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The Forum > Article Comments > Fine tuning the ABC > Comments

Fine tuning the ABC : Comments

By Ben-Peter Terpstra, published 24/12/2009

Junk science, both conscious and unconscious, makes our ABC a special place. But nothing beats junk geography. Or a crap graphic.

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I don't think the article we are purportedly discussing is very penetrating, but some subjects which have come up in the discussion are important. Daggett has again made a valid point about election candidate coverage. The ABC simply isn't pro-electoral choice. It only offers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, with maybe a slight bit of Green to the side, with the occasional whiff of independent.

It isn't giving me what I need. When I go to the polling booth I am confronted with a stack of parties and independents in Federal elections whom I have never heard of. The same thing happens to a lesser extent in State Elections.

It is really frustrating because I never want to vote for Labor or Liberal and most of the Greens are pretty timid with a narrow policy base. Part of the problem is that, to get coverage in the mainstream, you have to please the status quo, and they want bland and commercial.

What I want is a range of independents and small parties who are not bland and commercial. The ABC uses the excuse of 'newsworthiness' to screen new people out yet endlessly recycles the same old talking heads in the narrowest of campaigns. That is what we expect of the commercial channels.

The electorate is expected to rely primarily on newspapers and television to find out who is running for parliament. When newspapers and television only let you know about a small proportion of the candidates, that isn't good enough. It's actually a bloody tragedy and a national disgrace.

The ABC has a duty to inform us properly about elections and it doesn't. James has been able to obtain a damning document from the ABC, where they admit to deciding in advance that most people will only vote for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, so they use that as an excuse to only promote those parties, thus reinforcing the depressing pattern.

Yet, on the night of vote counts, every channel gets specialists in who can talk about every candidate. Why don't we get that BEFORE the election?
Posted by Nero, Monday, 4 January 2010 11:03:35 PM
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<Nero said: "...Yet, on the night of vote counts, every channel gets specialists in who can talk about every candidate. Why don't we get that BEFORE the election?:">

Okay, Nero, you're a tv producer. Which program should be dumped to make room for your pre-election gabfest? How will you justify it to umpteen other program producers wallowing happily in their ratings?

If you're a commercial station producer, how would you finance such a program? How could you make it interesting enough for the advertisers to sponsor it? Where's the demand? Who pays for the market research to find out?

How will you keep viewers' attention against top rating shows on rival channels? How many hours will you have to schedule and air the program after the candidates' registration has closed? No point interviewing someone who pulls out or never registers.

How many questions can you ask and have answered in five minutes? You'd be surprised how few. What's the minimum number of questions to give the public enough info to know whether to vote for them? There is no such number. What if all the candidates don't want to appear?

How do you cover yourself against claims of bias because a) you asked more questions of candidate A than B; b) you used a hostile interviewer; c)you asked irrelevant questions; d) you asked somethng of candidate A but not B; (e) you asked everyone the same questions and it's boring; (f) I fell asleep because my candidate's called X and it's in alphabetical order; etc.

If you charge the wannabe pollies to air their self-produced 30-second promotional video, what rate do you charge? Do they have a choice of time-slot? Next to the fun babes with the hosepipes? Any idea how much a 30-second prime time ad costs? Independent candidates without a party machine to fundraise couldn't afford it. Their best chance would be to do a Tiger Woods or go on Australia's Got Talent. No, scrub that last one. Max Gillies has done it already. Maybe the ABC would be interested. Get my drift, Nero?
Posted by Polly Flinders, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 6:53:25 PM
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Polly "What do you suggest as balanced sharing: sniff out so many hours of Labor corruption this week and hour for hour of Liberal corruption next week? Anything that looks like praise is condemned as spin and PR whitewash, so where do we go from here"

No of course, not, you trivialise it so to make it absurd.

When the planning is done for say, the 7.30 report, to lateline or even Q&A, they do not go in and have an ad-hoc production, it is planned and that is where it is clearly the place to determine "hang, on this is the nth time we've gone after the opposition like rabid attack dogs, and treated the government gently with a lovely fireside chat"

Make the daytime radio comperes more aware of their duty to be objective and perhaps even introduce penalties for poor performance, like the castigation of the right and the pumping up of the left.

Why when an opinion is needed on say, climate change do we always get the greens, Christine Milne or Bob Brown, or Clive Hamilton? Why not someone like Dr Bob Carter, and actual qualified scientist?

Why, because it is politically acceptable to the little darlings to pursue their own agenda, unfettered by any management directives on objectivity.

Some of us find that clear bias unacceptable.
Posted by rpg, Wednesday, 6 January 2010 6:48:16 AM
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Polly Flinders, your most recent contribution seems to be most revealing.

I can only hope that it is not indicative of the views of members of "Friends of the ABC," the goals of which I had broadly supported, in spite of what I saw as their serious limitations.

I just hope that you will read again what I have written and reflect upon what you wrote.

What the post largely appears to be is your clutching at any straw you can in order to defend clearly indefensible conduct by our National taxpayer-funded broadcaster. You appear to accept, without providing any evidence, that Australians in general and the ABC audience in particular are not interested in proper political discussion.

You also provide a rationalisation against giving air-time to independent candidates on what would be appear to be based on a very narrow commercial view of what the ABC should be about.

I heard with my own ears, during the election campaign, ABC listeners asking to hear from alternative candidates. The fact that 59% of voters opposed the LNP and 59% opposed the Labor Party means that at 18% wanted to vote for an alternative to both, and that is even without the question of privatisation having been raised in those elections.

The outcome that would have reflected that opinion would have been a hung parliament, yet the ABC chose to preclude that from happening by not providing information about alternatives to the major parties.

I also explained in my correspondences, and with documentary evidence why privatisation was an issue at stake in those elections, and why it was opposed overwhelmingly by the people of Queensland (see again http://candobetter.org/node/1159), but this was almost all ignored, I am told, because the ABC journalists judged it as not being 'newsworthy'.

Well, I wonder now how many ABC journalists are prepared to stand by that brilliant piece of professional judgement now that Queensland has been in uproar for over seven months against the fire sale.

The short time available was a direct consequence of Anna Bligh's own choice to announce an early early ... (tobecontinued)
Posted by daggett, Wednesday, 6 January 2010 11:46:15 AM
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(continuedfromabove) ... election with less than four weeks notice, so why was she and the the Government rewarded by giving them so much air-time, including time for her husband Greg Withers to tell everyone what a wonderful wife and mother she was?

In fact, at least one other ABC radio station does give air time to all candidates contesting state elections. The following was written on one online discussion site, straight after the elections:

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2009/03/22/my-election-night/comment-page-1/#comment-231829

"Here in SA, we enjoy the award winning ABC 891 Adelaide who make a feature of giving all the independents adequate time to present their policies and issues.

"Listeners obviously appreciate being fully informed, a fact which seems to have gone over the heads of ABC 612."

(and I might add, at least one member of "Friends of the ABC" it would seem.)

So, if it can be done in South Australia, then why not in Brisbane?

I also, strongly object to being implicitly labelled a "wannabe politician", as if people, not willing to be compromised and corrupted within the major, and not-so-major political parties, in order to gain preselection, are any less worthy of becoming politicians than those who are.

In any case, my principle reason for standing was to give voters a choice that no other candidate was prepared to give them as far as I am aware.

Polly Flinders, assuming that you do take any interest in politics, and are not as apathetic as you seem to what us to think most ABC listeners are, could I suggest that you take a look at my article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" of 8 Mar 09 at http://candobetter.org/node/1121 and explain why you think I was wrong to stand?

Could you also look at my survey at http://candobetter.org/QldElections/survey which was my attempt to make up for the deficit in information from the ABC and other newsmedia.

Could you tell me if you endorse the ABC's decision to not mention that survey to its audiences in particular the first survey question:

(tobecontinued)
Posted by daggett, Wednesday, 6 January 2010 11:47:08 AM
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(continuedfromabove)

"1. Oppose privatisation: Will you give electors a categorical assurance, if elected, that either you will oppose any further sell-off of public assets, such as Queensland Rail, water infrastructure, electricity generation and distribution infrastructure, ports, airports, schools, hospitals, etc., or you will not support any sales until such time as the Queensland public have shown support for privatisation through a referendum or public opinion polls?"

Could you tell me if you endorse the ABC's refusal to put that question to any candidate in the course of the elections?
Posted by daggett, Thursday, 7 January 2010 3:23:18 PM
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