WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THEIR ABC?(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

DEBATING THE DEFECTS of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is, in many respects, a mug's game. There are so many blind partisans of the ABC's role in our community that even reasonable critics find it a dialogue of the deal While there are many people within the ABC who are prepared to admit privately that the organisation has many problems, they usually remain silent or whisper amongst themselves, in fear of their professional lives, rather than speaking out. Only after retirement or moves to other jobs do they become willing to express their misgivings.

The interesting thing about the seminar on the ABC organised in Sydney on 31st March was that it included a number of speakers who had had long careers in the ABC and who now are disillusioned by its failings. The organisers of the seminar, the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs (the contributions are available on www.ipa.org.au) seem to have overlooked inviting anybody except speakers and media, which was unfortunate since it set them up for easy shots from those who think of the ABC as an exercise in participatory democracy for the chattering classes. It was notable that the tiny band of "Friends of the ABC" present were on average considerably older than the rest of those present. Jonathan Shier, whose courageous attempt to transform the ABC has yet to be reflected in its programming, was not present. The seminar nevertheless received a surprising amount of coverage.

Despite the defensive reactions to criticism of the ABC, which are themselves revealing, there is very real concern even amongst the supporters of public broadcasting about the direction in which it has gone. There are those like Quentin Dempster, who spent some time at the seminar asserting that everything was really perfect apart from not enough money and too much interference from governments (is that why he has been relegated to an unimportant spot once a week?), who believe that there is no such thing as systemic bias on the ABC. Even some quite honest people believe this, and one is driven to the conclusion that they are so immersed in their own prejudices that they cannot understand that anyone else might think differently unless suffering a defect of character. These are the people who think that no one on the "right" (that is, disagreeing with them) has anything interesting to say.

But many more of the supporters of public broadcasting are worried. Thus Keith Mackriell, for many years a senior manager in the corporation, had no difficulty discerning an increasing one-sidedness in that body's coverage of politics and social issues generally. Nor does anyone else who has not got a tin ear have any difficulty discerning the bias. What has been forgotten is that there is a world of difference between subscribing to a series of basic values like democracy and equality on the one hand, and on the other to a set of policies and beliefs which must remain contestable. It seems that according to the dominant ABC ethos anyone who does not subscribe to their policy package cannot subscribe to the basic values which underlie numerous possible policy alternatives.

The first line of &fence of the ABC mindset is to deny that there is any partisan bias, because they criticise both the Coalition and the Labor Party. But within this there is always the assumption that left is better than right, the only good people in the Coalition being those who lean towards the current policy package endorsed by the left, and the only good people in the Labor Party being those also who lean to the left. Thus there will be numerous contemptuous or hostile references to the Labor right in ABC news and comment (it is frequently difficult to distinguish between the two), while the Labor left is only criticised, it ever, in the mildest terms for not being tough enough on the right. The partisan bias in the ABC is not towards Labor, but towards the Labor left. This is why the Labor left are among the most vigorous defenders of the ABC in its present form--they and their ilk get such a good run--and why the Labor right, like Paul Keating, who knows the history of its bias against his friends, dislikes the corporation even while bullying and seducing it.

There are of course many Coalition supporters who also defend the ABC. Not the small business types, or the outer suburbanites, but the well-heeled and educated people who enjoy the combination of stroking and stimulation they receive from speakers on the ABC who reinforce their own vague feelings of progressive and forward-thinking policy, and who have social attitudes rooted in their youthful timid approval of the demands of the 1960s and 1970s. Even those who disapproved at the time have accepted the general consensus of the quasi-professionals today. And since they want to be thought of as good, virtuous people they cannot distinguish between a bleeding heart and genuine charity, which is hard-headed. They prefer the politics of the warm inner glow, and gulf about ethics, to programs that work.

There is strong support for the ABC in the National Party, since for them the corporation is a very different animal from that to which metropolitan dwellers are subjected. The local ABC radio stations have a genuine local base, their reporters live in and interact with their communities and in turn are influenced by local concerns. They play a real part in the life of their communities, and make a serious effort to serve rural and regional interests. The biggest threat to them is not any critic of the ABC but the internal interests which have no interest in providing such a service and feel that it should all be centralised into metropolitan hands.