Federal budget 2018: ABC’s funds freeze a snip in real-world media

ABC Managing Director Michelle Guthrie speaks during Senate Estimates at Parliament House in Canberra, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING

Oh, for God’s sake, Michelle, stop grizzling. You may be disappointed about your budget outcome but it is utter nonsense to say that a three-year freeze on extra funds threatens the ABC’s ability to meet its charter requirements and audience expectations.

The ABC funding freeze — withholding a total of $83 million in previously indexed funds — is a drop in the corporaton’s bucket. Michelle Guthrie presides over a guaranteed annual gift of more than $1.1 billion provided by the taxpayers, whether they are viewers or not.

She wants more? She says the ABC won’t be able to do its job without more. She should try living in the real world — the commercial world where billions, not a few lousy millions, have been ripped out of annual budgets by the digital media revolution.

Commercial media has always had to live within its means. So do households. So do governments. So should the ABC.

And it can. In 2014, the ABC’s former minister, Malcolm Turnbull, ripped almost $250m out of its budget over four years and although there were whinges, Aunty has survived.

This round of reductions is small change — just $14 million in the year ahead. That’s just more than 1 per cent — a rounding error in the monolithic machine that is the ABC.

Former managing director Mark Scott showed how elastic the ABC’s budget could be. By a series of nips and tucks and internal redirections, he was able to launch the ABC News 24 channel on what amounted to loose change.

The ABC later received additional funding of $43m for specific news services, which will now be lost.

ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie and journalist Emma Alberici attend the Business Council of Australia’s annual dinner in November last year. Photo: Hollie Adams

As a result, news director Gaven Morris says newsrooms in Geelong, Ipswich, Gosford and Parramatta are under threat, along with the ABC investigations unit, the specialist reporting team and the fact-check unit run in association with RMIT University in Melbourne.

Out in the real world, there are plenty of news-gathering practitioners who would say these newsrooms and specialist units are a lavish indulgence, with limited value and doubtful return.

For instance, was the fact-checking unit asked to review Emma Alberici’s flawed economic report, aired in February, but later taken down from the website? If not, what is its purpose? If so, it failed to do its job and there should be no tears about its closure.

There is no question the ABC does important work, but whether it’s worth endless funding is another question. Instead of grizzling, Guthrie should be giving thanks she’s still got a billion-plus dollars a year to play with when plenty of others in her space are going without.