RMIT University Media Release
At One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson’s first address at the National Press Club, she vowed to remove taxpayer funding from SBS and significantly curtail the ABC’s reach and accessibility. An RMIT expert unpacks how this could impact public interest journalism in Australia.
Professor Alexandra Wake, School of Media and Communication:
“Pauline Hanson’s proposal to defund SBS and shift the ABC to a subscription model in metropolitan areas fundamentally misunderstands the role and value of public service media in Australia.
“The ABC and SBS are not perfect institutions – no media organisation is. They are rightly subject to scrutiny and ongoing reform, and public debate about their performance is essential.
“However, to dismantle or privatise these institutions would weaken one of the last widely trusted pillars of the Australian media system and one that supports our much-valued democracy.
“A subscription-only model risks creating a two-tiered information environment in which access to credible, independent journalism depends on the ability to pay.
“At a time of rising misinformation and declining trust in media globally, reducing support for the country’s most reliable news providers would not only undermine informed citizenship, but erode social cohesion and democratic resilience.”
Alexandra Wake is Professor of Journalism at the RMIT School of Media and Communication. She is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster who has worked in Australia, the Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
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I hope rural nation voters realise that we absolutely depend on ABC NEWS channel for updates on fires , floods etc! To curtail would be to put lives and homes in real danger . What an idiot!
win jeavons,
you raise probably, imo, the most important and persuasive point possible. When in times of natural catastrophe, two things happen:
Australian governments go all socialist and work on a narrative ‘we do best when we work together for the benefit of Australians as a whole’ rather than the neo-liberal the greatest productivity comes from competition between individuals.
Secondly, as you rightly pointed out, Australians turn to our ABC News for a trusted source of the most accurate real time information.
It might be useful in engaging with supporters of Pauline to raise the question of News Corp’s behaviour last time there were massive bushfires in Australia (the Black Saturday fires, I think) where News Corp was focussed on spinning false narratives of the cause of the severity of the fires having nothing to do with climate change rather than getting useful and honest information out to the public.
Why pick on the ABC and SBS?
It is quite well known in regional areas where One Nation find their support base that they are particularly offended by the ABC actively encouraging the use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander place names in all content, news reporting, and weather or location identifiers.
One Nation consider this to be divisive when used alongside official colonial names. They also object to the initiative of the ABC requiring staff and in particular announcers to identify people of indigenous heritage by their clan or tribal affiliation or ‘Mob’ as preferred by the ABC (e.g., a Bundjalung elder or a proud Malanbarra person of the Yidinji nation ) but not adopting the same descriptors to people of other international origins and ethnicities.
I know One Nation supporters who find these practices as adopted by the ABC and SBS to be divisive and ‘woke’ and a form of political correctness taken to extremes by ‘progressives’ particularly those in the cities. The same observations apply to their views on ‘Welcome to Country’
One Nation and their supporters do not consider it to be “Our ABC” but rather, “their ABC” and they don’t like it and they now have Pauline with a national platform!
This ABC de-funding proposal is straight from the late Sir Keith Murdoch 1932, who was offended that a government should fund news media to inform the voters because private corporate media entities were required to be both profitable and self-funding. It has been a Murdoch family mantra ever since, especially for Rupert seeking paternal recognition.
Indeed, under successive COALition misgovernments the funding reductions have strangled the ability of the ABC to function effectively. Then the latest strategy, to ”plant” Murdoch Media marionettes in key ABC management positions to encourage the further demise has seen successive LABOR governments toe the Murdoch line, rather than restrict the publication licences of the Murdoch News Ltd.
I’m not a professor of media studies, but I have to disagree with Prof. Wake on one issue.
First, I would agree on the principle that a national broadcaster is essential.
However, I’d take issue with “At a time of rising misinformation and declining trust in media globally, reducing support for the country’s most reliable news providers would not only undermine informed citizenship, but erode social cohesion and democratic resilience.”
Rather sadly, I find searching through independent media far more reassuring in the voracity of its information than even the ABC.
Our ABC’s reporting on Gaza, and then Venezuela, followed by Iran has torn any shred of the ABC being beyong reproach from my mind. Quite, the opposite, our ABC’s reporting on International affairs is appalling, absolutely appalling, it is nothing more than glorified Western propaganda, and has lowered the ABC to almost the bottom of the barrel in my esteem.
I’ve considered the ABC to be cowered by Coalition attacks and defunding, and to be anti-Greens, plus I have a feeling (meaning I wouldn’t be able to list instances if asked to do so) it is somewhat dismissive of Independents, for quite some time now.
Nothing sums up the demise of our ABC more than Hugh Mark’s support for Charlie Pickering in regard to his slurs directed against Grace Tame.
“The ABC’s Managing Director Hugh Marks has said Charlie Pickering’s comments about Grace Tame didn’t breach ABC’s code of conduct. Very weird given Antoinette Lattouf was told she’d breached the ABC code of conduct for posting a factual Human Rights Watch post. “ (Ette Media)
Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, the ABC board and managerial staff need to be swept out with a broom. The board needs to be replaced, in its entirity, with a new board appointed through the appropriate independent channel.
Martin Hirst on the Murdochracy giving PHONeys a free ride.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/hanson-and-the-media-an-unholy-alliance-of-the-ruling-class,21187
I note that the underwhelming Jane Norman is both a Murdochracy toadie news presenter at the ABC and a director of the NPC. Her yellow journalism against the Albanese LABOR government is unabating.
“….“The ABC and SBS are not perfect institutions – no media organisation is. They are rightly subject to scrutiny and ongoing reform, and public debate about their performance is essential…..” It is my impression that there is far more scrutiny heaped on ABC and SBS than the commercial outlet and as much as there are claims of bias, the complainants political bias is plain to see. . Having said that I have lost faith in the ABC Newsroom. There are obvious topics and incidents that should be reported however they don’t go there. But then, ABC Radio National has an excellent range of informative and educational programs that excel far above the glitz and fluff of commercial radio networks. Swings and round-a-bouts. If you don’t like it – switch off.
@NEC: you are correct to mention Sir Keith Murdoch and the campaign continued by his offspring. As concerns Election Night Coverage – who could do it better than Anthony Green on ABC TV? Commercial channels drag in “has beens” and former politicians (who have been voted out) to dribble their “expert opinions”. ABC TV every time for me.
She’s simply echoing the US Atlas Koch and Murdochs’ desire to shut down public broadcasting under the guise of unfair competition.
In fact, see US PBS and NPR, it’s about defunding, defanging and manipulating public or state supported media to support a consolidated RW media ecosystem, including social media X, YouTube and Meta, formp power to promote white Christian nationalism.
Hanson extols “Australian values” whatever she means by that.
ABC and SBS are absolutely part of Australian values. Attacking the ABC and SBS is attacking Australian values.
Hanson talks of “Australian culture”. The ABC and SBS are a big part of Australian culture.
Hanson is just doing the bidding of her big business buddies and sponsors — those who are held to account more by ABC and SBS than other news outlets, particularly the awful Sky News.
As for defunding SBS, they get a lot of revenue from advertising (something I don’t like), not government. She clearly has not thought that one through.
And for putting a paywall around the ABC, that is absolutely against the ABC being a public institution. Does she mean radio as well? Again not thought out.
Putting a paywall around the ABC is like putting a toll on a public park. You want to go for a walk, you must pay. That is nonsense.
The ABC and SBS are also wonderful adult education institutions. Well, Hanson’s lot want to keep us ignorant.
@ Mediocrates: Agreed on both counts.
But if I turn my radio dial off the ABC RN setting that it has been rusted onto for decades (and I do not think it will move) ….all the way down to the local AM station still playing original 1960s 45s …..
@ NEC. Agreed on Jane Norman.
I spend a significant amount of time each day checking Oz (& international) independent media. Of an evening I watch ABC 7 o’clock news, then if I can bear it, 7:30 Report, just to understand what angle they’re pumping & what they’re omitting. It is substantially less than enlightening. As for 7 o’clock news, the information is couched simplistically, lacks nuance & peddles its singular notion of Oz cultural expectation – a self-reinforcing BS.
As for political ‘reporter’ Jane Norman, her words are delivered with a selective shrill & facial nuance that is loaded with implication that can only be interpreted as bias directed at the ill-informed.
Needless to say, the ABC TV (incl ABC News channel) afternoon news is worse, with the above-mentioned characteristics smeared with even more linguistic nuance tailored to the ABC’s view of the culture it wants to pump into its audience.
It may be that the relatively short form of Oz ABC TV news allows little time for on-screen development of analysis, but that’s ABC’s choice, and it seems they opt to leave all that to its back-room news executives / producers under the thumb of the board. Together a nest of (Murdochian influenced) vipers meddling for audience numbers in the fashion of Oz appalling commercial services. We have nothing of the likes of PBS (now also under Trump’s hammer).
A truly sorry state for Oz public TV broadcasting.
That said, IMO the rest of the ABC is not too bad, and important.