Ugh.

There's a little left wing bias in the ABC... sure.

Perhaps I'd listen to author a little more if she could point to some quality examples of investigative journalism on the commerical networks, or provide some assurance that privatising the ABC won't let to the pursuit of the lowest common denominator, as the commercial networks are wont to do. Instead, all I hear is politically oriented complaining, with no thought to the ramifications.

Answer me this - does the ABC produce better news segments than the commercial networks?

Ultimately - I want an ABC that criticise the government, regardless of which side of politics the government is. I'd be far more sympathetic to the author if she for instance, could prove that the ABC would go easy on a labor-led government.

It's not about criticising either party - it's about examining who is in power at the time. That is absolutely crucial, so I have no sympathy for the whingers attacking the ABC on this one.

If they focused more on examples of the ABC going soft on left wingers, then I'd listen. But I've no time for this garbage as it stands. I want journalists who aren't afraid to bite.

I find it interesting that the new inventors is attacked for being left wing, because it asks for environmentally sound inventions.
I didn't think supporting the environment was explicitly Left wing, but thanks felicity for clearing that up - now I know the right-wingers are keen on environmental destruction.

We have commercial broadcasters that are mouthpieces of the right which all consumers are forced to fund through the advertising component of the retail price of goods. Every time I buy a can of soup I'm probably contributing to the salaries of some right wing war-monger in the commercial media or the crew on Big Brother. Without the ABC the public would be at the mercy of private corporations who have no interest in providing information, their priority is ratings. The ABC is not a Howard poodle, this fact is often incorrectly interpreted as bias.

Hmm Liberal Party person attacks the ABC as being biased. When Labor is in power they did the same thing.

The ABC does not have a responsibility to run the government line. It does have a responsibility to inform the public, whether that offends certain people is not the point.

This is a symptom of a larger problem. Under this government, things like objective thinking and reporting are considered anathema. As we have seen with the Public Service where senior Public Servants have been moved onto short term contracts, severely damaging their ability to report "without fear or favour".

And just to make sure that no one thinks I'm biased towards Labor, I don't believe that the Labor party will do anything to reverse this trend. It's too valuable a tool in keeping government to have a compliant public service at your beck and call rather than one that keeps letting facts get in the way of good publicity.

This piece is poorly argued, and relies on the old trope that the truth must lie between any two given opposing views.

The author makes a good point that democracy must be shored up through robust dialogue, but then just indulges blatant triumphalism by substituting her own orthodoxy as the missing panacea to achieve that dialogue. We have no reason to accept this. The truth isn’t located by differentiating between two demagogues. This is a clear fallacy because, if it were true, it would be a simple matter of constructing the debate so your side is always more extreme. That way, you control the goal posts, and moderation is abandoned so as to shift the truth in your direction.

Felicity praising Insiders for its supposed balance is a good example. I’ve watched some good Insider panels, and I’ve watched some shocking ones. The point is, you aren’t guaranteed dialogue, and you aren’t providing “balance,” simply by stacking a panel with a flag careers for an ideology. This simply assumes, again, that the truth must be found between a reactionary like Andrew Bolt, and another of the ABC regulars.

This fallacy is replicated unthinkingly when Felicity expresses apparent outrage that Gore’s film may have received better treatment than Durkin’s. Yet again we are meant to accept uncritically that both political pieces are on equal footing. The very idea that notwithstanding the flaws in Gore’s, it is still inherently less polemical and dishonest than Durkin’s simply isn’t conceivable. The truth must be in the middle, and if one is treated with more credulity, it must be BIAS!!

Seriously, have a think about what you’re writing. There are genuine intellectuals on the conservative side, who could add to the political dialogue at the ABC, but they aren’t anything like what Ms McMahon would recognise.

Privatise the ABC? Surely not. ABC TV is where I get all my news, current affairs and general nightly entertainment. ABC radio ditto. Privatise the ABC and it becomes one of those loser FTA/radio things. The amount of programmes I watch and listen to on FTA teev/radio (no pay tv) prime time can be counted on one finger NRL, except The Dead Zone at the ridiculous hour of 0200 hours Monday mornings, what a blessing a VCR is. You see, I'm a scifi/fantasy/horror/australian humour genre fan. The dross the FTA/radio folks are dishing up at this time doesn't interst me at all!

Privatise ABC, nah, leave it alone I say

I'm a liberal supporter but the ranting about bias in the ABC is an old and tired argument that never goes anywhere. Have a look a the constitution of the Board. Have a look at the wide range of programming offered. You can't have everything and arguments about balance are pointless.

I am grateful for the ABC and hope we always have a state owned and run broadcaster.

Young Liberal academic hopefuls could open their eyes a bit wider and offer something new to the debate instead of dribbling the weary yet vacuous party-line.