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The Mocker: ABC’s faux outrage at anti-conservative bias claims are insulting

The Mocker
The MockerThe Mocker
@Oz_Mocker
7 min read
12:06PMDecember 17, 2020
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ABC Chair Ita Buttrose.
ABC Chair Ita Buttrose.

Devastating bushfires, nearly 1000 Australians dead from COVID-19, businesses and lives ruined, unemployment rising, governments accumulating record levels of debt that our great-grandchildren will still be paying off – could 2020 get any worse?

It has for some. This week ABC Chair Ita Buttrose AC OBE protested that Communications Minister Paul Fletcher had “disrespected” her by releasing a “please explain” letter regarding the Four Corners “Inside the Canberra Bubble” episode screened last month.

It contained impertinent questions such as whether going back a quarter of a century to Attorney-General Christian Porter’s university and school days to find dirt was consistent with the ABC’s purported commitment to impartiality and fairness.

It has not been a great month for Buttrose or the ABC. On Tuesday the Australian Communications and Media Authority announced Four Corners had breached impartiality requirements in a program last year concerning water infrastructure schemes funded under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

And last week the Senate, thanks to LNP senator James McGrath, forced the ABC to release the findings of an internal review which revealed a lack of conservative voices on political discussion programs The Drum and Insiders during the 2019 federal election coverage. Just some of the observations by journalist and former BBC senior adviser Kerry Blackburn who conducted the review: one episode of The Drum “was more than seven times as likely to contribute to a favourable impression of Labor and the Left than to a favourable contribution of the Coalition and the Right”. Another episode showed “not just a positive impression of policies identified with Labor’s platform but also at times a marked enthusiasm for a Labor victory”.

Who would have thought? Some of us have already written at length about The Drum’s exclusion of conservative views. For example, the show has not featured a representative from the libertarian think tank The Institute of Public Affairs since April 2018, despite that organisation continually offering to field a panellist. To put that in perspective, feminist and social commentator Jane Caro has appeared on the show at least six times this year. Also, the leftist activist group GetUp! has regularly appeared on the program, its most recent appearance being just last month.

The Drum’s executive producer, Annie White, insisted this week the show observes the most “stringent” editorial policies, claiming it is “the most diverse news program on the ABC”. She also said the show “deliberately avoids broadcasting an hour-long partisan shouting match between jaded political hacks”.

Yes, we get it. You avoid shouting matches by ensuring most of the panellists are white progressives and representatives from minority interest groups who agree on everything. It goes something like this: “Tonight on The Drum we ask ‘Are Australia’s offshore detention centres a blight on our reputation’ and here to discuss that are performance artist and gay activist Ramone Corelli, human rights lawyer Vivienne Cleland, cross-cultural consultant Iqbal Haziz, and Jack Burrinjurra from the Eora nation.”

That is what passes for diversity on The Drum. As a token concession to balance, you occasionally invite a tame wet Liberal or better still, embittered former Liberal leader John Hewson, who endorsed Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young in the last federal election.

Good luck trying to get a guernsey there if you are a bloke. In the three months ending December 11, there was an equal number of male and female panellists on only 29 of the 63 episodes. For the remainder – bar one – women dominated the panel. On top of that, the show is hosted by two women, Julia Baird and Ellen Fanning.

And how is this for gall? Buttrose tried to block the release of the Blackburn review on “public interest” grounds. Even when releasing it to the Senate she asked that it be received in camera. In other words, she does not want the great unwashed to see it – you know, the same mugs who fund her organisation. Something to do with our right not to know, I believe.

Only last month Buttrose used her address at the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation to defend the ABC. “Journalists are truth-tellers” who “hold the powerful to account” she said. “They ask questions that make politicians and powerful people sometimes uncomfortable.”

By implication, however, Buttrose does not believe that should extend to holding the chair of a taxpayer-funded media behemoth accountable. Spare us the petulant protests of being affronted. When she and her ilk continue to deny entrenched ABC bias against conservatives, they do not just disrespect us. They insult our intelligence.

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As is customary for the last column of the year, here are my predictions for 2021:

February

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announces a reshuffle of the front bench, saying that adversarial politics is poorly suited to managing a pandemic and the rebuilding. “We must draw on the wisdom of the alternative government to ensure stability, harmony and prosperity for our state,” he said, declaring Labor will form a coalition government. “Please join me in welcoming Xi Pen Zu, Lo Fu Zhe, and Wu Ho Fong to the ministry.”

March

Gough Whitlam biographer and Australian Republic Movement executive Jenny Hocking calls a press conference to announce breathlessly she has discovered “irrefutable” video evidence showing that the Queen ordered the dismissal of the prime minister just days before Governor-General John Kerr acted. A bemused Buckingham Palace spokesman says in response that the footage in question was of the Queen telling the royal physician “You must rid me of this cough.”

April

An impassioned Ita Buttrose says the cash-strapped ABC cannot function properly on a mere $1 billion plus a year, and urges Australians to reflect on the role the national broadcaster played during last year’s bushfires. “Everyone, and I mean everyone from the ABC had a part in that,” she said. “The public saw only our journalists in the front line, but behind the scenes the rest of our people were tirelessly tweeting 24/7 about how proud they were to be part of this wonderful and essential organisation.”

May

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk gets a shocking case of gastro after eating a dodgy focaccia at a cross-border shindig, and is rushed to The Tweed Hospital, only to find NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian blocking her entrance. “People living in Queensland, they have Queensland hospitals,” a smiling Berejiklian explains to her doubled-over counterpart. “In NSW we have NSW hospitals for our people.”

June

Social commentator and feminist Jane Caro uses her 500th appearance on The Drum to argue that women’s voices are being “silenced”. She also warns a born-to-rule mentality is marginalising working Australians. “Being a Walkley winner, an AO recipient, and the author and/or co-contributor of 12 books, I receive many invitations to speak at events,” she says. “And no matter what the occasion, I always tell my packed audiences to embrace egalitarianism and reject the elitists.”

July

Fortescue owner Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest celebrates his sixtieth birthday at a grand function in Perth but is left furious when a congratulatory speech by WA Chinese consul-general Dong Zhi Hua is interrupted by the entrance of Taiwanese officials, Uyghur-Australians, Falun Gong members and the Dalai Lama. It is later revealed the gatecrashers had been let in via the back door by guest and Health Minister Greg Hunt, who denies ambushing Forrest. “Honestly, this is such a beat-up,” says Hunt.

August

Australian Republic Movement chair and Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons writes that membership numbers have “surged” following the announcement that Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge will visit Australia in the following year. Just like he announced on 6 December 2020: “The ARM has had a strong surge of membership inquiries …” And 19 July 2020: “We have had a wonderful surge in membership this week.” And 6 April 2018: “I can’t help but notice a surge in support for our movement since Prince Charles touched down.” And 20 October 2017: “In a week where NZ has elected a republican Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern … you can believe that we have received another surge of support.” And 10 June 2017: “The ARM – which I chair – is surging …” And 26 June 2016: “Our membership is suddenly surging once more….” 6 April 2016: “At least our movement received a surge in membership support because of [the decision to have the Queen’s image on the new five dollar note]” And as the UK Express reported on 19 September 2017: “Chairman … Peter FitzSimons said last May’s vote for Britain to leave the EU had led to a huge membership surge for his organisation.”

September

The world’s best mathematicians and statisticians arrive in Sydney for an extraordinary conference. “It’s regarding the Australian Republic Movement’s membership numbers” said Professor Gunther Scharborn of the Harvard Mathematics School. “The rate of growth is such that we originally figured every man and his dog is an ARM member several times over, but even that estimate was minuscule compared to the true number,” he said. “It could be these numbers do not follow the laws of mathematics, and for all we know they may even exist outside this dimension.”

December

ABC Melbourne radio host Virginia Trioli scores the organisation’s top job. “I’m the first woman to ever be appointed as ABC managing director, and I am so proud of that,” Trioli tells listeners. “Particularly for what it means to every little girl riding in the back of the car to school this morning who might hear this. I can tell you, your voice belongs everywhere, so raise it up.”

Read related topics:BushfiresCoronavirus
The Mocker
The Mocker

The Mocker amuses himself by calling out poseurs, sneering social commentators, and po-faced officials. He is deeply suspicious of those who seek increased regulation of speech and behaviour. Believing that journalism is dominated by idealists and activists, he likes to provide a realist's perspective of politics and current affairs.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/the-mocker-abcs-faux-outrage-at-anticonservative-bias-claims-are-insulting/news-story/8f5a687ad061748b6bb13672c248cb38