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Two thoughts.
First, there appears that any article in "The Australian" that mentions the ABC, either by the writer of the article criticising the ABC and/or commenters will comment on the article and even go off on a tangent typically saying, "close the ABC", "sell the ABC", "the ABC is left wing greenies/ALP", "put the ABC on subscription". The writers or commenters speak in generalisations without pointing what show/article/news story is biased. There appears to be a concerted effort by News Corp for decades to pull down the ABC.
Second, I have mentioned this elsewhere on this site that media commentators whether from News Corp or 2GB have this morbid want to to have the ABC cuts in economic solidarity because their news organisation is facing cuts.
Never in the history of the media that so many newspapers are temporarily or permanently closed, commercial radio and television cutting expenses including their news services, the possible trimming of AAP despite surviving, has there been a need to have an ABC. If we go by the logic of those News Corp writers and ranting commenters and cut the ABC, where would one get their news from?
Sure the ABC is not an omniscient source of news covering every nook and cranny of news, But removing the ABC, is to remove a source of public goods, we'd be all ignorant about what is going on in our world. In addition, when it comes to education, the commercial stations have ditched childrens' programming.
A final remark: we are in the most interesting times with the pandemic, race riots and demonstration and the Federal Government's proposal to restructure university fees in favour of STEM, nursing, education at the expense of the humanities and law.
During the race demonstrations, News Corp writers were conflating the demonstrators damaging statues, their plinths and other public memorials with those who studied humanities and that by increasing the price of humanties courses at university resulting in a decrease in vandalism. Have these writers evidence of which humanities discipline provoked and implemented this destruction?
There may well be a valid criticism of the content of humanities courses being Marxist. But reading Marxist topics does not necessarily mean that you will imitate the Marxists or any other ideology. It means that one wants to know how any kind of ideology works.
Critical thinking about a topic is not the same as mindless parroting of a topic.
Never has it been so important to have the ABC now. At the moment there are rumblings that Nine newspapers including the SMH and The Age are are going to take a particular angle at reporting their stories.
Source: Note this article was retrieved when Crikey was permitting a free, non-subscription required period. It may not be free later on.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/06/19/nine-right-leaves-editor-on-outer-journalism-poorer-alex-lavelle/ Retrieved 22-06-2020
The above article demonstrates that the ABC has the highest regard in trust compared to other media organisations and that today, it is so important to have the ABC.
Thank you,
Anthony of intellectual Belfield who has been critical of ABC funding cuts not being directed at the numbers of managers and the hierarchical structures.