What a difference a new ABC chair makes. Little over two years ago, then ABC chair Justin Milne, speaking in his first interview in that capacity, dismissed accusations of national broadcaster bias. The role of the board, he stated, was to ensure the ABC “continues” to provide “an unbiased view of politics, current affairs — and the zeitgeist.”
Continues? Cue the groans from the ‘burbs and the high fives from the studios of Ultimo and South Melbourne.
“Hooray for new ABC chair who says: No bias to fix at ABC,” tweeted an ecstatic Ellen Fanning, co-host of ABC show The Drum. “We will never substitute loony ideology 4 facts.”
Hooray for new ABC chair who says:No bias to fix at ABC.We will never substitute loony ideology 4 facts #nopartisans https://t.co/paJOZAK4uq
— Ellen Fanning:Journo (@ellenmfanning) March 26, 2017
Exactly what “loony ideology” Fanning was referring to we can only speculate — something along the lines of there are only two genders and they are determined by biology, or maybe that Australia pre-1788 was not quite the advanced or harmonious a society that indigenous activists make out it was, or perhaps it was a claim that much of the assertions concerning the so-called gender pay gap are disingenuous claptrap.
When asked on May 9 whether the ABC was biased towards the left, managing director David Anderson was sanguine.
.@mjrowland68: "What do you say to those people who say you are leading
— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) May 7, 2019
a biased media organisation?"
ABC managing director David Anderson: "Well, I'd say I don't see any evidence to say we're biased." pic.twitter.com/vc4vnQksyE
“I don’t see any evidence to say we are biased,” he told ABC News Breakfast co-host Michael Rowland.
Diversity “epiphany”
ABC chair Ita Buttrose thinks differently. “Sometimes I think we might be biased,” she told Rafael Epstein of ABC Melbourne on May 29.
“I think sometimes we could do with more diversity of views.”
Since then, Anderson has had a diversity epiphany. As reported on Monday by the Sydney Morning Herald, the managing director, while claiming there is no evidence of systemic bias, said the composition of the ABC’s panel shows (read Q&A and The Drum) could negatively affect public perception.
“I think that is what leads to people’s rush to judgment about the ABC being biased perhaps, that we haven’t accurately reflected what would be the views of the country for whatever reason,” he said, adding that “the perspective of views that we represent is something that we could improve on,” he said.
Not just the panellists, but also the audience, he should have added.
I have long been sceptical about those ABC tweets concerning the composition of Q&A audiences, specifically, the breakdown of voting preferences.
In the #QandA audience tonight: COALITION 42%, ALP 28%, GREENS 13%.
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 27, 2017
If these surveys are correct, then just about every one of these audiences has a plurality of Coalition voters.
Amazingly, however, upon commencement of the show these same conservatives suddenly transform into cheerleaders for panellists who offer ridiculous platitudes and motherhood statements while loudly dissing the token conservative.
Not wanting to rush to judgment about the ABC being biased, I hope that someone could explain the reasons for this mysterious phenomenon.
It is a shame we did not put this question to this week’s all-science panel.
Drum’s dearth of conservative voices
We can be sure there is a sound and plausible explanation, and that it is by no means a case of the ABC deliberately disseminating arrant nonsense or paying lip service to the statutory requirement its coverage is diverse.
I wrote in April about the dearth of conservative voices on The Drum. This followed the revelation by The Australian Associate Editor and Sky News host Chris Kenny that The Drum had unofficially blacklisted representatives from the Institute of Public Affairs for the 12 months prior while regularly featuring panellists from activist group GetUp! and left-leaning institutions such as Per Capita and The Diversity Council of Australia.
That situation remains.
.@chriskkenny: Diversity is a buzzword at the ABC, especially when talking about race, gender or sexuality, but it struggles to demonstrate ideological or political diversity. True balance and variety in the contest of ideas.
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) April 22, 2019
MORE: https://t.co/nuwMywM14h #KennyOnMedia pic.twitter.com/iSRTcq4a8H
One of the few traditional conservatives who regularly appears on the program is Sydney barrister and writer Gray Connolly.
He has an excellent relationship with co-host Julia Baird, whom he says seeks out contrarian voices. He also believes the organisation wants to hear the views of conservatives — in fact he says he has been treated better by the likes of ABC broadcasters Patricia Karvelas, Jonathan Green, and Steve Austin than anyone on the notional media right.
Connolly sees the problem with The Drum is not so much the lack of conservative panellists but the ABC’s disproportionate focus on “fashionable abstractions” and other progressive issues.
“Few people on the right are … into the sort of ‘writers festival’ slate of issues that the ABC loves to death [eg] ‘whither the gay climate change refugees of Palestine?’,” he says wryly.
I would add there is an external factor inhibiting balanced discussion, and that is leftist militating.
Writing last year for the Sydney Morning Herald, Baird stated “when conservative advocates, thinkers, pundits and policy analysts like those from the IPA do appear on the show, Twitter automatically erupts with abuse — irrespective of what they actually say.”
For my mind, there was no better example of The Drum’s bias than its post-election midnight wrap up last month. Hosted by Fanning, it featured environmentalist and supporter of Warringah independent Zali Steggall Layne Beachley; former Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes; comedian and same sex marriage activist Magda Szubanski; author and feminist Jamila Rizvi; and professor and occasional host for the program, Stan Grant. You might say its panellists were a representative of the Australian electorate, that is at least for the voters of Paddington, Sydney and Fitzroy, Melbourne.
“Well Tony Abbott’s not in there now so one wrecker is gone,” said Innes.
“There’s still people on the right in the Liberal Party but I think that a number of them are not complete sort of ideologues …” he added.
That he felt the need to qualify that was revealing.
How often do you hear ABC panellists and journalists refer to leftist politicians as “ideologues” or in an otherwise pejorative sense?
The howler of the night went to Szubanski in response to Beachley’s suggestion that “instilling fear to take control” was “old school leadership”.
“It’s actually new school in a sense in that — you look at Morrison comes from an advertising background,” said Szubanski. “I know a bit about advertising and I know that … they do that neuro-advertising, they’ll measure your brain and go straight to the amygdala. And that is actually what they do in order to manipulate you know the — this belief that we are rationale.” What is this — the Manchurian comic act?
Notably, Fanning did not challenge Szubanski’s claim.
During the election campaign The Drum featured some equally risible claims.
“I was on another panel with a different program the other day and it’s actually quite confronting to be in the same room as somebody who is completely against climate change and doesn’t think that that’s happening,” said disability advocate Nicole Lee.
For pity’s sake, what she describes is about as intimidating as being in the same room as Nana Mouskouri. Her disquiet has nothing to do with danger and everything to do with narrative violation.
“I think climate change is real … I think it’s legitimate to be scared,” said Leesa Watego, director of the South-East Queensland indigenous Chamber of Commerce, in a separate episode. “I actually think it’s okay to be scared. But if you’re scared and then hopeless, that’s desperate, and that will lead you to do things like you know … do violent things or vote for One Nation and Clive Palmer … Eh?
When Fanning asked panellist Nicki Hutley about an “undermining” of “shared values”, and whether she saw parallels in the election campaign, she got an immediate response. “I do,” said the Deloitte Access Economics partner. “And I think we have changed fundamentally … When you look at the issues of race, of gender, of just what Australia stands for, this idea … there’s still dole bludgers out there you know ‘Just get a job’, ‘Just get a job’, that’s as simple as it is. I think we’ve moved much further to the right and I think there’s an intolerance among those on the extreme right … which make me really scared.”
Hutley was just getting warmed up. “I was actually having a conversation with somebody like a couple of weeks ago going well okay how does this happen because presumably people sitting in Germany at some point in time were going ‘Oh we’re okay this sort of stuff is fine’ and … it really scares me a bit.”
It concerns me too in the sense that a panellist resorts to this Godwin scaremongering on the national broadcaster during an election campaign and it goes unchallenged.
When occasional panellist Parnell McGuiness tweeted last month about how unusual it was to see two right of centre types on the panel, Fanning was indignant. “What about Tony Windsor?,” she responded, citing the former independent for New England. “That’s 3.” Need I say more?
Assess for yourself Anderson’s claim the ABC has no systemic bias.
But think things through carefully before you decide. For all you know we could be targeting your amygdala.
What about Tony Windsor? That’s 3. We often have multiple conservative panellists. It’s just that there’s a “policing†of what’s conservative. Aren’t Muslim women conservative? Female beef producers? Labor regional councillors who support Adani and coal mining?
— Ellen Fanning:Journo (@ellenmfanning) May 20, 2019
Time to say bye-bye to the wokerati’s bullying tactics
Voters have had enough of being told how to think and how to behave and want to reassert more traditional values and attitudes that served them perfectly well.
Our values give us cause for optimism amid the terror, fear
Despite all the violence and hatred, I am still optimistic about Australia.