New essential poll today shows 35% of respondents support cutting spending on the ABC.
The ABC once had a hallowed status, but those days are over. One in three Australians are not enthused with non-stop naked Green-Labor advertising combined with derision and scorn for the deplorable half of the population.
We pay 14 cents a day for the ABC and it’s not worth it.
…
ABC ratings plummet 13% in the last year
Showing that this survey is not an abberation, the whole nation is voting with the remote control:
Last week ABC News attracted about 660,000 viewers in the mainland capital cities. This compares with about 760,000 viewers a year ago.
That’s a trend line headed for zero by 2025.
Most Australians don’t watch the prime time 7pm news service they are forced to pay for. Apparently the ABC is a subsidy package for poor inner city elites who can afford to live in Darlinghurst but not to pay for their own news service.
The ABC rescue plan is a workshop on telling stories
The ABC solution yesterday is to get better at “storytelling”. It does not include employing a second conservative or libertarian commentator (one, Amanda Vanstone, a soft-left Turnbull supporter, is enough). It does not include making the ABC “the place to be” for national debate of key issues. Nor does it include representing the other half of the population.
“We want to improve our storytelling for 7pm news,” the strategy document says. “To do so, we’ll begin writing workshops for TV news. These will be aimed at reporters at all levels to help reinforce how TV news storytelling is different and to remind reporters what producers are looking for.”
In a flash of insight, they also realized that a news service might need to tell “stories with impact”. Perhaps in future they might mention Rotherham*, instead of running 30 days strait about Rolf Harris? ABC News hammers the few pet topics of inner city ABC editors to the point that David and I sometimes have to pause the playback to check the date. Is there any other news service in the world where viewers wonder if they have accidentally played yesterdays news again? Lately, I swear I saw this exact same piece on sheep and for two weeks.
In long gone decades the 7:30 Report used to be “must see” viewing for anyone interested in politics in Australia. Now, whatever. At least they could bring back Chris Uhlman. Better yet. Give us back our 14c. That’s $200 a year for any family of four. How many Australians would buy that subscription?
And of course, the real cost of the ABC each year is measured in billions. For starters, there’s the damage done by government funded druid schemes to slow storms in 2100 that the ABC never asked one hard question about.
*Rotherham, UK: most Australians have no idea. Thanks to 18C you are not free to say much below, except “God Help Us”.
Don’t kids get in trouble for “storytelling” anymore?
141
Nah they cover themselves now by saying it’s an “opinion piece”.
91
This cartoon by Johannes Leak (Bill’s son) in today’s “The Australian” catches the ABC perfectly.
(Like father like son). Brilliant.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion
I hope this works!
90
Very good.
14 cents ….. in total? Its still over priced..
I could get a cheap trained parrot that says the same nonsense over and over which that would do roughly the same job as the ABC for about $30.
100
Don’t cut spending defund the whole damn thing!
I gave 2 guarded comments/interviews for the ABC plus one for JJJ at patriot rallies and every time the interviewer ended up getting personal to the point of aggressive, this new style of interviewing/interrogation must come from the dictator school of journalism and I now look forward to having them make sure I vote correctly at the booth next election.
They must remember though that plebs just like me helped in the defeat of the last clown that tried to tell the world what to do including mouthpiece think they know everything smarta$$es just like them and we all know history repeats.
/end rant.
181
There is a long list of purulent chancrous growths requiring excision, cautery, ligature or all three. ABC, TVNZ, TV3 News “Hub,” CBC (Canada), BBC (UK), ABC (Australia), Clinton News Network, and on and on the list runs.
Defunding, disbanding and dissolving is exactly correct, Yonniestone. Partisan fake-news propaganda perpetrators whose answer to growing disbelief is to dial up and double down on their
liesnarrative“news” by enhancing their story telling is a very revealing position to take, far beyond comedic farce. But then, come to think of it, their job could well be done by 2025, given a “trend line headed for zero.” Implementation of bureaucratic totalitarianism is slated for 2030. By 2025 the news could be at the wrong end of a gun barrel.That we should be compelled to pay for it is, as you rightly suggest, is patently absurd. The disturbing thing is that the poll could also be used to infer that nearly half the poll population (oppose + strongly oppose) appear happy with the ABC. I find that profoundly troubling, particularly if the poll population is of sufficient statistical power and properly representative of a cross section of the population.
140
L.D. – let’s not forget state-funded Radio NZ (simplified down to RNZ to allow more time for telling porkies – oops, I mean storytelling) whose straight-out-of-churnalism-school copywriters recently (re)produced, via the BBC, this priceless piece of ship: “Lava spatters can weigh ‘as much a refrigerator’, she told Reuters.” Holy flying lava fridges, Splatman!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/357820/hawaii-volcano-man-hit-by-lava-in-first-serious-kilauea-injury
40
Latus Dextro listed:
ABC, TVNZ, TV3 News “Hub,” CBC (Canada), BBC (UK), ABC (Australia), Clinton News Network &c.
Dinosaurs. Purveyors of Propaganda, or The Walking Dead—they belong to an ancient paradigm (the post-Marconi one of Broadcasting) which hasn’t yet realized it’s really dead having been run over or displaced by the Internet.
20
Its a brilliant on topic cartoon, https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DdwbjueV4AAabwT.jpg:large just in case your link doesn’t work for some, cheers.
80
Johannes Leak’s cartoons are generally brilliant.
The OZ editorial page ought to have more of his work and less of the other bloke.
110
So glad that some of Bill’s talent was passed on, both artistically and perception-wise.
That one cartoon sums up the whole story that Jo has outlined above – Brilliant!
40
‘Storytelling’….that about sums it up.
See Pointman for stuff you can’t mention here.
111
Past its use by date.. Feminist Green Left, not even worth the 8 cents a day that David Hill put to us..
122
” … Lately, I swear I saw this exact same piece on sheep and for two weeks. … ‘
—-
Sprung!
ABCLGBTIQ-24 fans!
81
The acronym these days is Bisexual, Lesbian, Intersex, Gay and Transvestite (BLIGT). It has the great advantage that it’s easy to say.
70
Just needs an “H” worked into that second from the end
90
H = Heterosexual! That works perfectly and we are PC and all inclusive 🙂 🙂
60
Funny…I saw “BLIGT” and read “BIGOT”…..
Refer Bill Leaks (in)famous cartoon about the “Waffen SSM”
It seems easier to say LB-ALPHABET…annoys them no end….
40
They’re all heterogeneous anyway.
10
ABC, BBC & CNN are ‘progressive’ media organisations dedicated to presenting the facts in a suitably homogenised way, but always with a generous lefty/greenie/luvvie slant. The word ‘progressive’ has come to mean your beliefs and policies are either obviously goofy, or have always failed in the tests of time.
As you get older and more worldly wise, you rightly become ever more cynical with the motives and statements of the Establishment in all its forms and machinations. When you are young, you tend to be idealistic and therefore gullible, so the ‘liberal elites’ who run these media organisations target young impressionable minds, who have not yet learned to question the facts, especially when presented to them by members of the Establishment.
It is a sad reflection of so many government and quasi-government organisations, NGOs and large charities that control of them has become so prone to being hijacked by grossly overpaid (self-awarded) individuals, whose beliefs and abilities would make them almost unemployable in the private sector.
The BBC’s ‘science’ reports on supposed climate change are now almost a 100% reliable case of fake news, I suspect the ABC is similar.
231
I wouldn’t believe Al-Beeb (BBC) if they told me it was raining outside. I’d be compelled to go out and check.
In fact, whatever Al-Beeb reports, I take the opposite to be the case especially regarding Brexit, the EUSSR or AGW
220
You can add the US services PBS (Public Broadcasting System – TV) and NPR (National Public Radio) to your list of infamous services paid for (at least in part) by taxpayers.
110
I think those 30% are absolutely sick of the ABC telling their stories,over and over and over, and of the ABC mindset that believes that the journalists ARE the stories, especially the political churnalists in Canberra. I wonder how the ABC employees will react to the fact that they are now well and truly under attack? I am betting they will become increasingly unhinged.
222
May have helped if they had Clive Robertson as Managing Director in the early 1990s—alas, opportunity lost. He could have taken out the trash until Bolt took over.
60
Humans in general and regressive Leftists in particular, together with their indispensable tools the MSM propaganda meisters, are capable of comfortably embracing a generous range of cognitive dissonance. Indeed, as the ABC have indicated, they will ‘up the ante‘ of story telling and as you suggest, consequently appear ‘increasingly unhinged’. They are likely to lose all but the low wattage and high believing hard core of their audience. But they’re actually missing the real game in town. The growing counter-culture of the rational Right that used to be the fashionable province of the Left.
Yet it seems that they may not become unhinged in the sense of psychotic, although this is apparently controversial. For in cases of Pseudologia fantastica (pathological lying), (aptly: fantastical false knowledge):
The question arises, does this apply to practitioners of professional Pseudologia fantastica?
60
Many examples of extreme rage in the Bible are related to demonic influence/possession.
The hard Left, being by choice, predominately God-less, are only to happy to rage and snarl and show their teeth. Wisdom says you cant trust a leftist. Genocide seems to be the tool of choice.
Interestingly, since 1960s, God has been shoved out of society and “offence” has become the new religion.
If you look back and consider society then, vs now, it hasnt been a good result.
I friend was saying his father who was born in the 1920s, he and his mates used to take their rifles to school, stick them in their lockers for the day, then go hunting or do target practice until tea time.
Where are the mass shootings back then?
Compare that to now when the word “gun” now sends people into pavlovian-like leftist-shaped hysterics….
31
Sort of like we used to take our hockey sticks to school, only different.. 🙂
10
The ABC dropped the Goon Show, but repented by becoming it.
291
Just not as funny 🙁
170
Spike Milligna, the Well Known Typing Error is missing, that’s why.
10
Unlike the ABC, the Goon Show didn’t depend upon the F & C words to get a laugh.
30
Why listen or watch when all you are getting is a one sided story imbued with pc dogma. The ABC used to be something you could rely on for independent reporting but now it is the pits.
210
I stopped watching the ABC 5-6 years ago. Totally hard left opinion peices masquerading as facts. They and the left are now a joke.
210
For most of my life I worked hard and drank pretty hard, watched the 7 o’clock ABC news and voted labor the way they, subtly in those days, told me to. The liberals offered nothing to us small businessmen anyway.
It was only once I got the net and saw the destructive Kevin ’07 that I swore off both the ABC and labor forever. The ABC only just got over 25% of ch 7’s royal wedding audience BTW.
190
I stopped watching the ABC 5-6 years ago. Totally hard left opinion peices masquerading as facts. They and the left are now a joke.
80
Unfortunately,the joke is on US,because WE have to foot the bill,whether WE like it or not.
80
True, but I’m training my 12 year old to realize the govt regularly lies to us, and the ABC as its left-leaning cant be trusted.
40
Should we Australian cits
be funding safe places
fer Marxist Medja twits?
180
The fact that Turnbull has never really tried to do something about the extreme bias at the ABC adds much fuel to the speculation that he is a leftist mole in the LNP. Given his various other actions over the past decade, in particular his admiration of Rudd on climate change it’s not surprising some thing that way (I’m not so sure). In any case one can only hope enough voters can see through the charade in both major parties and the ABC, and place ACP and ON above the two major parties when they vote. We need a circuit breaker to stop this nation from being driven over the cliff. Nothing else will do.
240
Why did Malcolm oppose the royal commission on banks? His time in merchant banking should have had him totally all over the issues now raised in the royal commission. Is it incompetence or something more Sinister?
Either way plus his support of the man made climate change fantasy and the impact of the Paris climate agreement on the Australian economy shows he is unfit to lead Australia as a sovereign nation.
Bill Shorten would be even a greater disaster.
210
The only reasonably viable change in structure is via Republlic, and not Mal’s minimalist variety.
Other than that it’s GFC v2.0, then a whole lot of ugly politics, with bonus chaotic developments.
31
I don’t think being a republic would make much difference. Look at the US – they had Obama for two terms and he’s much worse than Turnbull + Shorten. The real power is held by the people if enough of them so desire to use it. All they have to do is vote ACP and ON above the rest and we can break the two party nexus and hold one of them to account. It’s the only peaceful and legitimate option we have any hope of a change. Anything else is not realistic or a total waste of time, and we would have to let the crash and burn scenario to take place to wake people up.
101
And now you Know why”Little Johnny Howard”took away our guns
A couple of instances to help you make up your own minds…
The truth about Port Arthur(Tasmania Australia) https://gumshoenews.com/201…
The gun buy back that was a con….https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=285&v=FUNNmfOtmv8
21
John Howard is a Socialist. Proof – he implemented the holy grail of the Left which is gun control.
To this day I wonder how a man with a very low IQ and with absolutely no tactical firearms training whatsoever, managed the shot/kill ratio of a skilled military marksman….truly…er….remarkable.
21
Sorry…”a man” being Martin Bryant
20
The ABC copped a hiding in the letters column of the Australian this morning. [ Tuesday 22 nd May]
Rather unusually “The Australian” printed seven letters, each and everyone with roughly the same line of comment; They were all from the older generation like myself [ aged 80 in a months time ] from a half a century ago who were dyed in the wool ABC listeners and watchers.
In their disgust at the poor content and the bigotry and bias and lack of real news with commentary supporting leftist causes being passed off as news of the today’s ABC they have all all given up listening to and watching the ABC about a decade ago.
Normally The Australian letters column has one dissenting letter with an opposing viewpoint in its main letter section but this time no such dissenting letter was included.
I certainly could have added to that letter list with a similar commentary but probably it would not be completely honest of my self to do so as I haven’t listened to or watched then ABC for close of a decade or longer [ early 1990’s? ] myself so don’t really know what they are currently pushing.
Only an occassional couple of minutes watching or listening is enough to send me off to do something else when it comes to ABC watching and listening.
I say this with a lot of sadness as the ABC use to be a central part of our lives out here in rural Australia.
I can well remember as a 5 and 6 year old, my father standing in front of the big old valve radio looking at a world map up on the wall above the radio with all its red coloured parts , the old British Empire on which the Sun never set , as news of the great battles and losses and advances of WW2 came through each evening from the completely trusted ABC.
In its regional rural hour in the 1960’s and 70’s being somewhat contreversial and outspoken rightly or wrongly at times I was interviewed a number of times by the local ABC rural reporters on our regional rural and agricultural subjects .
Today I keep asking myself, why does the government keep on putting up with and pouring money down the drain as far as the rest of Australia is concerned about the ABC when all we are now getting, if we bother to at all listent to or watch, the present anti conservative, deep green rabid climate change promoting, elitist inner city programming ABC .
After all when my wife who still does watch the ABC TV but whose blood pressure suffers as she stalks off from her ABC viewing with smoke coming out of her ears and then informs me of the latest and greatest news per ABC, almost invariably I can tell her that “yeh !, I read about that on the internet a few hours ago”.
So what exactly is the point of having a bigoted biased,, anti just about everything decent and logical except deep green watermelon causes, around any longer?
We can now all get what news and information and increasingly an immense range of entertainment at a time of our own choosing straight from the internet without ever going within cooee of the ABC and its hubris and arrogance and its increasing ignorance of the people it supposedly serves along with its deep green biases and bigotry.
Just close the whole damn thing down or flog it off to the highest bidder.
Its a drag and a serious distorter of current days information on society with its frequently [ deliberate in many instances ] mis-information and very important and no doubt deliberate ommissions, omissions of the salient points which when included change the whole aspect of a controversial subject.
4 Corners and its payments to Indonesian abattoir workers to kick and beat animals which 4 corners then made intoa nmajor attack on the very well paying live animal trade which the indonesians demanded and which then led to millions of dollars losses to live stock owners when the cattle livestock trade was halted for some months but which the ABC just shrugged its collective watermelon shoulders and got on with next bit of so called news and the destroying of yet another individual or enterprise or Australian international trading success.
This is from a formerly passionate ABC listener and a former viewer of some half a century’s or more duration.
421
ROM, if you were a subscriber to the Australian you would have seen 830 reader comments in regard to the declining ratings of the ABC news service.
Nearly all of the comments, mine included, were from people who were disgusted with the drift over the years into unwatchable left wing bigotry.
290
I used to watch the ABC quite a lot in our earlier days in Australia. At that time I often thought it better than the BBC. I definitely thought that ABC Classic FM was an improvement on my formerly beloved BBC Radio 3 (I even sported a ‘Radio 3 naturally’ sign on my transport for a long time!). Those days are long since gone. I never watch the ABC ‘News’ and almost never any other channel, especially as I cannot abide the long-winded and utterly dorkish advertising of the commercial channels.
90
ROM
Pretty much my semtiments too. I’m not a TV watcher as the internet works ok for me.
For radio my usual selection from the available choices is
1. Off
2. Ray Hadley/Allan Jones and the ads
3. ABC rarely for other than the rural program segments
100
When the MSM
reportsechoes social media trends as main news, you know they’ve abandoned any pretence of journalism. They’re just another ‘show’, those function is ‘entertainment’ or in this case ‘propaganda’. The really serious propaganda resides in the daily Alinsky-esque verbiage used in MSM “weather” reports the world over, all of which almost without exception have become compliant with the doctrine of ‘severe weather warnings’.Think warmth, darkness and mushrooms.
50
I listen to the ABC radio every day 30 min to and from work.
I find it is able to give a great deal of tension relief.
As soon as I hear something bias, misleading or fake, I roll up my windows and start to scream!
Ever hear a song by Dory Previn – Twenty-Mile Zone. try it
By the time I get home I’m completely placid!!
50
ColA @ #11.5
By the time I get home I’m completely placid!!
Or exhausted!
30
Orwellian if you ask me. Dumbing and numbing the population with continuous tripe and bilge.For the Lords sake,don’t think for yourselves. Truth? Whatever.
30
ROM: take the long view.
Their audience is divided into three parts by age. Their targets are the two younger age groups. The oldest is regarded as out of reach and out of touch. unbelievers. (Unfortunately they still vote…)
The younger two, especially the youngest, are malleable. Tell them the Big Lie often enough and they’ll believe forever. That’s what is wanted.
20
It’s all made up, and always has been. Especially the box. From Kojak to the 7.30 Report, from Captain Fortune to Emma Alberici. All confected, all a reality show. It’s just that things are worse now that the box is bigger and flashier. The mainstream media and nearly all alternative media are there to keeping us thinking and consuming in lines. The news headlines are more often than not publicity for whatever tripe is running on network TV. Worthless.
Well, not completely worthless. Up here the local council pipes ABC Classical FM around the public toilets to keep loiterers and drunks away. Ray Hadley is especially good for keeping possums out of your roof.
But unless you have a possum or loiterer problem…turn them off and leave them off. Especially the box.
171
ABC’s outraged bank bashing is really irritating me (and I have no connection at all with big business).
A lot of people will disagree with me, but I find them just so biased and they only report what suits their agenda.
They should be funded by advertising, like SBS, or the way PBS is (in the US)
90
What else do you expect when 40+% of their staff are Green supporters?
102
The level of discontent with Auntie is quite high – mid 40% range. A lot of this no doubt being a reaction to it being so biased to “leftie ideology”. I think the Coalition can turn the 30+ consecutive lost polls around with a change in policy direction, namely
1. A review into the ABC about its blatant bias to “leftie ideology” and unless this changes there will be severe consequences.
2. A review why it is necessary to fast track to RE and drive electricity prices in Oz through the roof with severe economic consequences.
3. A review why Trump’s USA Economy is going gangbusters while the Oz Economy continues to flounder under escalating electricity prices (linked to item 2).
Is the Turnbull Govt willing to take on board items 1-3 and maybe, just maybe, win the 2019 Federal Election. One thing is for sure, the “same old same old” will result in an inevitable “2019 Federal Election loss”.
101
Half the population?
1 NINE NEWS 1,068,000
2 SEVEN NEWS 1,064,000
3 NINE NEWS 6:30 1,026,000
4 SEVEN NEWS / TODAY TONIGHT 1,018,000
5 A CURRENT AFFAIR 884,000
6 ABC 660,000
Assuming people don’t watch the news twice, that’s 660,000 out of 5.5 million. Say 11%.
90% of Australians would rather watch a free air channel even though 1/3 of it is annoying advertisements. That says it all.
So most Australian families are paying $400 a year NOT to watch the ABC. It’s their ABC, not ours. Their opinions, not the facts.
In fact they are being directed not to report what happened today. They want their stories, their sheep abuse, their cattle abuse, their vegan views, their Anti Trump story and not what happened today and all at our expense. Leftist inner city propaganda until we are sick of it.
The people who pay for it do not watch it. They people who watch it do not want to pay for it. Sell the ABC now. As an official and independent factual point of view, it is a disaster and a total waste of our money. Besides, they all live in Sydney when they are not on a well earned holiday.
261
Charter of impartiality? What charter? The very basis on which an independent people funded news service is based is now a waste. Then the SBS, Al Grassby’s idea of TV for Italians in the 1970’s. Obselete with the Internet. Besides, who needs Australian news when everyone can get the news they want in the language they prefer any time they want. Close it down.
141
Sorry, these were the ratings from Monday night. A Current Affair and Today/Tonight are not the news, but they still rate higher than the ABC news. The ABC ratings are not just poor, they do not justify its existence.
141
I also have to say that whenever the ABC is challenged, they threaten to stop broadcasts of Peppa Pig. Amazing, since this is a BBC production. Like most of the BBC programming, you can watch on other commercial channels like Foxtel.
From that infallible source, Wikipedia, “In late May 2014, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Mark Scott expressed fears about the future of Peppa on Australian television, given Australian federal budget cuts to ABC funding that were said to affect its ability to pay for, and broadcast, overseas media products such as Peppa Pig. ”
You would think for $400 a week per family, children could watch it on Youtube? Or buy every episode for $40.
141
Free to air has a hard row to hoe V foxtel.
Most Aussies enjoy one of the sports and foxtel is broadcasting them with no ad breaks during play, even a 2 hour F1 motor race. Our TV rarely goes to FTA. They now have cricket, I wonder how that will go.
I pay the subscription to the local newscorp paper to get some local gossip and hatches, matches and dispatches. Gave up on The Australian because of editorial bias against Trump and and a couple of those posting comment: Patricia and that loudmouth that called Trump a buffoon ten times a day. I don’t need that chit at my age.
81
I went to the ABC page someone linked to somewhere above.
My browser’s ad-blocker blocked it.
I congratulated it for good taste, thanked it and went elsewhere.
20
ABC
An organization for programming Drones for political purposes.
Drones are particularly useful during elections.
KK
90
97% of those who watch the ABC will vote Green or Labor anyway. Like their panels, everyone agrees with everyone else. Group Think.
181
Fact: Without a Conservative alternative press the revelations of the biggest political scandle in US history would never have come to light.
Talk radio and the blogs were the first to do the real journalism. They were followed by Fox News. It was what they revealed that prompted Congress to get involved and start digging.
All of the old media we’re left behind or left to try and defend the deep state and Obama Administration. Even the supposed insider specialty publications like The Hill were and still are out in left field.
70
I can only handle Alex Jones in short clips but it was he who started the ball rolling.
50
I should note the single old media exception. The Wall Street Journal and specifically Kimberly Strassel have been at the forefront doing real journalism revealing and reporting new details on this very complex story.
As for Alex Jones? Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.
30
Now here’s a story I never would have expected the ABC to print .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-22/chau-chak-wing-un-bribe-scandal/9788926
After all the UN cannot do any wrong in the eyes of a lefty , maybe they do read Jo’s blog after all .
60
Lately, I swear I saw this exact same piece on sheep and for two weeks.
ABC News 24
3 items played every half hour 48 times.
60
Trump has been in office now what about a year and a half and the ABC are still running a show dedicated to the longest dummy spit in their history because he won .
201
Zoe Daniel must be the most compromised and biased US-based ABC correspondent to date, she can’t even disguise what an ideological trojan she is. But does she get fired for being such a rediculous partisan? Nope, her USA gig was a reward for it. Plus the ABC actually wanted a hopeless loonie-left hack within that role when Clinton won, and to cover the US election—so, a win-win.
But it was hillarious watching her blub with mortification from under that ludicrous ‘glass ceiling’ when Clinton finally lost, and did the loser no-show act instead. Zoe the journalist’s high-water mark, she’ll never top that.
71
As has been mentioned earlier in the thread, their ABC reports are biased to suit their agenda. Day in, day out, news with an agenda.
A national broadcaster should report the news. Not from a left or right viewpoint.
The facts.Simple. In fact this principle should apply to any news service. Unfortunately most are found wanting in this regard.
The private media companies that do lean right or left however, will sink or swim as their audience share falls or rises. They are not using public money to push their agenda, so they can do whatever they want. I can choose whether I remain part of their audience or not, and either way it costs me nothing.
Their ABC rips money out of my pocket irregardless of whether I watch it. Since it is so biased, I generally don’t watch any of it. The green parasites are still sucking on the public teat, and still producing sweet f-a in the way of balanced reporting.
Their ABC was once a well respected essential service. Those days are long gone. They have nobody to blame but themselves. I would be very happy if it was sold off or shut down. Either way will do me.
131
Tony Abbott was on Andrew Bolt’s Sky program this week and brought up the following matter:
2 May: Guardian: Tony Abbott on ABC breach: I’m not asking for an apology … but I should get one
Former PM complains of ‘chronic bias’ in broadcaster and says ‘ordinary decency’ requires a mea culpa
by Katharine Murphy
Tony Abbott says he’s not demanding an apology from the ABC because he’s “not that kind of person” but “ordinary decency” should prompt the national broadcaster to say sorry after a negative ruling by a media regulator.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has ruled that a news report by the ABC’s political editor, Andrew Probyn, breached the broadcaster’s code for impartiality because he said Abbott was “the most destructive politician of his generation”…
Acma said Probyn’s observation to camera last October, in a report referencing Abbott’s record in relation to climate change and energy, was “not in keeping with the ABC’s requirement to present news with due impartiality”.
The regulator concluded that the ABC was in breach of its code…READ ALL
(NO COMMENTS ALLOWED, IT WOULD SEEM)
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/02/tony-abbott-on-abc-breach-im-not-asking-for-an-apology-but-i-should-get-one
I could barely believe Katharine Murphy wrote such a reasonably objective piece, but then I noticed a link to the side, where Katharine tells us what she really feels:
2 May: Guardian: Andrew Probyn was right about Abbott – and impartiality isn’t ignoring the facts
by Katharine Murphy
The ABC code requires ‘a balance that follows the weight of evidence’, which calling Abbott destructive certainly does.
It seems quaint, in a context where journalism faces substantial threats and challenges – from commercial pressure to rising audience distrust – that a prominent Australian journalist can state the bleeding obvious and be pinged by a media regulator.
And yet the Australian Communications and Media Authority has ruled that a news report by the ABC’s political editor, Andrew Probyn, breached the ABC’s code for impartiality because he noted that Tony Abbott was “the most destructive politician of his generation”.
Abbott being observed to be destructive, particularly in the context of Probyn’s report, which was about climate change and energy policy, is just a fact.
It isn’t Probyn’s feelings, or some quaint article of faith, or a reflection of secret communism. It’s about as controversial as noting that the sky is blue on a sunny day.
Let’s examine the record. Fact. Abbott, during a period of opposition, took the Liberal party leadership from Malcolm Turnbull when he was inclined to do a deal with Labor on an emissions trading scheme. Abbott then scuttled bipartisan cooperation on an important policy issue for a decade…
Fact. Labor managed to legislate a carbon price in a minority parliament…
Fact. Abbott then launched a full frontal political campaign to dismantle it…
Fact. The ensuing policy vacuum has led to rising energy prices and created damaging policy uncertainty. You don’t have to take my word for this. You can ask every major stakeholder in the country, from major business groups to the greenest of the green environmentalists, who are now begging the parliament to fix the mess Abbott created…
The ABC’s impartiality code requires “a balance that follows the weight of evidence”…
Balance that follows the weight of the evidence leads me, like Probyn, to an inexorable conclusion: when it comes to climate change and energy (again, the focus of his report), I’ve not, in my reporting lifetime at least, seen a more destructive politician than Abbott.
This is not an opinion, or a tantrum, or an abstraction, it’s a cool, rational, clinical assessment of the evidence, which is what I suspect audiences require of their national broadcaster…
Trust is the key to the survival of journalism in an era when just about everything is ranged against it.
Without trust we have nothing. And trust requires truth-telling without fear or favour.
(1,322 COMMENTS, ALMOST ALL IN AGREEMENT)
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2018/may/02/andrew-probyn-was-right-about-abbott-and-impartiality-isnt-ignoring-the-facts
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Abbott got no apology and I can’t recall ever hearing about the ACMA ruling on ABC radio, which I do hear occasionally.
Abbott ended his bit on Sky, by joking how, on the same day, ABC announced it had hired a former Greens candidate, son of a Greens MP, to carry out another meaningless, but no doubt expensive, job as “deputy editor of a new lifestyle section of the public broadcaster’s website”:
2 May: Daily Mail: ABC ignores criticism it is too left-wing and hires former a GREENS candidate for senior role for its website
By Brianne Tolj and Stephen Johnson
The ABC has hired a former Greens candidate to serve as deputy editor of a new lifestyle section of the public broadcaster’s website.
Osman Faruqi, who ran in the 2015 NSW election, is believed to have left his position at pop culture and news website Junkee for ABC, which announced this week it is restructuring its eight newsrooms to fit the ‘the modern media environment’.
An ABC spokesman told The Australian Mr Faruqi, the son of Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi, will be included in ‘a new digital storytelling project created to reach new audiences in an innovative and engaging way’.
The spokesman declined to comment on Mr Faruqi’s left-leaning political preferences, the publication said.
Mr Faruqi is in a legal battle with Mark Latham regarding comments the former Labor leader made on his ‘Outsiders’ YouTube program…
On Tuesday, the ABC’s political editor was slammed by Australian Communications and Media Authority for describing former prime minister Tony Abbott as ‘destructive’…
The 7.30 program’s Canberra correspondent Andrew Probyn earned a rebuke from the broadcast regulator for his October 2017 report.
‘Tony Abbott, already the most destructive politician of his generation, now intends waging war on what he calls “environmental theology”,’ he said outside Parliament House.
ACMA said Probyn’s piece-to-camera, on the ABC’s flagship current affairs program, breached broadcasting standards of impartiality, describing the statement about Tony Abbott as ‘declarative and not in keeping with the scope of the factual matters presented earlier in the report’.
‘The ACMA considered the statement judgmental, not in language considered as analysis and one that the ordinary reasonable viewer would have understood as a pejorative descriptor,’ it said on Tuesday afternoon.
Up to 20 employees will be made redundant during the restructuring of ABC’s newsrooms…
‘Against this, new senior editorial roles would be introduced to add to the expertise and skills in the newsroom. At the end of this process we anticipate having the same number of editorial employees.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5680607/ABC-hires-former-Greens-candidate-Osman-Faruqi-senior-role-website.html
so there we have it…just another “storyteller” for theirABC.
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Methinks miss Murphy would also be in breech and what a joke about the weight of evidence , evidence doesn’t apply here because there is none to prove their obsession with Co2 causing CAGW .
If they were impartial the Peter Ridd sacking would have received the coverage it deserved .
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Completely off topic.. Reported on Brietbart
Bill Nye: Taxing Cow Farts a ‘Fantastic Thing for the World’
I don’t think Bill has thought this through. How are you going to get the cows to pay?
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I would think that Bill Nye’s expert knowledge of cows like all his other “scientific” [ ?? ] whimsy’s and intellectually challenged mental excursions, [ I am being polite! ] would possibly extend to a belief that to get milk from a cow , you get hold of its tail and pump it up and down like you do with one of those old well pumps.
And then milk, pasteurised , de-odororised, lactose free and what ever flavour you order, all depending on which teat it comes from, would be all there for the dairy farmer to sell.
I am surprised that he didn’t demand that a genetic selection program be set up for cows to find a genetic line of cows that don’t fart or whose farts are methane and solid particle free.
Any advances on this animal GMO front could and should then be applied to the Bill Nyes of this world to give them a cow’s eyes view of the proposed solution.`
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– I want enough milk to be able to have a bath in it
– Pasteurised?
– Ummm… no, just up to my neck should do it.
cough…
I’ll get my coat.
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AFAIK it isn’t their farts that are the problem, it is the methane from their rumen coming out the other end when they chew their cud.
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I was reading about Sir Anthony Jay (1930-2016), co-creator and writer of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. It is interesting to quote this piece from Wikipedia:
“In 2007 Jay criticised the anti-establishment thinking of the BBC and similar media outlets such as The Guardian. In particular, he criticised how the opinions of BBC staff “were at odds with the majority of the audience and the electorate.”
“His 2008 report for the Centre for Policy Studies How to Save the BBC provoked fierce debate by advocating a radical reduction of the scale of the Corporation’s activities.”
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If the Beeb and Aunty were fair and balanced there wouldn’t be a problem.
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The ABC Left have their say,
For which everyone else has to pay,
A big annual fee,
For unwanted TV,
Of about fourteen cents every day.
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I think the ABC has well and truly proven itself to be heavily biased towards Green/Labor, which would be perfectly fine if it was not taxpayer funded.
I wonder what the situation is for other (nominally) free to air broadcasters, because there does seem to be a big swing against conventional media, with, I read somewhere, a staggering percentage of young adults getting their news from Facebook (heaven help us!!!), and loads of others just not interested in “news” at all. I wonder how the decline in overall ABC ratings compares to other channels, not as market share, but in total viewer numbers?
If all stations are suffering from fewer eyes watching the screen, then it says something for the quality of programming, as well as the power, and ubiquity of the internet as a source of information, be it fact, or fiction, or somewhere in between.
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So the ABC is giving credence to the long held belief amongst thinking Australians that the organisation is merely a sheltered workshop for otherwise unemployable “journalists” (I use the term cautiously…). I guess using the term “story telling” fits with the ABC’s indigenous roots.
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I used to watch the ABC ,news,7.30 Report ,FourCorners and Q&A.The last ABC program I continued to watch was Q&A until the final straw happened.
The program was about climate change.Two of the panelists were Jennifer Marohasy and Tim Flannery.The point at which my tolerance broke was when
Jennifer began to refer to UAH(University of Alabama Huntsville) satelite temperature measurements then at this point Flannery scoffed at her and began talking
over the top of her.Unbelievable and the “impartial” silver fox host did bugger all.
There was another last straw it was the Four Corners program also on climate change too.It was obvious that when it came to Joe and David’s piece it was a stitch
up, especially when they also featured comments from that annoying young female lawyer(with no scientific background) from Get Up something or other…Rose
Yes dear Auntie ABC’s editing room worked overtime to make this not look like the “set up” it obviously was.
PS.There was another time but it was by chance while listening to 702 abc last year in January while I was doing some building work.The full of himself
and highly smug afternoon presenter Richard Glover introduced of all people -Michael Mann saying he was a highly distinguished Climate Scientist…oh what a
doozy that was it goodbye ABC
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I’m tempted to make a joke about its being as easy as ABC to solve the problem. And it would be but for the built in momentum of human society. No one is likely to take the first real step toward the solution which is to abolish the thing and go to all commercially funded, privately run TV and radio. But even that has not worked here in America, since there are only 2 trustworthy news sources and I’m less and less sure about one of them. But at least they don’t insult me by thinking I’m interested in who shot who; who slept with who; whose sob story is the more interesting… …etc., etc…
It’s an ugly situation. And we don’t flex our muscles enough as consumers of their drivel so they keep going.
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And now for the good news. Less people are watching the Abysmal Biased Channel and their Atrocious Bigoted Commentators.
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Many years ago, I took a degree in Broadcasting. There were some conservative faculty then. One always referred to PBS as a poverty program for the well-to-do. This was more of an inditement when it was one of four national networks, with guaranteed and publically funded satellite space. Realistically, it was probably more elite than liberal, as opera and tennis were deemed two unmet media needs that required public funding.They became news heavy & liberal during a national ‘Talent” strike, when Huntly, Brinkley and Uncle Walter were off the air for a while, and McNiell-Lehrer became household names.
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(sarc)
But the CHILDREN! Who will protect Pepper Pig! Will no one think of the Children!
To be honest I am a bit surprised the ‘friends’ of the ABC haven’t been pushing this line, illustrating it nicely with a story of a small child who has donated their pocket money in order to help ‘Save the ABC’.
In practical terms however, just how hard is it to run a dedicated kids channel? You buy the broadcast rights from the OEM, slap up a few animations to link between the shows and you broadcast them. Sure, there might be an argument that programmes like Play School require more love and affection, but also remember that these crying kiddlings are giving their hard earned coins to save Pepper Animated Pig.
The government should remove that the kid’s channel and put it up for tender. The ABC can bid for it out of their overall budget but if they lose the broadcast rights to a private business they can lose that chuck of their funding.
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“Stay where you are or Pepper Pig gets it”. This was the response when Abbott cut a few pennies from their budget, it is hostage taking
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“…to save Pepper Animated Pig.”
Pepper Pig is probably off-message for them. With the heavy pro-Islam programming, pushing a pig at the kiddes is contraindicated.
But they’d still happily take their money. Lefty fascists are nothing if not selfish.
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Once the ABC was the go-to to find out what the story REALLY was, and when SBS came along, we had a view from OS to compare with pure Aussie views.
This Day Tonight was in-your-face factual current affairs, 4 Corners was riveting and far better than 60 minutes. Even Q&A was once interesting to watch instead of the lefty ‘gang-up’ propaganda show it is now.
The fact they think ‘story-telling’ belongs in the news and especially they think THAT is what will turn things around shows how out of touch with anything approaching reality the staff and management have become.
Sack the lot, Start over and recruit properly. Get some honest investigative journalism happening instead of the modern-day definition…
Journalist – someone able to read a press release.
Investigative Journalist – someone willing to go check if there’s a new press release.
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From Bolt’s Blog in 2013:
Folker Hanusch, senior lecturer in journalism at University of the Sunshine Coast, on new polling confirming the Leftist bias of the overwhelming majority of journalists:
Our survey was conducted by telephone with carefully selected journalists from newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, online news sites and news agency AAP, as a sample of the 8000 to 10,000 journalists in Australia today. When asked about their voting intentions, less than two-thirds of the journalists we surveyed revealed their voting intention. Of those 372 people, 43.0% said they would give their first preference vote to Labor; 30.2% would vote for the Coalition; and 19.4% said they would choose the Greens – about twice the Australian average.
No bunch of journalists skews more violently left than the ABC:
41.2% of the 34 ABC journalists who declared a voting intention said they would vote for the Greens, followed by 32.4% for Labor and 14.7% for the Coalition.
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This may be so, however the left still sees the ABC as out of touch anyway.
The ACT chief minister said as much.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/act/i-hate-journalists-and-im-over-the-mainstream-media-act-chief-minister-andrew-barr-20180309-h0x9xk.html
‘Mr Barr claimed the average age of viewers of the ABC television 7pm news bulletin was in the mid-60s, and the circulation of the print edition of The Canberra Times was less than 15,000.’
His answer is to appeal to younger generations with more risky ideas.
‘Reform ‘of the ABC may well lead to targeting the young with more bad journalism.
I don’t bother watching it now.
In a recent exception I turned to the ABC for the post budget coverage and was greeted by a couple of embarrassed journalists in a corridor covering for a technical
hitch in the crossover.
This just confirmed my bias.
Two of my children in the tech industry could have done that job easily.
It comes back to competence.
One of the reasons few watch it is that it is a waste of time and effort.
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Just stop watching it Jo and David. After many years of regular viewing, we gave up watching the ABC a couple of years ago and have never looked back.
Sky is far more balanced and much higher quality.
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So you are happy to still pay for it?
Personally I don’t really care what Fairfax prints. They believe they have a market share and they write for those people. Since I pretty much dislike those people and pretty much dislike the sort of people who write for Fairfax I would be quite happy to see them all fail – Hey, never claimed I was a nice crab.
My point is I don’t care that Fairfax is unfair and unbalanced as I don’t use or pay for their product.
ABC I am paying for.
I don’t want to.
Put it this way, if you had the choice of having a completely free nice sit down meal once a year on the condition you never watched the ABC, what would you rather do?
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Like it Muddy. Just haven’t worked out how to make it happen. The leaners seem to have gotten past 50%
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This was my letter to the West Australian after the bonus debacle
“One hundred and eighty nine employees of the ABC on executive pay-grades have been awarded a total of about $2.2 million in bonuses. A further 190 non-executive employees of the same taxpayer-funded organisation have been awarded bonuses totalling $385 000. This is on top of their already bloated taxpayer-funded salaries and generous superannuation schemes.
I could understand bonuses being awarded if the ABC was making a profit, or ratings were soaring, but the reality is that the ABC does the opposite of make a profit and is actually bleeding the taxpayer dry. Its ratings, if it were a commercial organisation, would be heading it towards liquidation.
So what are these employees of the ABC being awarded bonuses for, one might ask? It appears that it is for merely doing their job.
The sooner this anachronistic, money-guzzling organisation is privatised, so that the hordes of Australians who supposedly love it can pay for it themselves, all the better!”
My dear wife is an avid follower of the ABC and is always telling me that its message is right down the centre. Then again, she is an avid follower of the West Coast Eagles and she thinks they don’t get benign treatment from the umpires when playing at their home ground!!
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You’re lucky your good wife is so unbiased …
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“One third of Australia wants public ABC spending cut.”
Equally true, 45% dont and 20% dont care.
Silly people like righties and Poorline lose again. 🙂
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And what is the problem the right has with the ABC?
They give huge amounts of airtime to conservatives and other IPA drones best known for their economic illiteracy with whacky and oft time nasty political ideas. FFS they have even had that self entitled twerp Georgina Downer on repeatedly and she is a true vacuous blot on the species.
Nah, if all sides of the political spectrum complain about the ABC they cant be doing everything wrong. And if Hanson and co want their funding cut then you know fer sure its a stupid idea.
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I don’t want to pay for the increasing Labor/Green garbage that the sheltered workshop calls news/current affairs.
It is supposed to be balanced.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, it was.
You like, you pay for it!
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Phil, if the ABC ever gets around to talking about climate change, without a warm bias, then the edifice would collapse overnight.
All we ask comrade is that aunty returns to being fair and balanced, like in the good old days.
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The day the UK Telegraph broke the story: 27 Aug 2014
The day the ABC published about the same event: 27 August 2014
They were on the same day. Where did this “30 days” nonsense come from?
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The Rotherham atrocities weren’t featured on any of the prime news and opinion shows such as the Drum, Q&A and the 7.30 Report. They were reported, but only summarily.
Similarly, the ABC ignored, for a very long time, the Royal Commission into union corruption which was instigated by Tony Abbott.
Currently, in Melbourne, there is a spate of home invasions and burglaries being committed by African youth. While the tabloids have run with this for obvious reasons, the ABC has studiously avoided mentioning it. They may have reported it, but it would have been lost in the hundreds of pages of dross that they put on their website every day.
On May 19, Jo Nova reported that Professor Peter Ridd had been sacked by James Cook University for disagreeing with their group-think. Once again, no mention of this on the ABC despite it being a gross dereliction of the university’s raison d’être.
Clearly the ABC has an agenda to follow, while ignoring their charter to provide ‘fair and balanced’ reporting of the news .
The ABC is agenda-driven, not charter-driven. They are pro-refugee, pro-gender fluidity, pro-climate change, and pro-Islam but anti-Christianity, white men, conservatives, Tony Abbott and Donald Trump, and obviously, science.
It will take a Trump to rectify this dire situation. Unfortunately, we don’t have one. Yet.
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