Suseonline,

Just on the topic of ABC Censorship or Selective coverage, this article from the BBC along with much media coverage in wider Europe. I have to wonder if this will get a run from the ABC?

If it does not I guess you will get back to us with some sort of “explanation”?

“A leading British climate scientist claims the current rate of decline in solar activity is such that there is now a real risk of a ‘Little Ice Age’. The severe cold went hand in hand with an exceptionally inactive sun, and was called the Maunder solar minimum. Now a leading scientist from Reading University has told me that the current rate of decline in solar activity is such that there’s a real risk of seeing a return of such conditions. Following analysis of the data, Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years. Based on his findings he’s raised the risk of a new Maunder minimum from less than 10% just a few years ago to 25-30%. --Paul Hudson, BBC Weather, 28 October 2013”

I get a twice weekly roundup of European media coverage, particularly in relation to climate change, most of it goes unreported in OZ. If it did you would be one of the first to complain.

I might try you out of a few gems under the heading of “Did you know”?

Ah Shaggy, the old second bite.

If you were a Tailor I would wind in immediately, hard and fast. If you were a Mulloway, I would let that “hard mouth” have a second or third run before sinking the hook. The Australian Salmon, like the Tailor, fights hard and long, sometimes “tail walking” and snapping even the best gang hooks, a much respected fish.

Then we have the Bream, it goes for bait that is far too be for it, keeps coming back for more ‘cos it’s stupid, and in the end it hooks itself and earns little respect from serious fishermen.

You Sir, are a Bream.

Many have little problem with you or anyone else enjoying your preference for the ABC, not the point though was it?

The issue remains that serving a minority audience with minority perspectives should not be done as such public expense.

Whilst I never intended or mentioned ABC bias as the topic matter, this has primarily been the issue for many.

Shaggy, it is not the ABC that defines its bias or otherwise, it is its audience. You and you ABC luvvies enjoy the ABC because it is biased and the ABC puts out exactly what you wish to here, your minority perspective.

You can repeat endlessly why you like the ABC however, you forget that we already know why. The issue remains, should the public continue to fund a minority sectarian audience in an already saturated media market?
If you and your friends want it you can fund it, it should be going very cheap, very soon, like every other consumer product that is passed its use by date.

You say you are not elitist, of course you’re not, but you would love to be thought of as one.

Don’t believe me? Just read this if you want to know what a “wannabe” elitist sounds like.

Posted by Shaggy Dog, Monday, 28 October 2013 11:44:29 AM

When you are ready to stop repeating your “preferences” and discuss the real topic, get back to us. Try morphing into something respectable.

Tight Lines Aye?

Too good for me Spindoc.
I shall have to leave the field to you.
It is a pity that many of these posts on forums cannot be repeated or had face to face as I feel an entirely different understanding of the person and their views would be gained.
There is possibly far more common ground than the opposite I feel, you express your thoughts well when you write, me less so.
Animosity and antagonism are not part of my brief. I read your posts with interest as I do some others, and others of opposing viewpoints. Makes for interesting reading and is cause for reflection as how difficult it can be to find common ground on these forums.
Speaking of fishing, I am about to go and do just that. Too nice a day to be inside.
Catch you later.
Take it easy.

SD

For a democracy to work, the citizens must be well informed about all the issues.
Do we really believe that our news should be even more tightly controlled by the likes of Rupert Murdoch or be informed by somebody like Andrew Bolt?

It's typically the conservatives who see any criticism from the ABC as left-wing bias but anybody who read The Drum in the weeks leading up to the last Federal Election must have seen the same bias complaints from ALP supporters.

The ABC has always been seen as an easy target for the disaffected and is more closely scrutinised than any other media source in the country.

Somehow the fact that it's publicly funded seems to make it open to criticism.

While we pay about ten cents per day for the ABC, Free-To-Air or printed media is funded entirely by advertisers and that is effectively paid for as a levy on everything we buy and I'm sure it's more than ten cents but they are free to say almost anything they please.

There is nothing free about Free-To-Air media.

Well noted, wobbles - there are no free lunches.

Shaggy Dog, you really shouldn't kow-tow (even if tongue-in-cheek) to spindoc's supposedly superior intellect, for he is truly vulgar in much of his postings, opinionated almost beyond belief, and loves nothing better than pulling people's chains. Not worth your time or consideration. (In case you haven't noticed, he already has such an over-bloated ego there is no need for anyone to feed it further.)

Spindoc;

>.. but because they have created a politically biased audience.<

Yeh?? And, by what means pray tell - as you appear to have confirmed that the ABC steers a relatively impartial line when it comes to political (or any other) reporting.

As for competition with the MSM when it comes to news (from common Global sources) what else would you suggest? Sending out your own reporters, at great expense, only to come up with the same as all the others?
Simple, report the news like all the rest, and get on with more important, and unbiased, investigative reporting like Four Corners and Media Watch (and with extended coverage like ABC News 24), and quality entertainment geared to an Oz audience (which there should be more of).
The ABC is for a 'thinking' audience, and free-to-air is for the 'plebs' - and they're welcome to it.
Can the ABC do it better? Of course; but seeking to shaft it would be a criminal act, leaving us at the mercies of the moguls, and with only the SBS for 'quality' programming.
(SBS has 'selective' ads, sparsely sprinkled, which could be a model the ABC could follow - if the 'buck' is really as important as you seem to suggest.)

More Oz-produced and Oz-oriented content, supported directly by the ABC, would also be most welcome - and would concurrently provide much needed stimulus to our own struggling arts, drama and film/video production sectors.

Let the so-called 'frees' waste their money on Schapelle's story; we dyed-in-the-wool ABC supporters couldn't give a flying fig - IMHO.

And, get off your high-horse old mate, you're not really impressing anybody by riding roughshod.

‘morning Suseonline/wobbles/Shaggy/Saltpetre/Belly/GR/Paul1405/Tony Lavis and the rest of the ABC’s St. Judes Club,

So, for <<we dyed-in-the-wool ABC supporters >>, << free-to-air is for the 'plebs'>> and the << ABC is for a 'thinking' audience>>

You rarely watch commercial TV, you hate the media moguls, the ABC appeals to you, the ABC’s has an important role in your life, you dislike advertising, commercial channel standards are “too low”, too “puerile”, too “biased” for you, commercial channels have too narrow a perspective for you and content is crap.

An interesting profile? You are all to be commended for what many might describe as a brilliant self description. Actually, you didn’t need to tell us, we already knew because the ABC told us.

It is not about what you say, it’s about what you don’t/can’t say.

None of you has gone even close to debating issues, no comment on ratings, market share, credibility, trust, technological evolution, competition, ABC structure, customer (public) needs, market saturation, industry funding models, syndicated news differentiation, retail operations, general programming funding share, uniqueness, the case for public funding or any alternatives. Nothing!

It is one thing to claim you are a “thinking audience” but apparently it is quite a different issue when it comes to actually demonstrating that you can think? Is it the case that your rhetoric engine is simply a cover for the absence of depth and is very soon exhausted? Is it the case that nothing is actually read or comprehended and you just “feel” the issues emotionally and can only respond with emotion?

You have done a great job in describing yourselves as a typical ABC audience and have provided many reasons for closing the ABC down and none for keeping it. The only thing you have evidenced is “issues based groupthink” or “adopted opinions”. You wish to be thought of as elites and intelligentsia, you have poured scorn on “lesser” Australians, pulled up the drawbridge and resorted to pontificating from the high moral ramparts.

You are the ABC and the ABC is you.