Aunty Ita, or how Australia learned to stop worrying and love the ABC
ABC alumnus Jonathan Holmes, RN Breakfast, yesterday:
Ita, of course, does come if you like from the populist end of the media spectrum. She’s best known for being a populist.
The brainiac end of the ABC spectrum, abc.net.au, yesterday:
My partner lost his erection and now he’s avoiding sex. What should I do?
I met my future carer while drunk at a party and we made a show about it.
Journo Michael Roddan, Twitter, yesterday:
I hope Ita Buttrose cracks down on the amount of harpsichord on ABC Classical
Cover blurb on Ita’s Cleo launch issue, November 1972:
Normal Mailer short story
Linda Parri, PerthNow, October 10, 2013:
Parri: “Did you really eat a man’s eyeball, Chopper?”
Mark Chopper Read: “Yeah.”
Parri: “Why?”
Chopper: “Because he was putting shit on Ita Buttrose. He said Ita Buttrose was a moll, so I ripped it out and I ate it.”
Ita detects a decline in manners, ABC Canberra, May 7, 2012:
“It’s hard to put your finger on it, but people don’t seem to mind breaking the rules.”
Agony Aunt: parenting advice that came Ita’s way, Canberra Times, August 27, 2016:
(My aunt) said, “Oh darling, boys should be buried at 13 and dug up at 20.” So true isn’t it?
ABC by numbers. Ita, The Australian, yesterday:
Eighty per cent of Australians say we’re unbiased (at the ABC), 80 per cent of Australians say that they trust our news more than they trust any other kind of information …
Subtraction by Gerard Henderson, Radio 2GB, yesterday:
I think they say (they trust the ABC) because they think, that’s a nice thing to say … But if it were true, then 80 per cent of people would watch ABC news, and we know that ABC news on television, for example, comes in behind Channel 9, Channel 7 and usually Channel 10 … (The ABC is) a conservative-free zone … Can you think of anyone at the ABC in a prominent position who would be sceptical of climate change, who would support marriage as a union between a man and a woman, who would advocate for strong border protection, who would think that the Australian embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?
Ita at the Sydney press conference announcing she’ll be the next ABC chair, February 28:
My father worked at the ABC … So, I do know the culture at the ABC particularly well and I wish my dad was still alive to see me here today …
In 1971, Ita’s father Charles became assistant general manager at the ABC with responsibility for current affairs. This is the ABC by Ken Inglis, 1983:
Having survived in the jungle of Sydney print journalism, where his bosses included Frank Packer and the equally tough Ezra Norton, Buttrose was not daunted by the prospect of containing a few woolly ABC journalists. He may have underestimated them … (After a This Day Tonight interview with a draft deserter on the run) Buttrose insisted from now on that he see a full schedule of every story proposed every day … For good reason, said a Liberal senator, TDT was being called “Today’s Distortion Tonight” … (Buttrose was) frustrated that he could not crack down hard enough … Like managerial censors before him he could never be sure exactly what would be shown and said on the program … In newspaper terms, the system Buttrose had to put up with was a little like letting reporters send their copy straight to the printers.