24 February 2014
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The inimitable Clarke and Dawe on the growing assault on the ABC
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Day after day, The Australian leads the assault, with its editorial pen dipped in vitriol and its reporting none too balanced. It doesn’t think much of vice-chancellors and universities either, as shown in this recent editorial (National broadcaster has lost the plot and prestige). Of course The Australian isn’t disinterested (which it often protests to be): references to “spread to thin” and “multiple platforms, across the vast terrestrial plain and in the digital ether” is code for the ABC should get out of its 24 TV news service, for example, which competes head-on with Sky News, of which The Australian’s parent (News Australia) is a major shareholder. Disinterested???
Plainly….(with) the infiltration of Leftist political and cultural activists, the proliferation of platforms and the de-skilling of staff, this latest episode (the Navy report) shows that Mr Scott is failing in his role as editor-in-chief. Who is taking responsibility for stories? That the answer is so obviously “no one” may give comfort to the ABC’s collectivist, inner-city clique of broadcasters, bloggers, latter-day Trotskyites and inked hipsters, but it should chill the blood of taxpayers and a broad audience seeking reliable, factual and comprehensive news and current affairs. The ABC is spread too thin, compromising its reliability.
You could draw an analogy with the modern university. The ABC operates as a bunch of freewheeling little fiefdoms, each program unit following a communal culture and a progressive agenda….Mr Scott is like an ambitious vice-chancellor, too busy building an empire to worry about content control. His vision splendid as a media baron stretches to multiple platforms, across the vast terrestrial plain and in the digital ether; his stated mission is to build a taxpayer-funded service that is a counter to the right-wing shock jocks, “a market-failure broadcaster” in Scott-speak.
