Felicity:
I am not sure what motivates you Felicity other than to provoke the rest of us. If you don’t approve of the ABC why don’t you soak up a bit more “Big Brother” and the thoughtless repetitive advertisements that promote unnecessary and often harmful product? You can’t have watched much of it as yet and obviously spend your time watching the ABC.
I SUGGEST YOU TRY WATCHING COMMERCIAL FREE TO AIR AND YOU WILL REALISE HOW FORTUNATE WE ARE TO HAVE THE ABC.

Jennifer Mahohasy,

Is that the best you can do in support of Felicity's inane attack on the ABC? Vacuousness in puppy-like support of inanity. Is it any wonder the right in Australia is regarded as intellectually lightweight?

This is a tired old argument. Only a Young idealogue would try this ivory tower tripe that no one in the real world really supports.

Those ugly Soviet towers at UTS seem to breed a whole lot of rightist and leftist elitism... You go Australia and talk to the people for who ABC radio is an essential part of their lifestyles. You'll find that a majority do not fit on your rigid left-right spectrum.

Argue subjects that the NSW Young Liberals really care about... like stacking safe liberal seats against the wets.

The human condition is really strange, Felicity sees the ABC as on the left side of politics, and i see the ABC as the Prime Minister's own propaganda machine.
Felicity must be unaware about the staff of the ABC being gagged years ago, when it was coming under fire from all directions left and right.
Obviously Felicity is too young to remember when the staff at the ABC [1960s&70s] were fearless in their criticism of the government, of the day, she would have branded them as communists.
The Prime Minister denied the staff of the ABC their freedom of speech, by removing it, because of his pushing his brand of "balance", though you cannot balance truth, as any one with common sense would know.
The ABC was set up as an independent public broadcaster, since coming to power, The Prime Minister has stacked the ABC board with his own loyal people, taking away the independence of the ABC, resulting in his political control of it, and it seems to myself that he has full intention of privatising the ABC, if he gets the chance.
The rest of the Australian media is corporate owned, without much diversity of opinion, political or otherwise.
Felicity, you are a virtual latecomer age wise, and i feel that you have not had many life experiences, resulting in you, like many others of your generation, having no understanding of the human condition.

Here we go again, the right-wing minority whinging that the ABC is left-biased. The fact is that the ABC's points of view reflect the values and views of a majority of normal, hard-working Aussies.

You call it left-bias because it doesn't fit in with your narrow, minority views.

Too bad! As an average Aussie I love the ABC as it is and would hate to see the 7:30 Report turn into a piece of crap current affairs show like Today Tonight or ACA which would undoubtedly happen under your vision of the ABC!

Thanks for the link to Duffy's Counterpoint panel Simon.

It wasn't a half bad discussion, considering the tilt of the segment and the panellists. Certainly a lot more compelling than the tripe Ms McMahon imagines will restore robust dialogue.

Alan Moran's comment was pretty revealing I thought. He equated the political preference of people who work in the US media to vote Democratic to being Leftist. That's stupid for two reasons:

1. DLC-centrism, and the establishment interests which go with it, has long since controlled the Democratic Party. They may practice a less repugnant form of corportate patronage than the Republicans, but calling them Leftist is a stretch. In fact, in foreign policy, right-wing lobbies like AIPAC may be even more influential on certain Democratic politicians.

2. It is apparently assumed that they are completely unable to separate their personal views from their professional responsibility, which is just insulting. Washington State is almost unanimously Democratic too, yet that doesn't mean Moran can allege their entire public service is incapable of doing their job.

The same logic pervades alleged proof of ABC bias. It's Leftist because they don't toe the government line. Or it's Leftist because certain ABC personalities are associated with progressive politics. Apparently, here too, ABC staff are incapable of exercising professionalism, and any counter-examples, like Pru Goward, don't exist.