AUNTY'S managing director is puzzled listeners have detected a soupcon of bias.
How do they vote at the ABC? ABC managing director Mark Scott with Rafael Epstein, ABC radio 774, last Thursday:
EPSTEIN: There's a text here from Josh in Ashburton. Please ask Mark Scott what Liberal conservative presenters he will hire to balance people like Fran Kelly, Philip Adams, Jonathan Holmes, Tony Jones and Leigh Sales in the interests of reflecting and serving all Australians. Someone else also texted that the ten million extra dollars (from minister Stephen Conroy for a fact-checking unit) will buy a lot of positive press for the ALP. Now I know this is an ABC presenter asking his boss but there's a lot of people who think there's too much of the Left and not enough of the Right on the ABC.
Scott: It's really funny though, Rafi. If I look at my Twitter feed and the online messages I get, I get overwhelmed there from criticism from the Left that we are too soft on the Right ... People often see and hear the bias that they want to see and hear. I remember experiencing this early on. Kerry O'Brien would do a tough interview with the PM and I'd look at the phone log the next day. There'd be 200 calls and a hundred of the calls would say why had Kerry O'Brien been so tough on the PM and the other hundred calls would be why had Kerry O'Brien gone so easy on the PM ... Now I think it's a very curious list that's presented in the text message. I don't know how our journalists vote. I don't know what their personal views are ... If they do express personal views they get into trouble.
A clue? We're headed for a big loss? ABC1's Insiders yesterday:
BARRIE Cassidy: Now just finally, there was more speculation over the weekend that we're headed for a, well, at least the government is headed for a big loss in September, some 40 to 45 seats is one estimation, and we do read that many in your own party expect as much. Do you detect that sense of foreboding among some of your colleagues?
Another clue? Kerry O'Brien, CV, Celebrity Speakers:
HE (Kerry O'Brien) had three years as a press secretary, first for Labor leader Gough Whitlam in 1977 and then in the post-Whitlam era, with Deputy Labor leader, Lionel Bowen.
Another clue? Fran Kelly tells SameSame, The Same Same, a celebration of 25 Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Australians, 2008:
WHAT I am, really am, is an activist.
Mark Scott with Rafael Epstein again last Thursday:
SCOTT: Now Philip Adams is a little different ... But have other programmers on Radio National. We have Amanda Vanstone.
Epstein: One show a week versus four.
Scott: Yeah. True. But, but. We do have the range of viewpoints. We don't have the stopwatch on ...
Epstein: Maurice Newman who was the chairman, and that's significant from someone who was the chairman, he did think there was groupthink mentality on climate change.
Scott: He was talking broadly around the media. It wasn't a specific criticism of the ABC.
No specific criticism of the ABC? Rick Morton, The Australian, December 18, 2012:
MR Newman, who retired from the ABC's top job in March when his five-year term ended, said the broadcaster had been "captured" by a "small but powerful" group of people when it came to climate change groupthink - a claim rebuffed by the broadcaster ... "The ABC is not being frank and open about the way global warming is portrayed on its various platforms, although the sense of imbalance is becoming more overt, I feel," (Mr Newman said).
Stop the presses. PM stops a boat. Southern Highland News yesterday:
THE PM's flying visit to the north-west included a tour of Devonport's new $4 million Bass Strait Maritime Centre ... Ms Gillard was invited to take the controls of the 1925 steam ship SS Woniora simulator ... she should hang on to her day job, with the good ship Woniora going to the bottom of the Mersey River with the Prime Minister at the helm.
