It is a brave man who will stand up in front of a group of “Friends of the ABC” and call for more right-wing voices on the national broadcaster.
Addressing the 60-strong audience for the launch of his book On Aunty at Gleebooks last night, Jonathan Holmes went further, asking, “where is the right-wing Phillip Adams on the ABC?” To this lot, it was like suggesting a Rolf Harris concert in a primary school. If I was going to slaughter a few sacred cows of Australian media, I certainly wouldn’t be doing it in Glebe, an inner-west suburb where even the pets are vegans.
As the air was sucked out of the room, the retired journalist went further, picking up his slender tome to read out a passage.
In the week that Guthrie was ousted and Milne resigned, [News Ltd] editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, posed a series of questions to those who claim the ABC is impartial:
‘Didn’t the ABC display a strong preference for same-sex marriage?… Doesn’t it favour strong action on climate change and criticise governments for not being sufficiently ambitious? Doesn’t it project support for renewables and faster efforts to phase out fossil fuels? Wasn’t the ABC distinctly unsympathetic to the policy of corporate tax cuts? Wasn’t it hostile towards reform of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and unsympathetic to free speech arguments?
It’s an interesting point; one which has long been debated within the walls of the ABC. Finding an intelligent conservative voice is the Holy Grail of Australian journalism. Basically, if you could avoid endorsing Nazis and sound slightly more articulate than the nincompoops on Sky, you’d have a job for life.
The problem is, aren’t all or most of the issues in Kelly’s statement the core beliefs of the majority of the Australian public?
Respected pollster and researcher Dr Rebecca Huntley, in her recent Quarterly Essay, Australia Fair, Listening to the Nation, says that the average Australian is much more progressive than their political representative.
“Thanks to compulsory voting, there is no silent majority in Australia. There is an un-silent majority, whose views are plain to discern,” she said.
Her decades-long, qualitative research shows that Australians support same-sex marriage (as evidenced by the postal survey), immediate action on climate change, more funding for the ABC and reform of electoral donations, along with many other “progressive” issues. Would changing the political tenor of the ABC mean it was more representative of the Australian population or would it simply be appeasing the Liberal Party’s “base”?
The biggest issue for the ABC, Holmes said, was digital disruption. In his essay, he says that the audience for broadcast television is plummeting; in the past 10 years, the ABC’s 7pm news has lost 40% of its audience and the average age of its viewers has increased by 10 years, to about 70.
He also said that in 2018 the ABC had received a record number of formal complaints from the government, all of which trigger a formal process which ties up huge amounts of time and resources.
So the question is, should the ABC present more conservative views on its broadcast channels and risk losing more of its audience? Or could it diversify its offerings to attract new viewers and presumably, the support of conservative governments?
In his introduction to the launch, president of the Friends of the ABC Ed Davis said that the organisation had campaigned heavily in the Wentworth byelection, which resulted in a historic 18% swing against the Liberal Party. Conservative politicians like Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison were the “Friends” greatest recruiters, he said.
“Every time they attack the ABC, people ring us up and say, ‘where can we send you money?”
What do you make of Holmes’ comments? Write to boss@crikey.com.au.
Nincompoops – such a polite word. Always a joy to read Ms Saville. More please.
Hello V! xx
Paul Kelly used to be a real journalist when he worked at the Sydney Morning Herald. Now he’s just a Murdoch employee like all News Corp journos.
If the ABC broadcast only stuff that pleased Kelly and his News Corp mates they would never call it biased.
Paul should ask himself: Is The Australian biased, and the Daily Tele and Sky News?
The ABC delivers the news as it is, honestly and professionally.
And Murdoch puppets are the last people who should complain.
Agreed, I even own and have read some of his books. However, “I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob”.
I listen to Phillip Adams a couple of nights a week – relatively few segments are political, he covers a wide variety of topics and he is a very good broadcaster. I have listened to Switzer and Vanstone who are held up as conservative voices but they are mostly just boring.
The record number of complaints from the gov’t is part of their attempt to intimidate the ABC by complaining and starvation. Governments will always hate the ABC. Relatively little of ABC output is political comment but that is all the pollies care about. When a pollie complains the ABC has been unfair to his/her opponents I will pay attention.
Phillip Adams doesn’t hesitate to call himself an “old leftie.” But he can interview a conservative guest intelligently and respectfully. I don’t hear his right wing alternatives interviewing “lefties.”
Agree, Adams is a great interviewer who can indeed hold a civil discussion, founded on genuine interest and curiosity, with anyone including conservatives. But that’s partly because the conservatives he interviews are just that, in the original sense of the word, as opposed to the current swarm of swivel-eyed, frothing nut-jobs who pretend to such a description.
While agreeing with the general direction of your remarks GD, I find myself wondering what you have against our differently-eyed brethren?
Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that. I generally use the term to mean unhinged, rabid, and in an overall sense mad. It’s not the eyes that are the problem, it’s what they do with them!
The reason there’s no right-wing Philip Adams is that people have tried and failed. Remember Michael Duffy? How about Amanda Vanstone? Stellar performances as hosts from both (not).
One of the other issues is that many of the views of the so-called right are logically inconsistent, based on belief and prejudice rather than actual science or social research. While this is certainly occasionally true of the far left (see: genetically modified food), where there are doubts the ABC usually (stress usually) tries to find the truth (an exception should be made here by calling out the reprehensible “Australian Story,” which does nothing of the sort). But when Michael Duffy trotted out guests like Michael Jensen to discuss marriage, listeners rightly thought it was a self-serving pile of tosh. It just wasn’t either interesting or based in any kind of fact.
Likewise supporters of the ridiculous Ramsay Centre, trying to pretend you can have intellectual rigour while also having institutional bias. That’s not conservative, it’s just crap.
It just doesn’t work. There is a right-wing echo chamber on Sky every evening. It rates about as well as could be expected. Most centrists would rather stab themselves in the eye with a pencil than listen to those lunatics.
I take offence at the use of the word “conservative “to describe extreme right wing political operatives. The word conservative is a touchy feely adjective whereas those that call themselves “conservative” are anything but touchy feely and should be referred to forthwith as the “Regressives.” There are quite enough of these types in the Murdoch stable and we don’t need any more of them to attempt to indoctrinate the public from the ABC.
Reactionaries?
Yes. Genuine conservatives want to conserve what is good and take care in introducing new ideas and practices to avoid unintended consequences. A conservative would not, for example, seek to make it easier to put weapons of war in the hands of civilians because (a) that is not what we have been doing and (b) it would be likely to bring unintended consequences.
Oh dear. The ABC is **already** a conservative voice, an institutional voice exposed to political whim and unable ever to please any politician. Hence the faux balance of the ‘conservative PA’ and the oddball guests shouting on Q&A (Hey! Let’s have more Teena please).