Coronavirus: Team ABC can’t let go of anti-conservative bias, even in COVID-19 crisis

ABC presenters (from left) Paul Barry, Michael Rowland (top, middle), Wendy Harmer (bottom, middle) and Dr Norman Swan.

Only a cretin would analyse the public mood based on the number of Twitter likes, but nonetheless social media is revealing in some respects. This week a tweet praising New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern pointed out she had faced several daunting challenges in her first term, including the Christchurch terrorist attack, climate change reforms, a volcanic eruption and a pandemic – all whilst being a mother.

It attracted over 12,000 likes, which is neither here nor there. What was significant was its retweet by ABC’s News Breakfast co-host Michael Rowland. “Yes to all of this,” he said.

Yes to all of this. https://t.co/d3L6GAorm3

— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) March 23, 2020

You could also say Australian prime minister Scott Morrison – a father of two young girls – has had an equally tumultuous time in just 19 months at the helm. Despite assuming leadership at a time of great turmoil within his party, he successfully fought an election few thought the Coalition would win. He has been castigated (not all of which was deserved) for his response to last summer’s bushfires, and during that time had to cope with the death of his father.

Ardern has a huge advantage over Morrison in responding to the pandemic. New Zealand, unlike Australia, has a unitary system of government. Whether Morrison handles this crisis successfully largely depends on the co-operation of six premiers and two chief ministers. Already some have acted unilaterally, thus threatening National Cabinet cohesion. To paraphrase the original tweet, can we expect the critics to shut up and let Morrison get on with his difficult job? Even better, how about a big “Yes to all of this” from Rowland?

Sadly, and to the detriment of all, the ABC cannot let go its anti-conservative agenda, even in a national emergency. Last week its flagship show Q&A, in a COVID-19 special, featured among others aged care minister Richard Colbeck and Bill Bowtell, a former adviser to Hawke government health minister Neal Blewett.

If the elderly are most at risk of mortality, why hasn’t the government suspended non-essential visits to nursing homes? #QandA pic.twitter.com/9p8J0v6X1M

— ABC Q+A (@QandA) March 16, 2020

Bowtell’s conduct was boorish. His manner when talking to Colbeck was contemptuous, he repeatedly interrupted and talked over him, he addressed him condescendingly as “Richard” and loudly remarked “rubbish” on at least three occasions as the minister spoke. “You are speaking like a politician,” sneered Bowtell. Colbeck may have sounded like a politician, but he was not the one carrying on like a prat. It was behaviour that should have been called out, but host Hamish MacDonald was either unable or unwilling to control Bowtell.

It simply confirms the perception, as was the case with the bushfires last summer, that any critic of the government’s response to coronavirus can be assured that ABC will provide a platform and amplify their voice. “It has been very clear for weeks and months what controls should be put in place at borders,” said Bowtell, as quoted in Daily Mail Australia this week. “A lot of things that ought to have happened at airports did not happen.”

Weeks and months? As former editor of this paper Chris Mitchell noted this week “Bowtell wanted far more drastic measures to lock down Australian society, and yet only three weeks earlier he had been a speaker at a Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras public event at the National Arts School”. Also, the first time that COVID-19 was mentioned this year on Bowtell’s Twitter account – which has been active since 2011 – was February 26, barely four weeks ago. Who’s a Harry Hindsight then?

Then there is the case of Dr Norman Swan, host of the ABC’s Health Report. Alluding to the government last week, he told ABC Breakfast News last week “we’re … dicking around and we’ve just got to shut stuff down now,” as well as calling for schools to be closed. This has put him at odds with the government’s chief medical officer, professor Brendan Murphy; and other experts.

You asked, and @normanswan answers your #coronavirus questions. Topics covered:

- Should schools shut?
- Do you self-isolate if your partner is asked to?
- Pregnancy
- What are the testing limitation

(1/2) pic.twitter.com/rCshsr05Cy

— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) March 15, 2020

But as the Sun Herald noticed last weekend, Swan’s advice has been inconsistent. Last Friday he told his podcast listeners he would send school-age children to school if he had them saying, “If and when the authorities decide to shut down schools, that’s when you keep your kid at home. At the moment, your child is not going to be saved from very much of anything by staying at home.” Que?

This image of Swan as a swashbuckler with a stethoscope endears him to his fans. “He’s the one,” Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons tweeted gushingly on Monday, sounding like a poor man’s version of Morpheus from the film “The Matrix”.

Dr Norm. He's the One. https://t.co/6NE3hn7CTe

— Peter FitzSimons (@Peter_Fitz) March 23, 2020

Swan is one of many on the public payroll who blows raspberries at the government in the knowledge they are untouchable. Last week he told the Guardian he would not be cowed, saying his job as a journalist was “to hold governments to account”.

That may be so. But holding governments to account and second-guessing experts far above one’s pay grade are separate things. Australia’s peak medical bodies were so concerned about public uncertainty arising from conflicting opinions that they wrote to their members last week, urging them to back the chief medical officer. The president of the Australian Medical Association, Tony Bartone, affirmed this advice, saying “Everyone wants to be an expert”.

That is exactly how ABC has portrayed Swan regarding his knowledge of COVID-19. Last week ABC’s “The Conversation Hour” featured Swan and University of NSW professor Raina MacIntyre. The online summary of that show refers to both as “coronavirus experts”. Co-host Richelle Hunt also referred to them as “Two of Australia’s finest experts in this area”.

That is plain wrong. MacIntyre, an infectious diseases expert from the University of NSW, can lay claim to this title, but Swan is a medically qualified journalist with postgraduate qualifications in paediatrics. He is not a coronavirus expert. I do not suggest this inaccuracy was his doing. But this misconception has remained uncorrected online for 11 days, despite the fact that ABC editorial policies require presenters not to “misrepresent any perspective” and not to “present factual content in a way that will materially mislead the audience”.

The closest Media Watch host Paul Barry came on Monday to admonishing the ABC for this was to say “Commentators like him [Swan] do face a challenge: how to hold government and health authorities to account without confusing the key health message”. Barry did not mention either last week or this week The Conversation Hour’s inaccurate depiction of Swan’s expertise.

This is the biggest crisis since World War II, but so far this has not been Aunty’s finest hour. Last week Rowland called for Bowtell and Swan “to be included in every health briefing to the government from now on”.

Great addition. And while we’re at it, can Bill Bowtell and @normanswan be included in every health briefing to the government from now on? #Coronavirus https://t.co/tDfxHFndGF

— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) March 13, 2020

And on Monday, when 88,000 Australians lost their jobs, ABC Sydney radio presenter Wendy Harmer called for the broadcaster to be given “more funding”.

So all set to broadcast from home tomorrow morning @abcsydney - fingers crossed all goes well!
On a sidenote, I'm using a Tieline Via unit that costs $5,500 and we only have ONE for the entire station!
Clearly not enough in times like these.
More funding for the ABC please!

— Wendy Harmer (@wendy_harmer) March 23, 2020

An acquaintance of mine, a senior media figure, summed up Harmer’s attitude perfectly. “If the ABC spent half as much time telling their audience about what’s going on with COVID-19 as they did telling them how important and indispensable they are, we’d have perfect compliance with social distancing nationwide,” he said.

At the beginning of last week’s Q&A, MacDonald set the scene of a public dismayed, confused and let down by its government. “So many of you have contacted us expressing genuine fear and anxiety,” he said. Well here is something to consider. A Guardian Essential Survey this week revealed only 35 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement “I trust the media to provide honest and objective information about the COVID-19 outbreak.” Conversely, 56 per cent trusted the government to provide objective information. That is hardly ideal for the government, but it’s a superb achievement compared to how the media is perceived.

And here’s another thought. Perhaps journalists and commentators could, at least for the duration of this crisis, do their job by reporting and analysing events rather than play self-fulfilling prophecy. Leave the ideology aside and forget trying to undermine a conservative government at every opportunity. If you are still enraged over the Coalition being returned to the power last year, well hey, somewhere out there is a counsellor’s couch with your name on it.

This is a world-wide pandemic that moves incredibly fast, and one that threatens to overwhelm many countries as it has Italy. Understandably, governments are struggling to contain it, and their responses change by the hour.

You found an inconsistency in their approach? You’re a hero. You want to make fun of a prime minister’s choice of words when he is clearly exhausted? Good for you, champ. You nit-pick a complex policy which by its very nature is variable upon variable ad infinitum? Congratulations. You are up there with the class snitch, or the office narcissist who cc’s the boss every time he discovers a minor oversight by a colleague.

If your intention is to be despised, then carry on as you were. If not, then stop dicking around.

'Bowling, Shane.' https://t.co/dEadDucJPs

— Paul Barry (@TheRealPBarry) March 25, 2020

I just find this to be almost irrelevant nitpicking. We are demanding absolute perfection.

Or are we all just craving an absolute shutdown, and be unsatisfied regardless til it happens? Is that where we are at?

It’s not where I’m at. And I’m not going to apologise for that https://t.co/WcLgsLRObq

— Sarah Joseph (@profsarahj) March 24, 2020

Boris Johnson’s statement today was six minutes long and left no-one in any doubt about what was happening. We are up to the 35th minute here.

— Matt Bevan 🎙 (@MatthewBevan) March 24, 2020

How is it safe to send children to school but not safe to eat a sandwich in a food court?

— Lenore Taylor (@lenoretaylor) March 24, 2020

Ok - 10 people can mourn together .. 5 people can celebrate a wedding but if the bride intends to go on a runner .. for exercise ... she can take 9 people with her. Glad we cleared that up @ScottMorrisonMP #COVID19

— Emma Alberici (@albericie) March 24, 2020

It’s almost like capitalists have turned out to have priorities other than humanity, all along.

— Van Badham (@vanbadham) March 25, 2020