Ludwig,

Heh, heh, modern times: if I criticise I am easily dismissed as an 'anti-'. Not PC to prick the ABC's conscience.

The impact of the Net has resulted in a race to the bottom, where cheap and trashy shock, horror and sex prevail. They call it news.

The problem is that there simply are not enough social and political happenings to warrant the coverage the ABC and others provide. I am also critical of the privates you should notice but they don't have 'fact checker or this recent 'initiative' to pad and make news. They also have their ways of inventing 'newsworthy' incidents. The thread is about 'Promise Tracker'.

Now I appreciate that there are some out there whose lives are so limited that they must rage to get their daily buzz from railing at the world, laced with humiliation opf some to bolster their egos. - Like the old fishwives on the bus indulging themselves with their 'Ain't it awful' game. There is also the media networks' bean counters' dream of cheap reporting by using the same old talking heads in the studio trawling reports from around the world to add their spin. I am sure some are so lazy that they even take their leads from Oz blogs and forums.

However that is not what I expect from the public national broadcasters. It is a very poor exchange for my tax dollars.

The straightforward reporting of facts was always enough, but it now seems that there is a sizeable rump of producers and 'personalities' in the ABC who do not believe that the general population has the wit, or is it the correct 'Progressive' ideology, to make sense of independent reports, to form their own judgement and be advised accordingly. There always seems to be that non-declared 'Progressive' editorial policy at work.

But my real concerns are:

- the patronising attitude to viewers who apparently cannot be trusted to digest frank factual reporting and make up their own minds; and

- the making of news through artifices as 'fact checker' and now, 'Promise Tracker'.

Did the ABC offer the Promise Tracker service whilst Labour was in power?

Personally I find Julia Gillard's assurance there will not be a carbon tax under the Government she leads, 4 days out from the election, in a different category to Tony Abbotts repeated policy statements: stop the boats, repeal the carbon tax, no surprises, no new taxes, no cuts, and full and open disclosure. I don't remember either of them using the word promise.

Unfortunately in Gillard's case the statement proved to be calculated and an outright lie. Abbott has certainly dropped the ball on no new taxes, no surprises, no cuts and open disclosure, but did he intentionally lie. I hear the loud roar of "YES", but as much as I don't like it, Abbotts 'lies' are more of the political-speak we have across the board all over the world. Every politician is guilty.

I have to laugh when I see some on this Forum jumping for joy that one boat slipped through on a legal technicality and now are trying to claim its a broken promise. If we as a population of voters are so one-eyed how can we expect bi-partisan cooperation from those we put in government. A willingness to work together for the betterment of our nation needs to start at the grass roots level. Going by what I read on OLO, I'm not expecting it in my lifetime.

Yes it would have been good to have had this promise checker thing for the last government, and the one before it…. and the one before that…..

Well we will presumably have it for evermore now.

And yes we do need to be careful about just what constitutes a broken promise.

Bringing a boatload of Indian asylum seeking economic opportunists to the mainland as part of a deal for Indian authorities to talk to them and for us to get them repatriated or otherwise dealt with as quickly as possible… and which is a special one-off event…. does not constitute a broken promise as far as I am concerned.

I am not going to bother to detail the very serious reasons why 'fact checker' and now 'promise tracker' are farcical sideshows and will have opposite (negative) effects to those proposed for them.

The superficiality, falseness and idiocy should be apparent. What about the obligation of an incoming government to keep the promises of the previous administration for instance? The partisans here would scoff at that of course.

I have already noted that the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster doesn't seem to believe that its viewers are capable of sifting through facts and arriving at their own opinion. I have said that the ABC might see itself as a force for social change and it does, but its declared editorial policy is silent on that. The problem is that the ABC is not accountable to the public as private media outlets are directly and almost immediately held to account by shareholders.

It is the media and activists that coerce and trap politicians into 'promises', which are usually populist anyhow.

What about political leaders and the ABC's senior management coming clean and doing something positive by saying outright what all good, responsible, thinking citizens know already: that political parties aim at and are about is goal setting. 'Promise' is not what they are about and we all know that, but some who enjoy fighting and 'dissing' (sl) as a parlour game would never admit that.

'Promises' are usually words put into their mouths by their opponents and by cr@p reporter hacks angling for controversy to sell to a dumbed-down audience. Most media interviews are just 'bait-the-guest' anyhow and luckless politicians and others people of note are treated as marks for entertainment. The prevailing PC provides endless ways to trap and humiliate a mark.

Some quick comments as usual and do with them what you may.

How about we put a bias tracker on the ABC ?

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Oh phoowey, OTB!