In recent decades “our” ABC has become a pampered left-wing mega-phone.

And it is NOT ad-free.

It runs continual free-to-air ads for itself and all its leftie, one-world, anti-industry, first-nation causes.

Ratings show that taxpayers don’t want to support it.

It is a billion-dollar business living on welfare. It should be shut it down, sold or donated to those who love it.

The ABC promos are taking up more time than commercial TV ads !

Yeah, yeah. We should all realise by now that no government is going to cut loose the ABC, and there is nothing we can do about it. Two thirds of Australians don't watch it or listen to it, so the only complainants must still be in the audience. Why? Why do they punish themselves?

Dear Vic,

You opine: "In recent decades “our” ABC has become a pampered left-wing mega-phone."

No it demonstrably has not. If anything under successive waves of right to hard right board members it has been pretty well muzzled government lapdog. In any case repeated inquiries have shown little to no bias.

Have you ever thought you might have been sipping the right wing koolaid and shifted a few paces over yourself?

" ... right to hard right board members"; "pretty well muzzled government lapdog"; "repeated inquiries have shown little to no bias".

The bullshite some people are able to convince themselves of is amazing. Not much chance of fooling anyone else, though

The ABC is demonstrably biased against the Catholic Church or any christian church for that matter - but its totally ok with the religion o peace aka Islam. Its biased against any form of mining or business in general. Although as the Emma Alberici episode showed it really doesn't understand either and has no interest in such understanding. And of course its biased against any political movement including political parties that are remotely right of centre.

But most importantly it is easily demonstrated that the ABC staffing leans heavily left and is way out of kilter with the views of the population it supposedly serves. That's not to say its out of kilter with its viewership/readership which also leans heavily left. Indeed the funding for the ABC is really just a massive subsidy from the average Australian to the left leaning minority.

In these days of virtually unlimited bandwidth, the ABC ought to be broken up into separate entities - kids TV; Sport; Rural Services; British comedy; and finally News and Current affairs. Then when the later is shown to be mere plaything of the Green-Left it can be disbanded or sold - if another silly enough to buy it could be found.

Steele, I can't believe you wrote that. Your account must have been hacked. Even for you it is delusional. I catch you in misdirection all the time, but a baldfaced untruth??

A new poster, and his opening post and topic starter is a diatribe attacking the ABC. Typical hard right nonsense, makes one suspect one of the old farts has got himself a new nick.

He might be a new commenter but he's written dozens of articles for OLO and many more for other publications over the years.

If this is the real Viv Forbes, and not someone who has pinched his name, he has been around serious discussions on important subjects for a long time. And, any relief from the ignorant extreme left muck and abuse sprayed around with no regard to truth or common sense is welcome. If he is a fake, he will still be a big improvement on ABC-dependent bores.

Dear GrahamY,

Bald faced lie? Well old boy you are going to have to back that up rather than just running with ideological bleating.

You could start by pointing to any inquiry into the ABC which showed even moderate bias.

Or explain how far right ideologues like Windshuttle or Janet Albrechtsen along with Neil Brown where hired to oversee board appointments, end up on the board?

Or explain why you think the slashing of hundreds of jobs due to significant budget cuts will not have had a chilling effect on how much the ABC is prepared to hold the government to account.

Are these the products of my delusion or is ignoring the blinking obvious a function of yours?

Those of the hard right, even the ones considered intelligent, being used to a diet of biased opinion and propaganda from news outlets that agree with their predisposed thinking, will claim bias when presented with balance. That's what we find with the ABC, balanced reporting of the news of the day being perceived as biased reporting by hard right ideologs from a forum like this.

Some years back I recall a survey during a federal election campaign where Coalition voters perceived the ABC as 60% in favour of Labor, but in the same survey Labor voters seen just the opposite, a 60% bias in favour of the Coalition.

Steele, at the end of the day GY is unlikely to return with any concrete facts to support his claim, just his biased opinion.

Quintessential SR in these posts.

First he declares that the ABC is a" pretty well muzzled government lapdog". Then, since he assumes that we've forget that bit of idiocy (or because he has himself forgotten it) he thinks that cutting jobs will have a "chilling effect on how much the ABC is prepared to hold the government to account."

A muzzled lapdog that nonetheless hold the government to account. LOL. But logic was never SR's strong suit.

SR declares that the ABC is "demonstrably " not biased. And then proceeds to not demonstrate it. But when others offer a differing view they, according to SR, need to "back that up rather than just running with ideological bleating." Irony? Hypocrisy? You choose.

The fact is it is impossible to 'prove' that the ABC or any other organisation is biased. Its a value judgement and there are differing values.

If an article on climate change says, in the first paragraph, that we're all gunna die in 12 years, and treats that as a fact but then says in paragraph 100 that some people disagree, some will call that unbiased because both sides were mentioned whereas others will see blatant bias.

Places like the Herald-Sun or Fox USA are clearly biased toward the right. But they aren't biased because the management or ownership sits there each day determining minutely what is and isn't said. Their bias is maintained by hiring people who are biased to the right and then giving them free rein to tell their version of the truth.

Surveys show that the ABC staff are 5 times more likely to support the Greens than the general population and twice as likely to support left of centre parties than the population. Clearly the ABC hires people who are going to report the news the way the ABC culture wants it reported.

People like SR want to see the emperor's new clothes. The rest of us can see he's naked.

So there you have it folks, & from his won key board.

SR doesn't have any opinions of his own, he has to wait until an "inquiry" tells him what to think.

No wonder we get the straight lefty line on everything from him.

Lol.

Oh look it's the Bill and Ben tag team.

Dear Bill,

You really do stumble over this stuff don't you. The organisation can both be pretty well muzzled and coerced into further compliance.

Demonstrably my illiterate chap means able to be demonstrated as I did with reference to past inquiries. GY offered nothing of the such in rebuttal.

You claim “The fact is it is impossible to 'prove' that the ABC or any other organisation is biased. Its a value judgement and there are differing values.”

Rubbish. The ABC charter and its policies work very hard to negate bias in its coverage of issues and they largely succeed. There are no such controls over mainstream media.

Still there are obvious signs of compliance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWXDGGWB3Mw&t=35s&ab_channel=friendlyjordies

Then there was this from you: “Surveys show that the ABC staff are 5 times more likely to support the Greens than the general population and twice as likely to support left of centre parties than the population. Clearly the ABC hires people who are going to report the news the way the ABC culture wants it reported.”

You lot repeatedly trot this crap out without any reference to the demographic of university educated journalists as a whole.

Dear Ben,

So the reality of appropriately constituted inquires are all subservient to your opinion? Thank god our world isn't run by the likes of you.

SR,

"You really do stumble over this stuff don't you. The organisation can both be pretty well muzzled and coerced into further compliance."

Well its true that scenario is possible, but its not what you said. Let me explain what you said since it obviously went over your head - quite a feat. You were saying that "the ABC is prepared to hold the government to account". So it isn't compliant or muzzled. Effectively you were simultaneously saying it is muzzled yet able to hold the government to account. Doublethink lives.

Its a bit of a worry when you can't even follow your own logic. But we know that you often try to pretend that you said something different once your original assertions are shown to be bonkers. Its SOP for SR.

"Demonstrably my illiterate chap means able to be demonstrated as I did with reference to past inquiries."

Except when you said it was demonstrable you didn't mention anything to demonstrate it. QED.

"You lot repeatedly trot this crap out without any reference to the demographic of university educated journalists as a whole."

Well I don't reference the journalist demographic because its utterly irrelevant. But I notice you don't even try to deny that the ABC staff lean heavily hard left

SR,

The only "inquiries" into the ABC bias have been instigated and run by the ABC.

The ABC has no conservative presenters and no right of centre editors or journalists. Their investigative attacks are overwhelmingly against conservative politicians and their "investigations" into crimes or misdemeanours of the left are either weak to the point of whitewash or non-existent.

The issues it covers are those important to the overwhelming green/labor journalists and ideologically it is closer to the Guardian than any other publication.

shonkyminister,

The ABC is bias, unlike the Murdoch gutter press which you seem to exclusively adhere to, the ABC doesn't pump out a diatribe of far right propaganda, so evident in your daily new sauce where you have a lifetime subscription. Fortunately the ABC doesn't have a Beat Up Bolt, a Puse Ackerman, or the Lovely Miranda Devine to feed us a daily dose of lies and distortions. You being neither a watcher or a listener of the ABC, you are clueless as to what the ABC presents.

Dear mhaze,

You really are a feral little thing aren't you.

Your distortions are as always amusing in thy show the lengths you go to to try and score the smallest of points.

You take: “Or explain why you think the slashing of hundreds of jobs due to significant budget cuts will not have had a chilling effect on how much the ABC is prepared to hold the government to account.”

And try and turn it into this: “You were saying that "the ABC is prepared to hold the government to account". So it isn't compliant or muzzled.”

FFS. I'm struggling to find the words. Perhaps venal idiocy on your behalf goes someway.

The slashing of hundreds of news and journalist's jobs is effectively muzzling through starving of resources which in turn temper managers. Why is that so hard for you to grasp?

Shadowminister,

Rubbish. How on earth do you know whether journos or left or right. David Spears, the new Insiders host was recruited from the very right wing Sky News. As long as they do their job without obvious bias then it really doesn't matter. What does matter is the board who set the direction of the organisation. It is saturated with rightwingers and heavily influences the organisation. It is also the one which has repeatedly instituted editorial reviews dredging for bias and to a very large degree have come up with nothing.

One of the latest was done by “British journalist Kerry Blackburn, who held senior editorial roles in the UK at ITN, the BBC and Channel Five, it was the 19th editorial review commissioned by the ABC board. “

“The reviewer “did not find a pronounced bias in the framing of the narrative in favour or against either of the main parties”. The ABC’s news coverage “consistently reflected a diversity of perspectives and covered a broad range of policy and campaign issues”. “

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/dec/10/abc-criticises-senate-for-releasing-internal-report-which-found-some-panel-programs-favoured-labor

So the inquiry was both independent and commissioned by the right wing board of the ABC. What more do you lot bloody well want?

Poor old SR seems to be struggling with tense. Somehow he thinks that the ABC is currently muzzled because of future staff cuts.

I'm not hungry now because I will have eaten in the future.

Orwell said “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”. No wonder SR has difficulty understanding that notion....he seems to think the present, past and future are all the same thing.

Hypothetical future actions against the ABC affect their current and past actions!!

Dear mhaze,

Now old boy you are starting to just babble. Nonsensical blatter isn't going to win a thing. No matter what torture you inflict on them with you interpretation of the English language you can't turn my words into something they aren't.

However the amount of energy you have invested in this basically reveals you have nothing to contribute to the wider topic under discussion at all.

SR,

Skynews is far more centric than the ABC. Only an idiot would call Graham Richardson, Troy Bramston and PVO right wing. David Speers (though hardly right-wing) was probably an attempt to make amends for the almighty cock-up that Emma Alberici made.

My previous comments stand. The bias of the ABC is clear in its programs and articles in that the left is overwhelmingly represented and conservative voices are non-existent.

SR wrote: "No matter what torture you inflict on them with you interpretation of the English language you can't turn my words into something they aren't."

You mean logical? You're right, there's no way I can extract any logic from your ravings. Saying something is already happening because of something that might happen in the future is obviously bonkers. Still you persist.

Couldn't help but notice that throughout all your squirming as you try to find a way out of the corner you painted yourself into, you still are ignoring the point that the ABC staff skew heavily hard left.

OTOH avoiding things you don't want to be true is very SR, n'est pas?

Oh dear mhaze, really? That is it?

Why are you reduced to banging on about "Saying something is already happening because of something that might happen in the future is obviously bonkers."

No my ill-read chap. It is happening now.

"In late-June the ABC announced cuts to programming and as many as 250 redundancies, blaming a three-year funding freeze that took effect last July for stripping $84 million from the public broadcaster's budget worth just over $1 billion a year.

The ABC has consistently complained about its funding under the Coalition in recent years. The ABC's head of news, Gaven Morris, said in May 2018 he would have to "cut into muscle" to absorb the funding freeze at a time Aunty was trying to reach younger audiences."
http://www.smh.com.au/national/was-the-abc-s-funding-cut-20200814-p55lvr.html

I wonder how many people they will need to retrench to pay the legal fees and damages after Porter's libel case.