The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s integrity and fulfilment of its charter to inform the public is endangered.
Each day the ABC news seems to merely regurgitate the current corporatised media talking points, uncritically paraded for us with superficial fact-checking, a distinct lack of independent analysis and a timid unwillingness to challenge the meme of the day.
Submit your report of any examples of ABC News simply echoing the line of corporate media outlets. Count up the number of times they lead in to a report of the day's events in Canberra with “The Federal Opposition says that …” compared to the number of times they lead with “The Government announced today that …”. Do the same for your State’s news services.
Don’t stand by and allow corporatised media sources to set the agenda for public information.
Let Auntie know we’re watching, and that we expect better.
Why does Chris Uhlmann hate Kevin Rudd so much?
All the evidence from the past months has been that Kevin Rudd is doing the exact opposite of working to destabilise the Labor party, being conspicuously diligent in supporting his parliamentary colleagues and the ALP as a whole, yet every time Uhlmann mentions Rudd he spouts this same tired line.
Where’s Uhlmann’s evidence?
[…]
Indeed, the ABC, which is entirely reliant on a bipolar political landscape for its balance-without-judgment editorial approach, will have to entirely rethink its notions of fair coverage. — Bernard Keane in Crikey | New Paradigm Politics may not change a thing
Poll on #abcnews online | Related article: Never mind the conflict, let’s report the Parliament | Annabel Crabb, The Drum
(much of the content of Crabb’s piece echoes this post published earlier the same day on political blog Larvatus Prodeo)
Will Auntie rise above the Australian’s prejudices about the Greens to keep Australia informed about what the Greens are actually proposing? Or will they follow their line and attempt to exclude Greens’ policies from the national debate?
We’re watching, Auntie.
(49 minutes into the show, August 30th 2010)
It seems it takes an ex-politician to be open about the entrenched quasi-monopoly presented by News Corporation’s media dominance. Let’s just remind ourselves of exactly how dominant News Corporation is - Australia has the most concentrated pattern of media ownership in any western country:
In 2005, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation controlled two-thirds of Australia’s newspapers and dominated circulation, accounting for 68 per cent, 61 per cent and 78 per cent of capital city figures on Monday-Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively.
[Source: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM: NEW MEDIA OWNERSHIP LAWS AND A FREE AUSTRALIAN PRESS]
If you live in Melbourne, Sydney or Canberra, you might not have noticed this lack of media diversity, because these cities have a daily broadsheet which is not owned by News Corporation. Around the rest of Australia, the difference is stark. Throw in the influence of Fox News and Sky News, and there’s even less diversity of editorial direction.
Is this healthy?
Welcome
This site is the outgrowth of an idea floated across several Australian blogs. Let’s see how some crowdsourced accountability for our national broadcaster might work out, and ideally give the editorial staff at the ABC some spine again, instead of their current doormat impersonations.
We deserve better than a national broadcaster who merely repeats headlines and soundbites collected to serve the agenda of the corporatised media. We deserve a national broadcaster who genuinely seeks to inform Australia’s citizens of what is happening in depth and not following the narratives laid down by the spinmeisters.
Please share this tumblr’s URL widely and encourage people to submit their reports.
