A majority of Australians are losing trust in the news, and are worried about the growing influence of commercial advertisers over content, according to an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) report and survey released today.
The media regulator found that most Australians question the impartiality of news sources. For example, 85% of respondents to ACMA’s survey were concerned news is reported from a particular point of view rather than being balanced or impartial, while 79% said they had difficulty telling whether a journalist was expressing an opinion or a fact.
One source of this mistrust, according to the report, could be the influence of commercial relationships on news content. A majority of survey respondents (58%) felt that there is now more commercial influence over news than three years ago. 77% expressed concern over undisclosed paid content.
ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said amid ongoing debate about the accuracy of online content, issues with broadcast news also needed to be considered.
“There is ongoing debate about the credibility of news delivered online. But TV and radio remain an important source of news for the majority of Australians. If audiences have concerns about the credibility of news on TV and radio, then these need to be addressed by industry.”
Who ever thought Al Jazeera would become the go-to source for balanced international news reporting in Australia? Yet, here we are.
And even Russia Today is worth consulting ahead of the biased drivel on commercial and TV news, and that includes the ABC.
If you consider the commercial media landscape as a whole, then it is a pretty inescapable conclusion that it leans strongly to the right, especially if you include the opinionistas as part of this landscape. The list of right-wing commentators is long and well known: Bolt, Devine, Jones, Hadley, Albrechtsen, McGann … the list goes on. Add to that strongly right-wing editors and mastheads such as the AFR, and broadcast channels such as Sky News, whose basic reason for being is promulgation and support of capitalism, neoliberalism and the right wing project in general. Bias is now baked into the business model.
Can anyone point to anything even remotely like this on the Left?
Add further the incessant, relentless attacks on Aunty and attempts to gut it or shut it down, supposedly for bias when in fact review after review has shown the organisation to be neutral in its coverage.
Of course the news, as presented by commercial media, is not to be trusted.
Janet Albrechtsen is a Libertarian…
You can count me as another one who is increasingly disbelieving the news. Even the ABC news is now mostly spin and pre-packaged pieces put together by vested interest PR teams. Just look at the daily evening propoganda self promoting PR that we are shown each night from the ADF’s belated and mediocre involvement to help defend the nation from bushfires; university packaged stories supporting an ARC grant applications; a tear jerk BigPharma health story trying to get an ineffective drug on the PBS etc etc.
If it’s not those stories then it’s made up ‘news’ by some work experience student like why are plants mostly green. And then there is the non-journalism of political interviews where the person being interviewed is allowed to answer the question they wanted to be asked and blatant untruths are unchallenged to ‘avoid’ bias.
People are voting with their fingers and going elsewhere though often not to anywhere better. I’ve long kept an eye on 6pm commercial bulletins as my MSM barometer. Long been mostly bits of hard news – crime etc, the political beat up du jour and sport sport and more sport. Maybe one or two overseas stories but mostly trite fluff like Trumps tweets. However in recent years the advertorial has gained big ground from pharma to diet to travel etc. And this in the prime time news slot.
ABC TV is stretching itself both ways and poorly at that. News is lighter in tone and more parochial and political coverage feels dogged by the Party Apparatchik off camera sniffing out balance regardless of relevance. Secondary current affairs navel gazes ever deeper into the zero sum pointlessness of identity politics.
The greater the audience the lower the quality. The same can be said of Crikey. There are a few electronic publications that are worth reading and they are either free or very expensive. Either way they have a relatively small readership.
As to the headline – just how has this assertion been quantified. It may well be the case but how can the assertion be measured. As an aside, what was the effect of Media Watch in the early days? Damn all I suggest
because the same organisations wilfully breached the same codes merely days later after Littlemore (as the presenter was) identified the failings.
Al Jazeera has its own problems. The publication began well but the type of material published can be compared as a grade up from The Guardian.