Just Another Day at Their ABC

On the face of it, the national broadcaster’s abc.net.au website is an unassuming corner of WWWorld, a place that looks the part of a just-the-facts news site. Open a story, however, and what you are likely to find is that, amongst the police rounds tales of matricide and foreign correspondent dispatches about crocodile massacres, there is plenty of ABC-style “journalism”: stories with advocacy and agendas woven into them and presented without balance or even the pretense of balance.

Below, a sampling of one day’s (July 16) slant and bias:

Ian Verender knows coal must die, taxes are beaut and renewables the bee’s knees:

Most also view a carbon price as inevitable at some stage, which would make coal-fired generators unviable and their bankers nursing multi-billion-dollar losses.

It is a triumph of economics over ideology. While coal will remain an important part of our electricity industry for another 20 years, its influence rapidly will diminish as the new technology takes over.

It is worth remembering that, unlike renewables and gas plants, none (sic) of coal-fired generators have been built with private capital. The only way another will ever be built is with yet another massive government subsidy.

No explanation is offered of the market distortions and subsidies that stop coal plants being built, just assurances that “new technology” will take over. Oh, and do notice the “most” who are said to be happy to accept a carbon tax. “Most”, as in most of those sipping fair trade organic coffee in the ABC canteen?

But why mention ruinous power prices and rent-seekers fattening at the green trough when racial amity is breaking out all over, especially in France, where that country’s World Cup triumph is about much more than soccer? If you are ABCer Edwina Sesalja it’s a wonderful boost for multiculturalism:

The multicultural make-up of the French team has a significant role to play in this too.

“We still have some race tensions in France and the fact the French team includes many cultures, I think it’s very unifying for France,” Nathan said. “They are representing France with their game as well as their values.”

Type the words “sewing machine” and “empowerment” into a search engine and you’ll yield hundreds of thousands of results.

That’s because non-profit organisations and aid programs have led us to believe that small-scale business ventures — via sewing machines, microloans and even goats — empower women in developing nations, known collectively as the Global South…

Ah, but there’s a problem, reports Siobhan Hegarty:

…This may sound like a positive for women in the Global South, but Cardiff University research fellow Dr Santi Rozario says it’s not that simple.

“After about 25 years of microcredit programs in rural Bangladesh, ingrained gender values are still essentially unchanged,” Dr Rozario reported in a 2002 paper.

Women getting ahead is a problem at Their ABC, yet so is women not getting ahead. And would you believe it, this is happening in the theatre, where nominations for the Helpmann Awards groaned beneath an overload of male nominees, writes Michaela Boland

Only one woman, Melbourne Theatre Company associate director Sarah Goodes, has earned a nomination among the 12 Helpmann slots for best director, across theatre, musicals and opera…

… Australian performing arts have a woman problem, still….

… Almost a decade after an outcry about the lack of opportunities for women was triggered by Belvoir Theatre Company artistic director Neil Armfield, Australian theatre’s diversity problem appears frozen in the spotlight.

No matter how bad it is for lady luvvies, they can always celebrate not being Malcolm Turnbull. He’s the subject of an analysis by Andrew Probyn, who laments the man who won Q&A hearts in his non-Abbott leather jacket has been a terrible disappointment. Unruffled by his recent rebuke at the hands of ACMA for loading a news report with his personal and pejorative appraisal of Tony “The Destroyer” Abbott, Probyn continues:

This is the Malcolm who now recognises that the Liberal base doesn’t want re-educating at all but instead requires red meat to ensure it doesn’t bay for his blood.

This is the Liberal base, whispering in the ears of his MPs, that needs succour, whether it be hard messaging about those inveterate lefties at the ABC or those horrible unions, or chucking some bones about migration levels and religious freedoms

At least Probyn is honest in conceding he works for and with a mob of “inveterate lefties”. No need for ACMA to bestir itself this time, given that truth is generally considered an adequate defence.

All of the above samplings are taken solely from  yesterday’s ABC News Online offerings — just one single day’s worth of port-canted agenda-pushing, preaching and monocular assessments of the world the rest of us live in.

Perhaps, since the ABC still gets $1.2 billion every year, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield might want to write another of his famously stern letters. That will work a treat. Meanwhile, as the ABC quakes with fear at the minister’s impending wrath, Quadrant Online readers can visit the site via this link.

And do make a point to read the coverage of the latest unpleasantness in Gaza. After a full day, the ABC might actually have moved itself to mention that Israel’s latest walloping of Hamas’ operational centres was prompted by more than hundreds of rockets, mortar shells and fire bombs flying north across the border.

Hey, what do you expect for a paltry billion-plus dollars per year?