As with most things written about the ABC, Christopher Warren’s piece yesterday provoked both calls to burn down the national broadcaster and start all over again, as well as passionate defences of its top-notch work. Just a normal day in Australian media!
Opinion was much less divided in coverage of the banking royal commission. Crikey readers, as all of the Australian public, want people held to account — and that seems to be a directive for both the justice system and the media.
Re. Christopher Warren’s “Filing cabinets and censure: understanding the ABC culture of cautious restraint”
David Nicholas writes: Well, Christopher, I am beginning to think that the ABC should be dissolved, cut, upended, or revamped into something useful. What that may be I cannot say at this point.
Klewso writes: Is the gutter “ratings” audience — competing for “news as entertainment” — the one the ABC should be going after? Is the ABC charter really about promoting where to find the outpourings of the tabloid press — when we already know where to find such “opinion as news” effluent?
Itsarort writes: When Trioli took on Peter Reith (and won), back in 2001, over “Children Overboard”, she just didn’t take on the gov, she took on practically every media outlet of the time. Was there a single journalist in the tabloids and on the TV that didn’t have capital invested in the lie? The banking royal commission is stamped with similar hallmarks, and Cassidy’s questions to O’Dwyer should just be the beginning. So, don’t give up on the ABC just yet.
Re: Charlie Lewis’ “The top five worst scandals revealed by the royal commission (so far)”
James Brown writes: Surely the worst scandal is that responsible ministers deny knowing about the extent of the abuses. This suggests that:
a) They were either not aware of what was happening in their portfolio so they should resign.
b) The regulators were not aware and therefore need major rebuilding.
c) The regulators briefed public servants who failed to inform ministers.
The whole approach to regulation, which ultimately costs consumers vast amounts of money (compliance costs by honest operators) or scams run by the dishonest, is unsound. Players are assumed to be honest, so scams are unlikely.
No. If you can think of a scam it is almost certainly operating along with a vast number of others you cannot even imagine
Djbekka writes: While the rorts and snouts in trough that have been uncovered so far are bad, they are not a shock to anyone who has had an acquaintance with the finance and business pages over the past few decades.
Have those shocked journalists really been drinking the financial sector kool-aid for the past four decades? Yes, the revelations are a “horror” to the government because they reveal how many burnt bits are in their underpants drawers, but what did they really think that deregulation would mean? Sure the regulators are red-faced, but because they got caught, not because they didn’t know.
Come on Crikey — let’s have tough reporting, not witty listicles. The current iteration of capitalism is under investigation — report that!
Tinman writes: “The commission has claimed one major scalp so far: Craig Meller, chief executive of financial service company AMP”. Resigning, when he was due to retire at the end of the year anyway, is now considered “Claiming a scalp”???
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Once upon a time the ABC, for me, was the only source of information I could accept as accurate. At one point going back many years I was film reviewing in Canberra for ABC radio in the early 1970s and I broadcast from the ANU’s 2XX-FM when the FM band was opened up by the government under Malcolm Fraser… I was on the steps of old parliament house when Whitlam was dismissed and for his “May God save the governor-general” speech. The ABC had its shortcomings then but more so it seems now.
Today it seems it have become worse because I have a comparison. After 33 years in America, [I saw] news on PBS television and National Public Radio — despite the US government funding — were and are accurate to a T. Self-censorship was not an issue in either of those programme bases. If someone in power didn’t like the reporting, there was very little they could do about it. But the reporting was always accurate.
Since my return in 2010 and for the last eight years, the ABC appears to me that it no longer trusts itself and worse for me is that the presentation of news and areas where it encouraged public discourse borders on mental suffocation leading to brain death.
In the early morning, TV news is at the level of Mickey Mouse and Goofy. I [don’t like being] talked down to spoon-fed for three hours by two people who often make stupid and careless remarks. Fortunately when I get irritated, I switch over to the international channels on my satellite broadcaster to get news in real-time.
I just don’t trust the ABC to deliver news accurately anymore because political interpretation is included as part of the presentation. The Canberra contingent of ABC news reporters or analysts — they don’t specify which — usually are presenting the latest political news along with their interpretation as if it were gospel. They really come off as if they are casting pearls before us swine. It’s the arrogance and the righteousness as if they “know” more than us.
Maybe it is the News24 syndrome of dishing it out endlessly throughout the day, but it lacks discernment in my view and it’s become tedious. I am sick of it.
As to Emma Alberici. I have always found her reporting accurate and her interviews insightful. I wonder if she would have preferred to stay on in London rather than come back to Australia. I suggest she quits the ABC and join Al Jazeera English — Peter Greste’s and Hamish Macdonald’s old network. She could and would use her talents better there. Alberici — as they say in America — is getting shafted, and it’s really ugly.
In conclusion, perhaps the ABC should be split up into two. News and documentaries each on separate channels and several drama channels to cover kids and Indigenous. I just cannot see the reason for keeping the whole mish-mash as one.