• [AU] ABC chairman resigns after attempting to fire political journalists
    7 replies, posted
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/abc-board-tells-chairman-justin-milne-to-step-aside-20180927-p506bj.html ABC chairman Justin Milne resigns Justin Milne has resigned as ABC chairman after his board turned against him and staff threatened to walk off the job. It follows revelations Mr Milne told Ms Guthrie to sack high-profile presenter Emma Alberici and political editor Andrew Probyn - and also tried to intervene in other editorial matters - following complaints from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/shoot-him-abc-chairman-told-guthrie-to-sack-political-editor-20180927-p5069v.html ‘Shoot him’: ABC chairman told Guthrie to sack political editor ABC chairman Justin Milne reportedly asked managing director Michelle Guthrie to sack the public broadcaster’s political editor Andrew Probyn, saying “you have to shoot him”, due to government complaints about the reporter. Ms Guthrie's outline of the phone call with Mr Milne described the chairman as having "berated" her about Probyn, saying that former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull "hates" him, and that she pushed back and said she could not terminate his employment on this basis. The revelation comes a day after Fairfax Media revealed Mr Milne attempted to intervene on another occasion, emailing Ms Guthrie a direct order to “get rid of” chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici as the Coalition government “hates her”.
Yeah the ABC has been struggling for a while now, this along with accusations of far left bias, attempting to sell white privilege to children and calling a conservative politician a cunt and lastly featuring a interview with an author that advises parents to ask their kids consent to change their nappies has really hurt the reputation of the broadcaster. I am starting to question why it should be tax payer funded at all.
Hooooly shit this sounds like quite the scandal
They've been pretty spinless lately, refusing to majorly tackle issues such as the NBN when it was first changing under the Liberal government due to fears of getting their funding cut. When you see them focusing on such bullshit like you've mentioned it's easy to think that we should just cut the cord but remember some of the ABCs shows such as Four Corners are really the only shows covering issues such as poverty and age care underfunding in depth and bringing a public light to those kinds of issues, something private broadcasters just fail to do.
Not an expert but I get the impression there is too much political control over the ABC? Our BBC has structures in place to isolate it from political control as much as possible, like raising its own funding through the TV licence rather than using government funds. In Australia it seems like the threat of government cuts and repurcussions is always hanging in the air?
The threats of cuts and repurcussions came with the recent Liberal government. They have already cut the funding for the ABC by $337 million causing a serve drop in quality and quantity of content, amd futhermore we see the Liberals using their influence in attempt to squash out any editors and jornualists who critize their absolutely terrible policies such as their recent attempt to cut corporate tax rates. Ultimately the Liberals have been trying to privatise the ABC as shown by the IPA's book Against Public Broadcasting. They're breaking down the ABC all so when the quality has dropped so low they can sell it off to Murdoch press with no resistance and let the Australian news market get further dominanted by corporate influence.
Your not wrong, its hard to know what the solution is because if cutting their funding causes them to act worse then clearly that isn't the answer.. selling them off obviously isn't a good choice either I really don't see any beneficial solution to the current problems, if they are gonna toe the line for whatever political party just happens to be in power at the time then that is clearly a problem and if they have to raise their own money then that would cause them to pick up any particular affiliation that funding draws either way we all lose.
The solution to the ABC is reinvigoration, which means increased funding. I've been saying for years that the Liberals have been deliberately conducting "efficiency reviews" to make the ABC perform worse, just so they can cut their budget then rinse and repeat. It's political suicide for them to actively try to privatise Aunty, so they've had to be sneaky about it. The only reason people on the board of the ABC would be concerned about the political implications of their reporting is because of this. They know if they piss off the current gloves which cover the hands-that-feed they're liable to even more savage cuts. There's no equivocating about it; if you value the ABC, vote Labor.
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