It will take more than this to change the ABC

Janet Albrechtsen will be unable to challenge the leftist mind-set, writes Gerard Henderson.

Last night Liz Jackson began her role as presenter of the influential ABC TV Media Watch program. Last week the Government announced the appointment of conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen to the ABC board. The latter appointment raised considerable political controversy and media attention but the former is considerably more significant.

The fact is that the ABC board does not run the public broadcaster day to day. Nor should it. The proper role of a board is to oversee management and to ensure that an organisation is acting in accordance with good corporate governance, including meeting financial targets. Micro-management is the job of managers. Apart from extraordinary situations, a board′s most important role is to choose the managing directors or chief executive officer.

Michael Kroger, who was appointed to the ABC board by the Howard Government, found the process frustrating. He quit the position in 2003, disillusioned with the ABC and chairman Donald McDonald (who was chosen for the job by John Howard. Shortly after her appointment, Albrechtsen told Monica Attard on ABC radio that she wanted to use her new position to look at "problems of bias and how facts are presented".

There is no precedent to believe that such a complicated issue can be adequately addressed by a non-executive director.

In the current issue of The Reader, Diana Gribble (who was an ABC director and deputy chairwoman from 1995 to 2000) looks back in irreverence at her time on the board of the public broadcaster. "Board members have a bit of a squabble amongst themselves about who listens to Radio National and who doesn′t, who likes Kerry O′Brien and who doesn′t Then directors sign off on the staff proposals."

The Albrechtsen appointment will have little immediate impact on the public broadcaster - except that it will result in the removal of one ABC critic from the public debate. Albrechtsen has let it be known that she will cease to comment on matters ABC in her weekly column in The Australian.

Some critics of the Howard Government appointments to the ABC board fail to appreciate that there is no inconsistency between being a thoughtful critic of the contemporary ABC and being a supporter of public broadcasting in Australia. David Flint makes the case in his lively, albeit quaint, book Malice in Media Land. Quite a few critics of the ABC, including Kroger, believe that the public broadcaster would warrant greater government funding if it chose to reform itself.

When he was elected to office nine years ago, the Prime Minister indicated that the Coalition wanted greater political pluralism among ABC presenters/broadcasters/producers and a significantly improved complaints procedure. After almost a decade, the Coalition has achieved none of its essential aims, despite board appointments and all that.

ABC Radio National presenter Phillip Adams recently reflected in The Australian that McDonald has "emerged" as a "champion of the ABC". In other words, the Howard Government has not overseen cultural change at the public broadcaster. The most recent appointment to the Media Watch gig explains the phenomenon.

Liz Jackson is a fine journalist and a first-class presenter. It is a matter of record, however, that her four predecessors have been of liberal (in the North American sense of the term) or leftist persuasion. Namely, Stuart Littlemore, Paul Barry, Richard Ackland and David Marr.

In his 2004 Overland lecture, Marr rejected the term "left" as having relevance to modern Australian journalism. However, at a seminar recorded by the ABC radio Big Ideas program (September 26, 2004), he argued that "the natural culture of journalism is kind of vaguely soft left" and "sceptical of authority". Marr maintained that if journalists "don′t come out of that world" they should "find another job".

According to the Marr test, Jackson meets the job criteria for her new role. Compare her Four Corners interviews with John Howard (February 28, 2002), and with Howard critic Rod Barton (February 15, 2005). The former was one of the most aggressive media interviews in the past decade, the latter was one of the softest.

Then there is the issue of the ABC complaints procedure. Last Tuesday, the Australian Broadcasting Authority issued the latest finding on the saga concerning one-time senator Richard Alston′s complaint about ABC radio′s AM coverage of the Iraq war in 2003. Originally, when communications minister in the Howard Government, Alston made 68 complaints. Over time, seven were withdrawn. The ABC′s own complaints review executive upheld two of Alston′s complaints and the ABC′s external Independent Complaints Review Panel an additional 17. Last week the ABA upheld an extra four complaints. Meaning that Alston had about a 33 per cent success rate.

The ABA′s report held "that AM′s coverage of the Iraq war was of a high standard overall" but it also found that the "frequency" of "incidences of bias or partiality compromised the quality of AM′s valuable and extensive coverage of the Iraq war". ABA acting chairwoman Lyn Maddock, on releasing the report, was critical of AM′s coverage.

And what did ABC managing director Russell Balding do? Well, he issued a statement claiming that the ABA had found that "AM′s coverage of the war in Iraq was balanced" but then went on to criticise the ABA. In media terms, the ABC managing director was into spin. Others would call it denial. It is unlikely that Albrechtsen will be able to change such a mind-set any time soon. But Jackson will be an influential media player.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.