Let’s get this straight: the ABC is biased. This is beyond obvious – except to the ABC. Any suggestion that the ABC might be even the teensiest bit biased is met with furious denial from its tiny cohort of dedicated “friends” in the inner suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne.
And the ABC itself, of course. The ABC isn’t biased – just ask them. The ABC has produced reams of internal reports of ABC types agreeing with each other that they aren’t biased. After all, everyone they know thinks just like them.
Except that some parts of the ABC have become so virulently biased that even other ABC journalists are getting embarrassed about it.
One of the ABC’s best-known on-air presenters is unusually blunt about the bad publicity the public broadcaster’s flagship current affairs program has attracted in recent months. “It’s incredibly bad for all of us,” the journalist says. “They’re embarrassing the whole organisation.”
If it’s bad enough for even the ABC to notice, then it’s bad.
At particular issue is certain ABC journalists’ relentless pursuit of conservative politicians, especially the prime minister. Despite direct intervention by station management, Four Corners proceeded with a grubby hit-piece trying to smear Scott Morrison as a QAnon conspiracy theorist.
This isn’t journalism: it’s activism.
It’s a point of view widely held within the national broadcaster, whether those at the helm of Four Corners or in the upper echelons of management wish to admit it or not.
Of the dozens of ABC journalists The Australian’s reporters have spoken to in recent weeks, two central points of irritation are recurring themes — annoyance that 4C, as it’s known internally, appears exempt from the editorial oversights and management controls demanded of other news programs at the organisation; and deep concern that the lines of journalism and activism have, in recent times, too often been blurred on a program long considered the gold standard for current affairs on television.
“Considered” by whom exactly? Despite the ABC’s endless self-congratulation, almost no one in Australia watches it. Less so Four Corners. Its “controversial” hit piece on the PM might have been its biggest drawcard for years, but even so, it was still beaten soundly by every single commercial news broadcast. It barely squeaked past game show, Have You Been Paying Attention? Barely 3% of Australians watched it.
This is what Australians get for their billion dollars in taxpayer funding.
On Monday, the ABC [aired] its Four Corners episode about a QAnon follower and his alleged links with Scott Morrison. This month, it was revealed ABC managing director David Anderson ruled the program “not ready” for publication, pushing back its screening date so more work could be done.
So, what are these “shocking” “damaging” revelations?
One of Scott Morrison’s mates is big on QAnon.
Well, colour me horrified.
Face it, we all have one or two friends like that. I’ve got friends who are balls-deep in the Cult of Thunberg. Does that mean that I must share their beliefs?
The perception within the ABC of Four Corners operating as a “journalism vigilante unit” — a label used by Nine newspapers last week — is not limited to a handful of jealous journos in the main offices in Sydney’s Ultimo and Melbourne’s Southbank.
After this newspaper’s provocative editorial last Tuesday took aim at some ABC journalists who “decry any form of scrutiny”, there was a sense among large numbers of ABC staff who are not signed-up members of the Neighbour-Milligan fan club that the piece had articulated a popular internal view, The Australian was told by a respected ABC veteran.
Another prominent ABC journalist told The Australian on Sunday: “I think some people here believe in their hype and think they’re beyond criticism. It’s activism dressed up as journalism. And the proponents think they’re saints for producing it. That Four Corners-Porter story was a joke, so we should be roasted for it.”
The Australian
They should be roasted for it.
Australians pour a billion dollars every year into the smug, greedy maw of the ABC. Australian law mandates that the ABC be un-biased. But the troughers in Ultimo refuse to be bound by normal journalistic standards, much less the ABC Act.
The ABC is legally mandated to represent all Australians. Instead, it operates as a sheltered workshop-turned vigilante squad for the wealthiest, less than 10% of Australians who vote religiously green-left.
Australians deserve better.
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