ABC credible, confused on business

The ABC’s business coverage has no clear vision of what it wants to be, says Mike Smith.

The ABC’s business coverage is “credible” but has no clear vision of what it wants to be, and suffers from a confused and outdated organisational structure.

That’s the view of former ANZ Banking Group chief executive Mike Smith, who served as an adviser to a review into the ABC’s business coverage, led by media consultant and journalist Kerry Blackburn.

“My observation of the ABC’s business coverage is that there is no clear vision of what it wants to be or how it hopes to get there,” Mr Smith said as part of the review.

“At present there is a feeling that the institution is trying to be all things to all people and it has not clearly determined which medium should be targeted to which audience.

“This leads to uncoordinated resource allocation and a confused organisational structure that is more suited to the past.”

The review found the ABC’s coverage was not “anti-business” but suffered from structural problems when presenting stories on the subject.

The primary issue with the public broadcaster’s business coverage was that it was too often presented through a political lens.

“One inevitable impact is that stories which have a significant economic or financial impact for Australia are too often approached primarily or even exclusively as political issues, framed and examined from the point of view of their effect on the fortunes of political parties and their leaders,” the review found.

“Taking the Canberra option for the daily output is not a difficult choice for program makers because the ABC has perhaps been inattentive in this area and neglected to nurture in its business specialists the particular TV presenting skills to ensure its in-house business analysis is as camera-ready and effective as its political commentary.”

The deficiencies in the ABC’s coverage have led some in the business community to believe the public broadcaster does not care about the subject or that its reporting is driven by an anti-business bias, the review found.

The review was based on a sample week of business-related television programs including the ABC’s 7pm news bulletins, 7:30 and Lateline, The Drum and Insiders, and radio programs, Breakfast, The Money and Drive on Radio National, as well as online content.

One company interviewed by the review said there was a “somewhat fragmented nature of contact” from the ABC and reporters and producers from the public broadcaster often did not understand the industry in question.

The same company had more than 200 approaches from Fairfax and News Corporation, publisher of The Australian, during the same period, with a third of these inquiries coming from a core group of two or three journalists and editors who had a “very strong working knowledge of how the company and the industry as a whole worked.”