers dollars are wasted at the ABC. This is due to the biased reporting on politics. He knows its biased because it is so out of step with the balanced morning shows on 9 and 7.
What Runner needs to understand is that Kochie and Karl are Vaudiville puppets jumping to thier masters tune. These shows(they are not news)would make Goebells blush.
The only tax payers money wasted at the ABC is in the payment of the Board fees.
Posted by hedgehog, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:34:03 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
My tax dollars go to the likes of John Howard so he can spew out biased rhetoric and implement policies like Workchoices which he didn't even have the courage to put before the electorate before he won office again in 2004. My tax dollars also go to unelected private school administrations which propagate religious rubbish. If you want to have an argument about tax dollars then bring it on.
Posted by DavidJS, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 1:32:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
My sympathy Colin, its very hard living in a fantasy. Can I gently suggest you discard the quaint notion that this is a functional democracy.
Posted by Liam, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 4:08:53 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Bravo Hedgehog,

I'm always amazed how some people (who are so far to the right that everybody else is to their left) are ready to criticise the ABC for bias when no other broadcaster is subject to the same degree of scrutiny.

When Labor were in Government, they were also criticised - even to the point where Neville Wran refused to take questions from ABC reporters.

As I recall, most of the satirical output was directed at Hawke, Keating and Whitlam when they were around and at least their news reporting is free from editorial interference from the wings.

While the ABC is funded by the taxpayer, private broadcasters are paid for from advertising which is a levy paid by every consumer on the goods and services they buy.

While not everybody is a taxpayer, we are all consumers and are forced to contribute to the running costs of all private broadcasters - and this doesn't even include "cash-for-comment" or "sponsored" private broadcasters.

I'm sure that in total, the commercial stations cost us all far more than the so-called 8 cents per day we pay for the ABC.
Posted by wobbles, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 4:24:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Excellent example this thread. No one talking about what the writer raised. Isn't this exactly what the article is about? No one listens and answers the questions they want to answer. In which case my answer is...a pineapple. Now figure out the question, has something to do with JWH and a very uncomfortable attempt.

Ringing talkback? Sucker. If you listen to shows like Laws and Jones you will notice the first few are all "on side" with their rant of the day. All primed staffers of course.

And do take Jones seriously. He is a major problem for our country and I would actually rate him as more of a danger to our society than all the so called terrorists we have in OZ. He's number one. Howard is 2 as he takes what Jones says as gospel.

As to bias. In our media? Go on, no way. Couldn't believe that. If only some of the jocks actually knew something about some of the topics instead of going for the vulgar and irrelevant always.

Hey Runner, which branch do you belong to mate?
Posted by pegasus, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 4:41:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You guys are as blind as a bat. Next thing you will be trying to tell me that Phillip Adams represents mainstream Australia or that Kerry O'Brien is running for One Nation. Your denial would keep the Counsellors in business for a long time.

Pegagus, personally I would vote for any individual or party that protects the unborn and looks after the elderely. Unfortunately I think neither of the big parties see enough votes in this. So which side of the fence am I on? To be honest my hope is not in the Politicians. If it was I would be sadly disappointed by Mr Howard, Mr Rudd, Mr Brown and MS Hanson.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 5:07:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Runner – offering not a shred of evidence - revives the old mythical beast of ABC bias: it’s ‘largely just a voice for the ALP’. I thought the beast was dead after the Peter Reith hunting fiasco in 2003. (Reith certainly was a dead duck.) Other investigations since have repeatedly found no bias beast at the ABC.

In fact, the evidence runs the other way. In 2004 the ALP found it necessary to lodge an official complaint with the ABC for bias in the treatment of local federal election candidates by ABC regional radio. Some would say Howard has turned the ABC Board into a Branch of the Liberal Party with handpicked stooges. The ABC’s censorship of the best-seller “Jonesville” had Howard’s fingerprints all over it. His savaging of ABC budget ensures a dispirited compliance.

Both Kerry O’Brien and Barry Cassidy once worked as media advisers for the ALP; David Hill stood as an ALP candidate after he left the ABC; and Bob Carr, former Labor Premier of NSW, once worked as an ABC journalist. None made a secret of their connections.

Can the same be said of the following ABC staff or ex-staff? Gary Hardgrave, Peter Collins, Peter McArthur, Bruce Webster, Jim Bonner, Pru Goward, Cathy Job, Vicki Thompson, Ian Cover, Rob Messenger, Grant Woodhams, Ken Cooke, Chris Nicholls, Eoin Cameron, Cameron Thompson and Chris Wordsworth. They’re all Coalition staffers or MPs, now or in the past.

The ABA, the government-appointed umpire lists all the breaches of the code on accuracy and fairness in news and current affairs. It found that ABC television breached the code on four occasions over eight years, 1998 and 2005. Channel 9, by contrast, breached the code on 19 occasions. (http://friendsoftheabc.org/bias)

Every year the ABC posts on its website a Newspoll survey of community attitudes. The May 2005 survey commissioned by the ABC found 9 in 10 Australians believe the ABC provides a valuable service to the community, and half believe it provides a very valuable service". (www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/documents/ABC_Newspoll_p49.pdf)

Radios 3AW, 2GB and Channel 9 would kill for that level of public confidence and trust.
Posted by FrankGol, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 5:27:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Two items should be remembered. Governments lie (I F Stone) and seek to control the message
This they ensure by carrot, offer of largesse, and stick, accepting presence and indeed questions from only media representatives of their choice.
Labour had a propaganda department perhaps less secretive that the current, none are welcoming of input from the plebs.
Once upon a time for a very short time but as our own, and thus good though not a sportsman, writer/academic has noted research on how to influence people has been all the scientific rage for a long time and the press being commercial is not stupid.
Trivia is found to be more profitable both in terms of readers and advertisers than truth.
We were shown this over Iraq but most of us were too ill informed uninterested (hence trivia and blow the idea of ‘democracy lost unless challenged‘) to be worried.

Nationalistic Patriotic our troops are there and she will be right mate combined with the UN is no good might is right and we were happy accepting.
Mind you we dispute the dreadful though contained in the results of an accepted technique showing 655,000 extra deaths plus or minus 300,000. That is the lowest 355,000 genocide not us!
Posted by untutored mind, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 5:51:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This article raises a very important issue. Naturally our politicians, because they are very good politicians, will do their politicking very well. There is little positive payoff in being frank, honest, and modest in self appraisal. Can you imagine a politician, worth his/her salt, saying there are some flaws in our policy and the other blokes might be right on this one. The fundamental problem is in our democratic system. Those guys and gals out there, who want to be political leaders, have to secure our votes. Too much politics, and too little good governance. That is the problem with our electoral system. I am not smart enough to suggest a better system, but I divide by at least seven everything that anyone of them say - not because I despise them, but because I think I know the rules of the game they are playing.
Posted by Fencepost, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 6:51:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Great article Marko and much to my taste. You are right, OLO fulfils a crying need. The whole of Australia's mainstream media has shown itself to be an utter dead loss - cowed, timid - long on rhetoric and short on crucial truth.

The "war" on Iraq, is killing on an industrial scale, propelled by industrial imperatives which demand industrial scale theft, justified by industrial scale lies, propagated by the media, er - industry.

Next month's OLO examines "conspiracy theories".

That's apt! Any starters?
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 8:21:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Oh darn! Wrong thread!
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 8:24:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I moaned about the quality of talkback radio to a friend who had recently spent two years in Singapore. He laughed and replied "I love talkback, it's really great to hear ordinary people expressing an opinion." He found this refreshing after two years of the stultifying pap that passes for current affairs in Singapore. I couldn't shift him in his view, despite pointing out the dopey and bigoted opinions people expressed.

It would be well for Colin Long to remember that in some countries you could land up in gaol for publicly questioning the head of executive government. The Rodent talked over the top of you? Better that, than having you shot.

Talkback is a highly manufactured product. It's entertainment, not therapy. The listeners are grist to the mill, cut off if they're boring (or off-topic or too clever or too clearly pushing a party line). The announcer is the star and you get to talk (or not) at their whim. Stan Zemanek got good ratings for years with aggressive and (cruelly) funny talkback. It might not be serious debate, but it's obviously what a lot of punters want.
Posted by Johnj, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 9:53:16 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think Pegasus made a good point. The actual article everyone is commenting upon is about the inability in today's media to rationally discuss issues and yet most here just go on their own vendettas about whether or not whichever arms of the media are biased.
Despite the original writer's citicism of talk back radio (and the media in general) he does not seem to offer any constructive alternative.
Personally I think the answer would be to deregulate the media further, allow a plethora of print radio and TV outlets and in time, all types of discussion, from the abusive to the heated to the analytical to the rational to the boring will find their own spots on the spectrum.
Australia is just stuck with the people we are. Some people like big issues brought down to simplified concepts. Others believe that can never happen and like verbose discussion.
We can't blame the radio hosts too much bearing in mind they do represent the numbers of Australians who choose to listen to them. Often they themselves are more representative than the pollies who often win their seats due to the preference votes of people originally voting for other candidates.
Posted by Edward Carson, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 11:16:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The writer of this article must be young or naïve to think that the media exists to provide informed, impartial and balanced discussion.

If he is looking for real and informed debate on talk back radio or any other mainstream media, perhaps he should put something under his pillow and hope that the tooth fairy brings it in the morning.

What is the reason the media exists? The commercial media exists to make money. The ABC exists to support the ideologies of the people who control it. Whoever controls the microphone has a certain power. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is just human nature. Those who hold power don’t concede it easily.

To FrankGol
You offer some kind of poll or statistics to prove the public confidence in the ABC. I wonder who conducts these polls or who it is investigating the breaches of ABC Codes? Those doing the polls couldn’t have asked me or anyone I know.

At least the commercial media is answerable to those who pay the bills. The Australian Bigots Corporation is answerable to no one and pretty much free to ignore the people who fund them. This is also just human nature. The ABC is a privileged bunch that attracts people of a certain culture and is pretty unfriendly to anyone who isn’t like them.
Posted by Mick V, Thursday, 17 May 2007 5:58:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Mick V, ultimately we all pay the bills of the big Corporations one way or another. Who is naive now? A simple example is the Maquarie Bank and its Sydney tunnels. The Bank makes the profit and the punter pay's the Toll. I swear prior to the tunnels there was no toll to pay.I also wonder why the ABC News programs have more detail than the commercial stations. Perhaps its because they are answerable to no one.
Posted by hedgehog, Thursday, 17 May 2007 9:43:07 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Mick V mounts this ‘argument’: “The ABC exists to support the ideologies of the people who control it.”

Who controls the ABC? Answer: the Board appointed by the Howard Government. Members are:

Mark Scott (2006) - Managing Director. Previously senior political adviser to former NSW Liberal Education Minister Metherell, and editor-in-chief at Fairfax.

Maurice Newman (2007) - Chair of the ABC and concurrently Chairman of the Australian Securities Exchange - forty years in stockbroking and investment banking. A close personal friend of John Howard.

Dr Ron Brunton (2003) Senior Fellow at right wing think tank IPA 1995 - 2001, and writer for conservative political journal Quadrant. A Howard cultural warrior.

Janet Albrechtsen (2005) - a former solicitor, now right-wing newspaper columnist with The Australian. Another Howard cultural warrior.

Steven Skala (2005) – big businessman, director of neo-liberal/conservative think tank, Centre for Independent Studies.

Peter Hurley (2006) - President of the SA branch of the Australian Hotels Association. Fundraiser for the Liberal Party.

Keith Windschuttle (2006) Historian, Howard cultural warrior and school mate from Canterbury Boys High School.

John Gallagher (1999, reappointed 2005) Barrister in civil and criminal law. Only person on the ABC board not publicly known to be aligned to the Liberal Party.

No wonder leftist ideologies dominate the ABC, eh Mick?

Mick has more questions:

(1) Who conducts polls about public confidence in the ABC? Answer: Newspoll part-owned by News Ltd (http://www.newspoll.com.au/)

(2) Who it is investigating the breaches of ABC Codes? Answer: ACMA – an independent body appointed by the Howard Government (http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/HOMEPAGE//pc=HOME)

Last quote from Mick: “The ABC is a privileged bunch that attracts people of a certain culture and is pretty unfriendly to anyone who isn’t like them.” Couldn’t agree more Mick. That’s why the Board refused to publish ‘Jonesville’ and. Chris Masters got his comeuppence? Pity a commercial firm published the book and they and Masters are now making a killing. The ABC is financially squeezed. Another control mechanism to maintain control – poverty makes them toe the political line.

Mick, the ‘Australian Bigots Corporation’ exists in people’s overheated minds. The facts say otherwise.
Posted by FrankGol, Thursday, 17 May 2007 11:29:18 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
FrankGol,
Thanks for the good news about the ABC board.
I'm sure Paul Keating would have taken 11 months what Howard took as many years to do, but at least he's finally doing something.
Now to finally SEE SOME CHANGE in ABC programming.
Of course the real goal that I would desire above all else is:
>that the ABC becomes as right wing as it has been left wing for so many decades:
>that many Australians start seeing Pravda from a new light and begin to resent financing propaganda that they personally find offensive;
>that they realise they have no chance of returning it to the old ways;
>that they eventually agree to comprise with the conservative government and accept that the whole concept of taxpayer funded media should be abolished.(separation of media and state just like church and state) Thus, NO ONE will end up with govt. money to push their own political views.
>that a true people’s media is finally recognized as a plethora of unregulated privately owned media outlets each as resourced and influential as their audience share and/ or to the degree that private citizens wish to voluntary support it.

P.S. as a very minor criticism, Mark Scott being an ex Fairfax (not News Ltd) employee and adviser to Terry Metherell (who was a student leftist radical who eventually betrayed and sold Greiner down the tubes) are hardly right wing credentials.
Posted by Edward Carson, Friday, 18 May 2007 10:51:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Edward Carson

First your disclaimers or “minor corrections”:

1) You seem to think I said the Managing Director of the ABC, Mark Scott, came from News Ltd. In fact my post said (correctly) that he worked for Fairfax (various senior roles at The Sydney Morning Herald, Sun Herald, The Age and Sunday Age).

2) I made the point about ABC managers having Coalition connections. It won’t do to say that Minister Metherell was a leftist radical when he was a student and therefore doesn’t count as a Liberal. That’s about as effective as saying Peter Costello doesn’t count because he was an office-bearer of Monash’s Social Democratic Students Association, an affiliate of Australian Young Labor.

Why do people like you think you can keep mouthing the mantra that the ABC is a left-wing organisation and not feel any obligation to produce any evidence in support of such a claim? Put up or shut up?
Posted by FrankGol, Friday, 18 May 2007 12:11:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
To FrankGol,
My comment was not an argument, but more a heart felt expression.

I’m glad you think you are getting your money’s worth from the ABC.

You obviously know more about than me. I actually wouldn’t know much about the ABC because I turned it off years ago. I don’t listen anymore. I just got fed up with the narrowness they were filtering through.

After I turned it off, I would sometimes hear supporters of the ABC bleating about funding cuts, as if they hoped to get more money from parts of the community they had just mocked or abused.

Maybe they were trying their best. It would be a hard balancing act for presenters to be ‘independent’, cutting edge and popular at the same time, but they were not going to get sympathy from this tax payer.

Now, your passion and detail in your argument has almost convinced me that I should give them another try. Maybe Auntie has turned the corner in the years since Howard has been putting his own guys on the board. Maybe I will be able to turn it on and hear more than one side of a controversial issue.

The idea of an independent news service which is accountable to the people by an objective set of standards and guidelines is a noble vision
Posted by Mick V, Friday, 18 May 2007 6:45:31 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I agree 100% with runner. He/she made the exact point I would make - why attack talkback radio when it gives a voice to those the ABC and left-aligned media ignore, even despise.
Posted by Dinners, Monday, 21 May 2007 11:50:11 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy