Opinion: SBS outshines our biased, out-of-touch ABC

While our echo-chamber ABC is more concerned with toxic tweets, its “little brother” is showing it how public broadcasting is done – at a third of the cost.

It was not that long ago when SBS was a bit player in the national television landscape, significantly overshadowed by its much better resourced big brother, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

SBS was renowned for its soccer and late night soft porn, camouflaged as “world’’ movies. In contrast, the ABC had news and sport sewn up, and its thundering pro-Labor bias was still in the top drawer.

But while the ABC has stagnated – some would say gone backwards – SBS has emerged as a world-class station. Founded in 1978, it is now a sophisticated, diversified public broadcaster, with a good news division and variety in its programming that the ABC can only envy.

Its commitment to sports such as cycling, with the Tour de France, and soccer puts the ABC’s sports coverage to shame. It has first-class documentaries and a kaleidoscope of programming from documentaries to food and lifestyle.

It’s annual budget is about $300 million, compared to the ABC’s $1 billion a year. The question Australians need to be asking today is: Which public broadcaster is giving us the most value for money?

The case in favour of SBS is irresistible based on programming, but the real worth of the network is its ability to bring Australia’s multicultural communities together, especially during lockdowns. That is in stark contrast to the ABC, whose pro Labor-Greens bias is constant. The latest ABC controversy underlines the cultural shift needed if it is to reclaim the glory days.

An errant series of tweets from Four Corners reporter Louise Milligan has cost the ABC close to $130,000. This will be paid for by the taxpayer, even though the Milligan tweets were on her personal account. ABC boss David Anderson has warned employees that legally exposed personal tweets from ABC staff will now be considered a sackable offence.

Milligan is an experienced journalist. Yet she proved that without the comfort and expertise of the ABC’s legal department, her tweets were defamatory. There’s a lesson here for all journalists. Get off Twitter. It is the home of the intellectual vagrant. It is a public forum without morality or ethical checks.

It is an echo chamber for the vacuous and the virtuous. Nothing good ever happens on Twitter. If Anderson was serious about getting the ABC’s editorial culture right, he’d ban its journalists from the social media platform. These are people with serious journalistic platforms to wield their power. It beggars belief that these reporters need to deviate away from their main programs and start tweeting legally exposed material.

The ABC must aspire to be more like the SBS. It must provide Australians with a much broader political narrative. That means censuring and disciplining employees who cost the national broadcaster money. It goes without saying that this will be a big task for Anderson and chair Ita Buttrose.

However, federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the ABC needed tight and professional management in these circumstances. The messaging in that is unless Anderson pulls the broadcaster into line, the government will get somebody in to do it properly.

The senior journalists at the ABC have been running the network for decades. That’s not an easy nut to crack.