The Mocker: Paul Barry forgets the ABC of calling out media bias

Media Watch host Paul Barry.

His name is Paul Barry and if he is to be believed, he is leading the fight against bias in the Australian media. This week the Media Watch host presented an Australian Communications and Media Authority survey of around 2000 people which revealed 85 per cent of respondents had concerns that “news is reported from a particular point of view rather than being balanced or impartial”.

“That will come as no great surprise to fans of Media Watch, which regularly reveals how bad news and current affairs coverage can be,” proclaimed a self-congratulatory Barry. He then listed eight cases of what he claimed were examples of these breaches, two of which were from News Corp newspapers. Tellingly, he did not cite any from ABC.

Keen to point out this survey was not a reflection on “all journalism” (you know what’s coming next) he stated that “the ABC is praised by several respondents”. Of course. Referring to ACMA’s attempt to encourage the media to self-regulate, Barry was pessimistic. “What’s the chance of that,” he asked rhetorically. “Not much.”

If Barry is in the mood for self-regulation, he does not have to look far. The day after his bias denunciation, ABC Canberra radio presenter Adam Shirley hosted a panel to discuss the subjects “What makes a good man” and “When does a man become toxic”. Two of the three panellists were women. Not that the ABC is likely to discuss the subject of what makes a woman toxic, but if it did you can imagine the reaction from the sisters if a man were on the panel, let alone if men outnumbered the women.

But it gets even better. One woman was feminist, author and Sydney Morning Herald columnist Jane Caro. Just the night before, Barry, had slammed “presenters on current affairs shows who have an opinion on everything”. Presumably this does not extend to panellists.

The other woman was feminist and former ABC journalist Virginia Hausseger, now director of The 50/50 by 2030 Foundation. During the discussion she observed “I am disgusted at what I see in news media and popular culture now in terms of representation of women”.

Now think back to 2007 when Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan used the term “deliberately barren” to refer to the fact that then opposition deputy leader Julia Gillard did not have children. It was a sexist and stupid remark and he was right to apologise for it. That was not enough for Hausseger. Writing for the Canberra Times, she said he “deserves to be castrated”. Undoubtedly many readers would have been disgusted by what she – my bad, I had forgotten we were talking about toxic masculinity.

Shirley turned to what he referred to as “the bloke in the room”, journalist and author Phil Barker, who duly noted “Men are constrained by this performance of masculinity that results ultimately in horrific domestic violence and male suicide” You might remember Barker. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017 spoke of his reaction to reports that journalist Tracey Spicer was about to release allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment against 60 figures in the media and entertainment industry. “’Oh my god it’s going to be a bloodbath!’ I shouted, delightedly,” he wrote.

Forget that this turned out to be the year’s biggest journalistic fizzer, and instead consider Barker’s language and fervour in that article. “In a war there’s always friendly fire, collateral damage,” he said gleefully, declaring to readers he was part of the “far left”. And finally: “So there’s no way around it. Some innocent men are going to get shot in the head. So be it.” Barker, incidentally, teaches male students about “positive masculinity”.

Now consider that ABC editorial policies require journalists to “present a diversity of perspectives” and “not unduly favour one perspective over another”. If that was a balanced panel, then my name is Beatrix Potter. We know the ABC holds that masculinity is inherently violent and misogynistic.

"We need to do the hard work and for all men to put their hands up and acknowledge their misogyny, acknowledge the fact that they are profiting from toxic masculinity in some way, even if they are not violent." @nicheholas #TheDrum pic.twitter.com/PN2xQshBk6

— ABC The Drum (@ABCthedrum) April 2, 2019

But would it be too much trouble for future ABC panels if the token male was someone other than the bloke who effusively parrots this misandrist drivel?

If Barry’s record of umpiring on his home turf is any indication, this carefree disregard of editorial policies is not likely to be mentioned on his show. In reviewing Media Watch’s Monday episodes for the latter half of 2019, I noted eight segments critical of ABC presenters compared with 24 in respect to News Corp columnists and presenters (this does not include Barry’s criticism of Fox News media).

That represents a disproportionate focus of three to one. That disparity increases even further when the focus shifts to Barry’s Twitter account as revealed by The Australian’s Associate Editor Chris Kenny on Sky News’ Kenny on Media this week. Of Barry’s last 300 tweets (those in which he was not replying to another user), 47 of them – around 15 per cent – targeted News Corp columnists and presenters. Conversely only two of them – 0.66 per cent – highlighted lapses by ABC presenters. Seventy-six of the sample – around 25 per cent – referred to climate change, a topic regularly seized on by Barry to castigate those portrayed as climate sceptics.

Barry also appears to have different rules for ABC programs compared to the standard he applies to commercial media. In October, he criticised Studio 10s Kerri-Anne Kennerley and Sky News’ Peta Credlin for joking about driving over Extinction Rebellion protesters who were blocking major intersections. “I think it’s time they got some new material and perhaps stopped making jokes about killing protesters,” said Barry. “Because some nutter out there might just take them up on it.

But Barry’s cease and desist notice was, well, noticeably absent when it came to covering ABC Q&A’s all-female panellists episode last November. During this debacle, feminist Mona Eltahawy asked “how many rapists must we kill” and indigenous activist Nayuka Gorrie declared that “violence is okay” to bring about change, urging people to “burn stuff”.

Barry’s response was to gently admonish Q&A host Fran Kelly for not challenging those views. “A bit more pushback was what Q&A needed,” he said, saving his condemnation for ABC’s decision to take the program down. Declaring it was “a massive over-reaction” and “a real failure of nerve,” he said it was “Q&A’s job to be confronting and at times offensive,” and “ABC management’s job to defend its right to be so.”

So, jokes on commercial television about using climate protesters as speed bumps must be stopped, but deadly serious panellists on the national broadcaster who call for extrajudicial killings and other violence as a means of effecting change require only “pushback”. Clear now?

Last August, Barry made positive mention of ABC presenter and activist Benjamin Law for donating $36 of his “hard-earned cash” to readers who cancelled their subscription to The Australian. This newspaper’s crime was to highlight alarming practices regarding children and teenagers diagnosed with “gender dysphoria”, particularly the health authorities’ embracement of the “affirmation model”. Barry claimed this coverage of this major public interest issue was “one-sided”.

Less than two weeks before, the ABC documentary “Waltzing the Dragon”, written and presented by Law, featured an interview with historian Dr Sophie Couchman regarding the Lambing Flat Riots in Burrangong, NSW in 1860. In that episode she noted reports that Australian miners had scalped their Chinese counterparts. However, what had been omitted from this screening was Couchman’s noting conflicting accounts that no scalping had occurred. Following the backlash, ABC subsequently apologised, acknowledging that an “error of judgment” had occurred in the editing process which had misrepresented Couchman. As for Barry and Media Watch, let’s just say a rather large dragon waltzed on by without them noticing.

And yet Barry would have us believe there is no entrenched bias at the ABC. Not so according to his predecessor Jonathan Holmes, who hosted Media Watch from 2008-13. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016, Holmes stated it was “undeniable” that ABC’s capital city radio presenters leaned more to the left than the right. “I say ‘undeniably’, but senior ABC managers for decades have chosen, if not to deny it, then to ignore it, and they’ve certainly failed to do anything about it,” he said.

When ABC presenters repeatedly fail to abide by the broadcaster’s statutory charter, it also falls on Barry to acknowledge and expose its cultural bias. What are the chances of that? Answer, not much.

Self regulation needs to get serious and do it properly. Stamp out blatant lies. Draw a line between news and ads. Wind back bias. Respect the facts.

— Paul Barry (@TheRealPBarry) February 10, 2020

Thanks Ben for bringing the @australian gender coverage to our attention.

— Paul Barry (@TheRealPBarry) August 19, 2019