ABC supporters across the country are dismayed and angry with the national broadcaster. The biggest threat to the ABC today is its craven and distorted performance in television current affairs reporting.

A repost from Nov, 19, 2024

In 1997 I led a delegation to meet with Bob Mansfield, the heavyweight businessman who had been recruited by John Howard to wield the axe on the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The dirty task Mansfield was given was an early shot in the culture wars that have raged in Australia for the past 25 years. Widespread fears of the hatchet job intended to gut the ABC turned out to be unfounded. There was an avalanche of community support for the national broadcaster. Mansfield revealed himself as a common sense listener. He delivered a pithy 53 page report, The Challenge of a Better ABC, to a disappointed Coalition government. His verdict largely affirmed the role and performance of the ABC at that time.

Today many of those same ABC supporters across the country are dismayed and angry with the national broadcaster. To be fair, I acknowledge that ABC television generally does a good job with rural Australia and, these days, a much better job with First Nation stories. And, of course, ABC radio programs, from ‘RN Breakfast’, ‘AM’, ‘PM’, ‘The World Today’, ‘LNL’ and local radio offerings are still valued, even revered. But the biggest threat to the ABC today is its craven and distorted performance in television current affairs reporting.

‘The Drum’ has been axed. Nobody knows the reason why. ‘Four Corners’ is a shadow of its former self, while ‘Q&A’ and ‘Insiders’ are now lightweight floss pretending to present serious analysis of the social and political life of the country. ‘7.30’ remains the flagship current affairs offering, given just 2 hours broadcast time each week. Aside from the gold standard reporting of respected journalist Laura Tingle, the program is now correctly referred to as a ‘show’ by host Sarah Ferguson. It routinely throws together a pastiche of political gossip, continuous election speculation and celebrity profiles – and then takes Friday off to recover. Despite the promo claim from Ferguson that ‘7.30’ is ‘searching for honesty’ the result seems to be light entertainment rather than a must-watch serious review of matters political. For weighty and hard-hitting we have to wait for the excellent ‘Media Watch’ on Monday nights.

I declare an interest here. It’s one that also serves to highlight one of the ABC’s biggest modern flaws – the selective and........

© Pearls and Irritations