What you really mean to say is that you want to make the ABC a mouthpiece of the RIGHT.

We already have a right-wing media in Australia. Have you read The Australian lately? Or watched Fox News? Or listened to the shock jocks on commercial radio?

The ABC is a moderate voice by comparison. Like all public broadcasters, it is designed to serve those needs that commercially driven media will not.

It is never very clear exactly what you reactionaries want from the ABC. Presumably rolling headlines about the genius of John Howard (produced by David Barnett, of course), plus whitebread history documentaries about the Anzacs, Bradman and Menzies.

You will simply not be happy until the ABC is a mouthpiece of the state. Like the paranoid control freaks of Asian city states like Singapore, you people simply cannot stand dissent.

I agree. The ABC's principal vice, because of its bias, is that it is predictable and thus boring. I check in occasionally to check. Ho hum.

ABC News radio would do a Goebbels type proud as an instrument of party propoganda.

"Landline" I would offer as the exception - sometimes I actually feel informed at the end of that programme.

Iudex

Risible, predictable, dull. Boilerplate Young Liberal ranting.

ALL media IS propaganda,and is inherently and inevitably full of presumptions (often uninspected) about what is true, real and possible.

The commercial media, especially radio & TV, is a cultural wasteland.

Whatever its faults, biases, and limitations the ABC offers all kinds of windows in to all kind of world-views and understandings that never ever, and never ever will be, offered or found on commercial media.

Commercial media (rather propaganda) is governed by the bottom line---the lowest common denominator. When the bottom line becomes the arbiter of what is possible then ALL "higher" cultural values and possibilities inevitably get flushed down the toilet.

Even the ideologues of the "right" argue for "higher" cultural values and frequently lament the erosion and loss of these values.

There is such a thing as high culture.
Without it we are really just barbarians like the lost souls on "reality" TV.

The conservatives won't be happy until only the views of their committee of cardinals is aired. No matter that the right control the views expressed by the commercial TV channels and the radio shock jocks there should not be anyone pointing out the more than occasional stupidity of those in power. John Howard for example is mouthing off about the states borrowing to finance infrastructure and essential services when he should know that the purpose of government loans is twofold. The second reason is to remove surplus funds from competing for such assets as housing. Does anyone doubt that it is surplus savings in the hands of the wealthy that is forcing the price of housing out of the reach of the not so well off? Our Federal Government has ignored the known and unchanged rules of macroeconomics in its pandering to the well off and to financial institutions. Sooner or later we will face reality.
The ABC occasionally points out such stupidity no matter who is in power and thereby provides a real public service. More strength to its arm.

Felicity
Getting stuck into the ABC will not win you the next election.Its all about John Howard and his very superficial respect for democracy.I repeat Felicity democracy.Now as someone who has lived in many different countries Felicity and carried arms for his country let me assure you Felicity that it is very easy to abuse,reduce and trash democracy but very hard to nurture it.
You will have seen from your travels that the BBC is further to the 'left' and so is the media in most of northern Europe,parts of southern Europe including Italy and Spain,also the sub continent including India where they even have a communist press in some states and a left bias in some national dailies and of course north America where the Canadian Broadcasting Commission looks and sounds a lot like our ABC ie cautious and conservative.
Your line in this article might help you impress your party or even help gain preselection but your attack on the ABC does nothing to inspire confidence in you or your tolence or indeed your ability for dispassionate analysis.
Putting the boot in on the basis of the 'facts' you cite smacks of whatever it takes.
Bruce Haigh