Q&A viewed as Left leaning — even with Jordan Peterson’s guest appearance

Jordan Peterson will appear on Q&A with Tony Jones next Monday.

Q&A, we have a problem.

The ABC’s main panel show doesn’t like to think of itself as biased, but look at what happened when Jordan Peterson was announced as a guest.

The news went off, online, like it’s going to be a showdown.

Why should that be?

If Q&A isn’t biased, then he’s just another guest, isn’t he? Therefore, it should be no big deal to have him on.

And yet, for many people, on Facebook, Twitter, on this paper’s website, it’s like a miracle, and they’ll be tuning in for the first time in years.

Here’s just a taste of the response The Australian has been getting since the news of Peterson’s appearance — it’s scheduled for next Monday, 25 February — was announced:

“One date I have in my diary already is 25th February to watch Q&A (and I would never watch that program in a fit).”

“Hopefully (host) Tony Jones will give Jordan Peterson the courtesy of letting his audience hear what he has to say — it’s called free speech, and you need not agree with everything he says — but let him say it!”

“I still fear an ambush. He will be the one voice of sanity. But that one voice can be drowned out and suppressed by the rabid mob that is Q&A.”

“Bring on Q&A! I have never said that before.”

“I might watch Q&A for the first time in years.”

“The whole episode may be designed to stitch him up, to barely give him a breath...but on the other hand, I think he will bring a lot of publicity to that episode, so Q&A will have to be careful on trying a hatchet job.”

Maybe you’re thinking: but of course, because The Australian’s readers lean to the Right! They hate the ABC, and Q&A specifically!

Now, think that thought through.

What’s to hate, if the program’s not biased? You can’t hate a program that runs views with which you agree, much of the time, or even some of the time. You’d be thinking: great!

Another one of ours getting on!

That isn’t even close to what’s going on.

Jordan Peterson gives a lecture at the University of Toronto in 2017. Picture: Getty Images

So, what gives readers the impression that Peterson won’t be treated fairly? That the audience will be stacked against him? That the host will try to trick or trap him?

And it’s not just The Australian’s readers. Q&A’s own post on Jordan Peterson, on Facebook, has comments like this one: “Get him on the show Q&A, or are you scared?”

Clearly they aren’t scared. They are, after protracted negotiations, having him on, but still the questions lingers: why does that feel so strange, even miraculous to so many people?

Well, this is the show that elevated to so-called “toaster guy” Duncan Storrar to the status of a “new national hero.” In fact, he has a rap sheet that runs to 20 pages, for things like making threats to kill, plus on multiple occasions he breached AVOs taken out on behalf of terrified women in his life.

Q&A’s audience worshipped the bloke.

This is also the program that invited Zaky Mallah to sit in the audience, after he was convicted of threatening to kill ASIO officers; as well as a man who threw a shoe at former prime minister, John Howard; as well as Yassmin Abdel-Magied, who famously used to show to say: “Islam, to me, is the most feminist of all religions.”

The cumulative effect? Qanda is now seen to lean Left. Or, as one reader put it: “If the ABC was truly ‘our’ ABC, then Jordan Peterson’s appearance on Q&A wouldn’t have the feel of a showdown.”