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Peter writes "but I’ve never once, in almost 50 years in this business, heard anyone accuse Aunty of right-wing bias" ... then you've obviously refrained from reading some of the wackos on Facebook who claim that the ABC is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and/or the IPA!!!!
Peter, I liked your balanced comment in defence of ABC Chair Ita Buttrose. After all they already have an enquiry underway into how they handle complaints and surely the time to object to that enquiry is after it has been completed, not before.
On the broader issue of news content and whether it is left-wing or not, only a fool would believe that they should agree with all the opinions expressed in a news service, in fact if they want such a service they should move to Belarus, China, Russia are some other country that closely controls the content of their news services.
I started out my working life as a boy journalist on a daily newspaper chasing fire engines and have had my foot in the journalism camp for all my working life, although mainly in public relations. My experience is that the political flavour of all news rooms is left wing, but they oppose the Labor Party and the Greens and Liberals as well, on issues on which they choose to take a contrary point of view. Such a view is healthy and I certainly would not like them to slavishly agree with my point of view. How boring that would be.
The topic of the ABC's balance or lack of balance of views will be going on for a long time. It may well be the subject of doctoral theses.
As such, I will throw some thoughts on impartiality.
Applying Alan Sunderland's "whooping cough" scenario to modern science and the pandemic.
In regards to modern science, science is a methodology of investigating, researching and hypothesising "what if" and then testing the hypothesis. Then the test is replicating the hypothesis to see if the same outcome is achieved.
Could you imagine the ABC's "Science Show" giving time to alchemists who thought they could change one form of metal to gold or ABC's "The Health Report" reporting stories the snake oil merchants of US travelling shows or today's advertorial content on early morning and morning TV with claims that the advertiser's product will remove "toxins"? What "toxins" and where's the published evidence?
Similarly, when it comes to alternative treatments for covid such as ivermectin and oxychloroquine, is presenting stories about these treatments contributing to balanced news especially where there is a lack of evidence and many of the tests never going beyond in-vitro testing, https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1432 . Yet, despite the lack of evidence of the efficacioussness of treatments, there has been little coverage of the consequences of DIY self-administering of these treatments and extremely adverse consequences of DIY consumption:
Refs:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-02/warning-over-backdoor-orders-after-covid-ivermectin-overdose/100427910 ,
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/04/1034217306/ivermectin-overdose-exposure-cases-poison-control-centers,
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/westmead-hospital-patient-overdoses-on-online-cure-for-covid19/news-story/d5cc0998a98791af3b43bcaef42578b9 .
Thus it would not be fair to broadcast alleged efficaciousness of unorthodox treatments or solutions unless there is proven evidence and published papers. It's not limited to medicine or cars that run on water or even placing a magnet in the engine hood to improve the fuel economy,
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/02/how-a-box-of-magic-crystals-brought-down-australias-most-famous-race-car-driver/
https://wwos.nine.com.au/motorsport/peter-brock-hdt-holden-director-energy-polarizer-box-of-crystals-caused-downfall/ff56c7c6-e3e2-4f0e-a0e3-ae2beb3460be
By the way my car has six speakers and its associated magnets. The car's very economical but that's due to the engine and transmission. You wonder whether petrol consumption on cars equipped with 1000W subwoofers blurting out "doof doof" music are economical.
The point is, that just because there are alternatives to medicine or mechanics, the omission of reporting of alternatives to the convention does not amount to an imbalance of reporting unless the alternatives to conventional have credible evidence to prove the theory that the alternatives are viable and efficacious.
Then when it comes to reporting the news on political events, for example one cannot believe that Fox's news service is "...fair and balanced..." when you would see a person who follows the Democrats or a talent not in accord with Bill O'Reilly being interrupted and hounded by Bill O'Reilly.
The only occasion on the ABC where the presenter hung up on an interview with Lord Monckton was on 2BL (702 ABC). The presenter regretfully said that he should not have hung up on the interview talent.
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/spencer-clashes-with-monckton-live-on-air-20110707-1h3gr.html
https://radioinfo.com.au/news/adam-spencers-heated-interview-climate-change-sceptic/
https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/lord-monckton-hung-up-on-in-heated-interview-with-abc-radio/news-story/1958be1bfec6393160ee32ce91a2d02b
Then again, the issue of alleged bias of climate change is another story especially where there are peer-reviewed scientists whose views against the majority of scientists supporting climate change aren't heard on the ABC.
That's another topic that deserves attention but time restricts discussion.
It affirms what I said that the beginning that the issue of bias at the ABC will go on for a long time.
Thank you
Anthony of thinking Belfield