Everything News Corp touches, it breaks. Right now it’s broken the ABC, cowing the public broadcaster into a “don’t hit me” defensive crouch that cedes all power to the bad faith of its corporate enemy.
As ever at the ABC, change starts with a staff revolt, like this week’s walkout over racism. It’s a good start, as was the belated call-out of News Corp by ABC director of news, analysis and investigations Justin Stevens. But it didn’t last.
By the time it was reporting its own boss’s comments, the culprits had been watered down to some nameless “other media outlets”. By the time the story came to be chewed over on The Drum, it had morphed into the most anonymous of enemies: trolls on social media.
Sure, social media is a problem. But if it’s going to survive, the ABC needs to call it as it is. News Corp is the problem. It’s the driver of the intimidation and abuse, relying as it does on the amplification of its ugliness through being liked on Facebook, shared on YouTube, retweeted on Twitter — and platformed on the ABC.
Culturally anchored in the nether regions of the US hard right, its Australian arm has eagerly embraced its role in encouraging anger and social fragmentation, now egging on the sheer nastiness of the Voice’s antagonists, like Dutton in Parliament this week or the sudden surge in racist bullying on the social media platforms, noted by both Thomas Mayo and Sally McManus.
But it’s not this abuse that’s broken the ABC. It’s News Corp’s weaponised bad faith that demands its political campaigning be taken seriously as “news” and its extremist views be accepted as reflecting the sensible mainstream.
As AI makes online search smarter, any day now you’ll be able to go hunting for an explainer of “disingenuous” and it will take you straight to The Australian this week, as it’s pivoted to being shocked and appalled at reports of racism in the ABC. It’s been the hot dog guy meme brought to life with News Corp deflecting criticism of its role with a “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this”.
The ABC’s fate lies in its own hands. It needs to see News Corp’s bad faith for what it is — a political operation that relies on others believing in its clout to force attention. Instead, the ABC seems to have convinced itself that giving space to the view from News Corp — with, for example, an apparently reserved seat on Sunday morning’s Insiders — is the price of doing business, perhaps as an argument for funding from Liberal governments or a shield against right-wing attacks in Senate estimates.
It is time to get tough. The ABC doesn’t need News Corp. News Corp needs the ABC.
News Corp has bullied the ABC into letting itself be used as the Delaware-based company’s major publicity channel. Unless you’re part of the declining grumpy old man demographic prepared to pay for the resentment hit hidden behind the News Corp paywall, your only regular exposure to the view from News Corp will be on the ABC through its television and radio talk programs.
Deliberately disingenuous, News Corp also relies on policing both what the ABC reports and how it reports it, fighting against diverse viewpoints which would force us all to recognise just how extreme its point of view is.
It was News Corp as content police that drove the fake hysteria against the (widely held) observations of Stan Grant over the hard politics of the Crown and colonisation. Right now it’s working hard to push the ABC (and Nine media) into legitimating its attempts to turn the Voice into some sort of existential threat that can be averted only by replacing its promise with some anodyne ritual of recognition.
News Corp is terrified of competition. That’s why it uses its political allies to bully the ABC out of supporting new media, discouraging it from platforming new media journalists or by collaborating in new ventures. (By contrast, in Murdoch-free New Zealand, support from public institutions including Radio New Zealand has been central in the growing diversity of its media ecosystem.)
It is time for an ABC reboot. Look beyond the self-interest of commercial media for commentary on radio and television; build — and use — internal expertise based on the joy of real diversity. Abandon the tired framework of the old media Insiders flagship. Embrace the responsibility of helping build and support independent media.
Above all, recognise that News Corp is a paper tiger. Maybe it mattered once, when it did actual news. But not any more.
Can the ABC disregard News Corp’s narking? Should it? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
I would be delighted to see the ABC clear out all the News Corp personnel it currently regularly includes on TV and radio news, current affairs and talk programs and only invite them on if there is some specific justification. Leave them behind their paywalls where they belong. Make space for some better informed, independent and honest commentators.
It would also help if there were fewer old lags from HoltSt writing here as well.
What exactly defines an ‘old lag from HoltSt’?
Sorry, is this an ‘in-joke’? Have no idea what you are talking about. Could you clarify please?
Could be self-referential? Munin certainly writes, at times, as though he has absorbed the Merdoch house-style.
Until the defenestration of Fray for acting like an old journo. there was an increasing number, incl. Fray at least five lifers providing filler & waffle here as if untainted by their previous – aka rapsheet.
Names – any?
King, Schultz, Fray, Atkins for starters…
Try ‘doing your own research’ – it ain’t that difficult.
Yes, Great suggestions in the article. The constant presence of Newscorps journalists, and references to them is one of the main reasons I consume almost no ABC news media after decades of commitment to it. It is absurd, a weird pathological co-dependency, for all the reasons mentioned. Next in line is the endless obsequious interviews with various LNP and every deceitful talking point they drop. I noticed it was the Guardian Aus 10th anniversary recently, and it’s about a decade since I payed much attention to the ABC. Not that GuardianAus is without it’s faults!
The Guardian was brilliant when it was first published, a breath of fresh air. And the comments section was good, but that now seems to have disappeared.
It has diminished somewhat since then.
ABC has adopted News’ culture and/or submitted, while NewsCorp lusts after the ABC’s network and especially reach into regions.
On RN one has noticed change over years with long standing (past retirement presenters & producers lacking researchers?) not just being astroturfed, but they have become well trained to treat nativist, RW or conservative guests with too much respect, e.g. neither challenging nor demanding evidence; easily astroturfed and misled.
Further, white anting or hollowing out programs by removing transcripts/archives, no direct podcast downloads, no comments, programs not Tweeted by program hosts (vs. inane personal banalities) etc., meanwhile ABC News 24 and Online News Just In, now seem to replicate the worst of commercial media? Setting them up for a fall?
The ABC has, to all appearances, been battered into permanent submission and co-operates in its own demise in the manner of a population subservient to a colonial invader. Another metaphor for the spreading stain of News Corp all over the shop would be birds raising a cuckoo or several in their nest.
Metaphor for much of Oz society in general too, anodyne, fearful and cowed by our own side…..
If the ABC clear out News Corp journos from The Drum, Insiders, Radio Breakfast I will start listening & watching again
I prefer to watch movies over right wing unhinged propaganda. My first love is facts
Oh so true.
ABC should act like News Corpse is a discredited, drunkard old Uncle, who should be ignored and shunned as often as possible, and never invited to anything, not even to the family Christmas dinner.
Additionally the current Labor government should be seen to be backing the ABC and doing whatever it can to rid the ABC board of all those LNP and News Corpse loving members ScoMo and Co parachuted in.
does Ita still have a gig at the ABC ?
Who knows? The silence is deafening!
Yes. Her gig ends March 6, 2024.
If you take a look at the board members, deliberate white-anting was a passtime of the previous decade’s governments.
For the 1000th time, Don Walker needs to rewrite his song, or at least have a sequel.
That would require Albanese to abandon his ‘just like the Coalition only slightly less psychopathic’ stance.
Insiders need to take this advice. Instead of News Corpse and tired old white guys how about using people like Michael West, people from Crikey, Independent Australia etc. Hardly anybody reads the MSM newspapers, its time to wise up and be relevant.
Yep, throw in sprinkling of Jordan Shanks for some fireworks
Yes, Insiders has become so BORING I don’t bother with it anymore.
Great article Mr Warren – well done.
I will be delighted if I never see another Hartcher, Sheridan, Henderson, or Campbell on my TV.
Or Kevalis, Speers, Buttrose…
yeah nah, i don’t believe PK or Speers are that bad, lets stick to the real enemies
Kevalis reaction towards Stan Grant’s treatment was interesting after the treatment she gave Aboriginal Lawyer Larissa Behrendt, whilst working at the Australian.
Well said. Some of News Corp hired propagandists like Claire Harvey and Greg Sheridan seem to spend more time on the ABC than at Murdoch’s B.S. Factory.
They are all paid to hate the ABC, and still the ABC falls over backwards giving them air time.
Funny watching Clare Armstrong (one of Rupert’s media mouthpieces) taking a swing at the Global Times as “China’s media mouthpiece” on Sunday.
Projection is one of their most notable characteristics. They regularly condemn others, with or without any justification, for the faults they most conspicuously display.
Exactly. Surely anyone whose journalistic integrity is as low as Greg Sheridan’s is shouldn’t be able to get past security.
And no I don’t believe I am being unfair, as I have blocked people from entering my company who did less damage to their trade than he does to journalism and objectivity.
If you can’t present with basic skills for your position, you haven’t earnt the right to act in that capacity.