The ABC has made an extraordinary editorial decision to support the CCP in its attack on Australia. I cannot emphasise enough how outrageous this is. Taxpayer dollars are now being recycled as a propaganda campaign to end freedom for taxpayers. Needless to say, this is an unprecedented collapse of journalistic ethics at Australia’s national broadcaster.
I’m not sure how to fix what’s gone wrong at the ABC. The old hands are gone. The young blood is an infusion of post-modern dishwater. The economic coverage has slipped from centrist to trickle-down and, generally speaking, the intellectual heft of the broadcaster has drained away, with Ita Buttrose only the latest to pull the plug.
For a great example, check out the weak-kneed schlock spouted on a live ABC forum yesterday recommending every form of kowtow to China imaginable. I, and several MB readers, asked the live blog many pointed questions none of which saw the light of day.
Yet, it is possible to change ABC coverage in the short term. There is nothing that ABC editors hate more than complaints (even more than they do Australia).
So, my recommendation to MB readers concerned about the biases on display in the ABC’s coverage of the Chinese attack on Australia is to inundate the place with the following questions and complaints:
Section 8 of the ABC Act lays out that ABC reporting should be “accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism”. Yet ABC coverage of the China trade war on Australia has focussed almost entirely upon those negatively impacted with little or no reference to why Australia has chosen to resist CCP coercion.
The ABC has consistently produced news items that quote from conflicted business lobbies whose members are impacted by Chinese blockades without any counter-arguments or voices, such as that giving in to the CCP will increase its demands, inpacting ever more Australian trade and democratic principal.
As well, ABC journalistic commentary has universally recommended kowtowing and surrender via Stan Grant, Laura Tingle, Geoff Raby, Hugh White and James Laurenceson (with little or no disclosure of conflicts of interest) while other China-sympathetic journalists like Bang Xiao and Stephen Dziedzic have been misrepresented as experts on China, diplomacy and economics.
It is clearly the CCP plan to drip tariffs onto Australia over time to maximise the media pressure on the Australian Government to surrender to the ’14 grievances’ leaked to the Nine press. These include a demand to muzzle any and all criticism of China in the Australian press. How does the ABC reconcile the Act with its own pro-China trade war coverage in this context?
Demand answers from the director of news, Gavin Morris, as well as the head of online news. Put your complaint in here.
The more the better.
Inundate!
