BY CAM PARKER
SYDNEY — Recent allegations of left-wing bias at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are little more than justifications for greater political interference by the federal Coalition government.
The big-business newspapers have attacked the ABC (or the "baby-boomer worker collective" according to one journalistic wit) for its "neo-Marxist, soda-water radicalism". The Melbourne Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt whinged about how Radio National's AM and PM programs need balance by the addition of the views of civilised conservatives.
The Sydney Morning Herald's P.P. McGuiness, in his November 2 column, went further, claiming, "'independence' when applied to the ABC is code for a particular set of values and prejudices, which include contempt for ... the present prime minister, hatred of business and a whole suite of 'progressive' policy positions".
Such complaints are not new nor original. Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating called the national broadcaster "the most self-indulgent and self-interested outfit in the country".
These attempts to marginalise the ABC are designed to legitimise further cuts to news and current affairs by ABC management. These allegations — not backed by evidence — attempt to paint a picture of an ABC controlled by a self-interested group of left-wing whingers.
What better way to blunt criticism of government attacks on migrant rights, funding to childcare centres, unjust fines on welfare recipients or rising petrol prices than to shoot the messenger? Complaints that PM is too long (at 50 minutes) or that the ABC television's current affairs is irrelevant and biased exposes politicians' discomfit at having their policies and actions scrutinised.
An inquisitive, independently minded media that reaches a national audience is their enemy. Journalists who analyse issues and seek a broad range of opinions (as ABC editorial guidelines specify) put "us" in danger!
Who's the boss?
All this diverts attention from the real and regular perpetrators of political interference — federal Coalition and Labor governments.
Almost overnight, virtually every right-wing politician has become a self-appointed ABC television and radio programmer. Eighteen federal National Party MPs met with ABC managing director Jonathan Shier two weeks ago; they emerged placated by Shier's assurances that their pet programs would not be harmed by the cuts their own government imposed only months earlier.
Federal communications minister Richard Alston even said the ABC should drop its "esoteric" programs and increase its audience share instead of asking for more money.
The government should be made accountable for its cuts to the ABC, and should face the political consequences. It is not good enough to claim, as Alston does, "the ABC runs the ABC".
These cuts attack one of the last media organisations that provide a service rather than simply broadcast Polyfilla in a wall of advertising. The ABC bucks the commercial monopoly media trend: to downgrade editorial content, which cuts costs, and increases advertising space, which boosts profits.
Because the ABC is popular, influential and perceived to be free from corporate interests, governments seek to control and, at worst, silence it. Governments appoint "their" people to the ABC board. Accusations of bias are hypocritical.
Prime Minister John Howard's government's stacking of the ABC board continues the long Labor and conservative government tradition, since 1932, of interference with the workings of the national broadcaster, reinforced since 1988 by an unhealthy dose of budget cuts.
Self-censorship
The current round of cuts to ABC news and current affairs — 3.2% of its budget, and at least 100 jobs — undermines the ABC's ability to uphold editorial standards. Almost daily complaints by big party officials, and campaigns of spamming newspaper letters to the editor pages, has created an atmosphere of self-censorship within the ABC.
The value of an ABC news story is becoming determined not by how well it informs and helps explain events but by whether it pleases a higher authority. This is not journalism; it is propaganda.
The Howard government and future governments should have their hands taken off the ABC. An important public institution, cherished by many people for not being a marketing tool for private corporate interests, is being politically corrupted.
An independent public inquiry is urgently needed to examine political interference in the ABC. This inquiry must examine and expose government control of the ABC's funding and management. It must go further, and provide alternative models of public funding and genuine democratic control. Only then will we have a truely independent ABC.
[Cam Parker is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party and an ABC Online web producer/developer. He can be contacted at <camparker@cia.com.au>.]