How not to get on Radio National

gallantAs you might expect from a taxpayer-funded broadcaster handily placed to compete with commercial rivals burdened by the obligation to turn profits and keep shareholders happy, there are few aspects of modern communication the ABC has not embraced. Take the humble SMS message, for instance, which Radio National’s comperes solicit from listeners at the conclusion of almost every interview segment. Judging by those that are read out, it has been reasonable to suspect that quite a bit of editing and winnowing goes on before such messages go to air. That RN listeners cant to the left is not in doubt, but surely, every now and then, it would be reasonable to expect the odd critique of favoured guests and Labor/Greens talking points might get a bit of exposure. Alas, thanks to the ABC’s gatekeepers and censors, it doesn’t happen.

Late last week, courtesy of RN’s Michael MacKenzie, Quadrant Online received a first-hand education in the art of information filtering, ABC-style. The host of the afternoon show had as his guest climate scientist Dr Ailie Gallant, who was bearing her private torment at knowing to a catastropharian certainty that the world is in all sorts of extreme-weather trouble, yet the ignorati — people who don’t listen to RN, in other words — refuse to listen. In his earlier promotion of the interview, MacKenzie spoke of the anguish, the “nightmares” of impotence, afflicting the warmist elite’s prophets without honour. A lovely and upcoming expenses-paid trip Paris for many will no doubt lift spirits but, in the meantime, listeners might have well concluded that suicide watches should be placed on all the leading centres of atmospheric divination.

Their chat concluded, McKenzie solicited listener feedback, a request to which Quadrant Online responded with the text below:

Would that be the same Ailie Gallant who had to withdraw a much bally-hooed paper (with David Karoly) asserting Australia has never been hotter, based on Bali coral and Samoan tree rings?

Why do you give such [plural noun redacted for legal reasons] a pulpit?

Silly question. Because you’re the ABC.

PS: Gallant’s best work was shouting ‘motherf***er’ in her rap on Hungry Beast.

Then we sat back and waited to see if MacKenzie shared that perspective with his listeners.

He did. Sort of.

“One listener has questioned Alie’s scientific credentials,” he said, and that was it.

MacKenzie then moved on, airing a slather of more sympathetic messages after bidding his guest adieu with the heartfelt wish that the world absorbs her wisdom and lessens that soul-searing frustration at going so often unheeded.

At the ABC they are very keen on free speech, but only to the extent that it freely endorses the agenda.

The McKenzie interview can be heard in full via the link below. And if you want to be reminded of both the ABC’s contempt for community standards and climate scientists’ arrogance, endure the obscenity-laden Hungry Beast rap video. These are the smartest people in the room, folks, mostly because the ABC will not let anyone else through the door.

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