“Here comes the super spreader,” Ferguson tweeted, as she shared a post from one of the leading anti-Trump protagonists of the White House press corps, Jim Acosta, about the President returning to the White House. “I am speechless at the disregard one individual can have for the lives and health of others. Immoral, criminal and selfish.”
Here comes the super spreader.
— Dr Kirstin Ferguson (@kirstinferguson) October 5, 2020
I am speechless at the disregard one individual can have for the lives and health of others. Immoral, criminal and selfish. https://t.co/swPxzJDaXo
The ABC board should, among other things, guide the organisation’s editorial leadership so that it can soberly and objectively seek to live up to its charter obligations and editorial guidelines. Shrieking that the US President is “criminal” for taking off a mask, outdoors, when no one is within 10 or perhaps 50 metres of him can only encourage ABC journalists towards similarly irrational outbursts.
Just to remove any doubt, Ferguson also replied to a tweet from another reporter proclaiming “Honestly, I reckon Biden is going to smash this drugged-up crook in the debate.” The ABC deputy chair’s response? “I sincerely hope so.”
A former RAAF officer, Ferguson is a noted keynote speaker on, among other things, leadership. But with leadership like this emanating from the ABC board, it is little wonder journalistic standards are sliding.
Ferguson shared more about her political views in a Sydney Morning Herald profile recently, where she welcomed the fact we were no longer flying around the country and overseas because it is “dreadful for the environment”. She was speaking from the Sunshine Coast beach house she and her husband relocated to as the pandemic took hold (there was no mention of the carbon footprint of beach houses). Discussing her ABC role, Ferguson had plenty to say about diversity but pointedly, and predictably, there was no reference to the diversity that dares not speak its name at the national broadcaster: ideological diversity.
It says something about our national lethargy, I reckon, that we can stage the world’s best Olympic Games, keep a pandemic at bay, excel in all forms of sport, arts and science, run a sophisticated economy and burden generations with $1.7 trillion of debt, but we are incapable of ensuring competent and rational oversight of our most important cultural institution. She’ll be right.
To the extent that the ABC contributes to the intellectual life of the nation, we are allowing our collective mind to turn to mush. Yet the self-regard and political activism of the organisation continues unabated.
Laura Tingle is the chief political reporter for the ABC’s premier current affairs television program, 7.30. On the weekend she tweeted about an ABC reporter who had taken a (presumably generous) voluntary redundancy by suggesting her departing colleague was a victim of “government ideological bastardry” and adding that she hoped Scott Morrison was “feeling smug”. The tweet was later deleted but Tingle will be back to provide objective coverage of Morrison and the government.
There have been occasions, I am sure, when the ABC’s weekly Media Watch program defended journalistic integrity. Yet under Paul Barry, the program increasingly has become deceptive and misleading in pursuit of ideological objectives.
This column has detailed previously the misinformation and censorship Barry has employed to push his preferred climate alarmist, Trump Derangement and anti-News Corp causes. Last week he was at it again on an issue of vital importance to civil liberties in this country.
In this newspaper on September 23, Damon Johnston and Rachel Baxendale broke the important and exclusive story of an open letter signed by 18 eminent legal figures, including former High Court judge Michael McHugh and former Federal Court judges Neil Young and Peter Heerey, protesting against extraordinary new powers contained in Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ emergency measures bill. The story was picked up and run prominently on Melbourne’s 3AW, Sky News, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, The Canberra Times and elsewhere.
But the ABC ignored it, and I criticised this apparent censoring of a significant story on my Kenny on Media program on Sky News. Barry responded on Media Watch last week, not by highlighting this poor judgment, but by pretending the ABC did not ignore the story.
It was a remarkable example of deliberate misinformation to defend the ABC and attack Barry’s perceived ideological enemies. He wanted to prove me wrong.
Barry cited one interview on ABC Melbourne radio — no longer available online so we cannot check it — where it is apparent there was at least a reference to this open letter during an interview with one of its signatories, Michael Borsky QC. Such an important story and there was a solitary reference in one radio interview — no news report, current affairs report, additional radio interviews or online reports. This, surely, proved my point. But it got worse.
Attempting to make his case, Barry claimed online reporting of the interview mentioned the protest letter by prominent legal figures — it did not. Then Barry cited another interview with Upper House MP Fiona Patten claiming it also covered the open letter by eminent legal figures — it did not.
The interview is not available on the Radio National website but it remains on Patten’s site, and it does not contain a single reference to the protest by former judges, QCs et al. The interview began on the quarantine controversy and covered Patten’s opposition to the proposed new laws but there was no reference to this powerful intervention by eminent legal figures.
So, with the ABC caught out ignoring a crucial story for Victorians and anyone interested in civil liberties in this country, Barry’s response was not to admonish his organisation but to mislead his audience.
He found one passing reference and embellished the ABC’s coverage, continuing to spread misinformation.
Talk about super spreaders. You might think the ABC board might be interested in arresting this sort of delinquency — once they have finished screaming about Trump on Twitter.
The good news is that the open letter and prominent coverage of it by other media invigorated opposition to the proposal, forcing the Andrews government to back down and abandon these measures.
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Last week we learned that the Trump Derangement Syndrome that is so prominent in the ABC’s jaundiced coverage of US politics comes from the very top. The national broadcaster’s deputy chair Kirstin Ferguson took to Twitter to share the sorts of hysterical observations that would not be out of place on RN Breakfast or the Triple J newsroom.