The ABC has been slammed for hiding key facts and misleading their audience in a hit-job produced by Sarah Ferguson for the Four Corners program on Donald Trump, Fox News and the January 6th Capitol protests.
An investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found the program presented by Sarah Ferguson omitted key facts in such a way as to mislead the audience and breached accuracy and fairness requirements in the ABC’s code of practice. The ACMA said the program also included views that were expressed in “strident terms” and were “subjective”.
So in other words the ABC is biased to the left, hates Fox News and despises Donald Trump. Not really breaking news for anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock at the bottom of a very deep lake for the last three decades.
This is the same network after all that ran an entire podcast for years on the myth of Trump’s “Russia collusion”. There’s probably a very large percentage of the ABC’s dedicated audience who still sincerely believe that Trump was a puppet of the evil Rasputin Putin. They certainly never heard anything else from the “national broadcaster”.
The ABC responded to this finding by squealing hysterically, rolling into a ball and declaring the imminent death of “strong public interest journalism”. Which of course in the minds of the ABC staff means their ability to continually pump out taxpayer-funded propaganda in whichever fashion they desire.
Despite the screeching from the collective, it is clear that the result of this ACMA investigation will be nothing. The ABC has no interest in changing its current far-left perspective and has absolutely no reason to do so. The coalition was recently in power for nine years and during that time did nothing to purge this bloated billion-dollar institution which has become the greatest narrative shaper for the left outside the university system.
They did nothing as the ABC defamed their MPs. They did nothing as the ABC drove their Attorney General from office on obviously false accusations. They did nothing as the Brittany Higgins farce was manufactured. They did nothing as the ABC helped the cuckoo in the nest Malcolm Turnbull take over their party. They did nothing as the ABC drove an innocent Catholic Cardinal into a jail cell. They did nothing as for decades “their” ABC twisted the minds of the nation’s elites towards the furthest left narrative possible on every issue from global warming to border protection to lockdowns.
And they did nothing. Sorry my mistake, they did do one thing. After being repeatedly kicked in the face and thrown into the gutter by a broadcaster funded with their own taxes the coalition offered them more money.
And the response from the rest of the left has been emphatic. In their minds, the ABC has simply not gone far enough. Kevin Rudd has even declared that the ABC is now too far to the right! And his opinion would appear to be close to the orthodoxy amongst even the centre left.
In his (frankly insane) rant on the topic in the Turnbull Times, Rudd begins by declaring that:
“When your opponent is determined for war, history teaches us appeasement does not work. Indeed, unilateral concessions are often counterproductive: they weaken your position and embolden your adversary”.
Which despite being an entirely erroneous description of the reality of his opposition is an entirely accurate description of the coalition’s attitude towards the ABC going back even to the Howard years.
For far too long the left faction of the Liberal party have used the ABC to attack their factional opponents. After all the good little “modern liberals” live in the same leafy suburbs and went to the same schools as the ABC types, they even have most of the same opinions, why wouldn’t they be kindred souls?
And so the farce will continue. The Liberals will eventually win power again and when they do they’ll again do nothing about their greatest foe.
So why should the ABC change? They have the power and there’s nobody even pretending to try and take it away from them.
