Piers Akerman –
Sunday Telegraph
December 01, 2013
IT came as no surprise to be quoted by the extravagantly paid Tony Jones, the host of the ABC’s Green-Left oriented Q & A program, last Monday as he sought to justify the taxpayer-funded media organisation’s attack on Australian-Indonesian relations.
Jones’ sniggering, simpering remarks are usually aimed at the luvvies and no doubt he hoped to embarrass me and all those in the media who believe that the national interest might just trump the public interest occasionally.
During a program which featured an extraordinary riff about a truly inexplicable conspiracy theory from the human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, Jones reverenced my view in response to a serious question from Roslyn Coutinho, who asked: “The Australian public trust and value the ABC as a source of truth, however, the Indonesian phone tapping story could potentially have negative consequences for innocent parties, such as Australian cattle farmers and asylum seekers in Indonesia. So my question is for the whole panel, including Tony, but this could be wishful thinking, was the choice to run this story a selfish decision by the ABC or should governments be more careful about the potential implications of their intelligence operations in general?
His reply, which must have been researched and prepared in advance, was: “I might answer your question by quoting News Limited columnist Piers Akerman who wrote last year, ‘I believe freedom is absolute. You either have a free press or you do not.’ The information came to the ABC, they published it. I wonder whether News Limited would have published it or held it? That’s a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to.”
The quote is accurate, although it came from a blog written on March 18 this year, not last.
But Jones was, as usual, a little too smart. He needs to be reminded of the context of the quote and it was this — and I shall now quote from blog which the ABC employee found irresistible.
“It would not be news to readers of this site that this dysfunctional government’s ham-fisted attempts to muzzle the media anger me.
“Unfortunately, I permitted that anger to show on the ABC’s Insiders program yesterday.
“Flanked by two people who laughed at the notion that press freedom was threatened, and mocked by the show’s host, I raised my voice.
“Perhaps I should not have.
“I was angered by their naiveties, by their apparent belief that freedom can be trifled with.
“I believe freedom is an absolute.
“You either have a free press or you do not.”
And I still believe that.
The point that needs making for people like Jones however, who are more than willing to play the idiot if they think it will portray conservatives in a poor light, is that even a free press must be responsible.
While the US Constitution goes further than any other to enshrine the notion of free speech, US law (and commonsense, a trait obviously absent from the halls of the ABC) make it a crime to recklessly falsely shout “fire” in a crowded venue.
Jones, of course, was only trying to justify the decision taken by the ABC to promote The Guardian’s publication of intelligence material stolen from the United States by the defector Edward Snowden, now living in Russia where he enjoys the hospitality of that nation’s security services.
No doubt the Russians will keep him a long way from their computers but whether Snowden, The Guardian and the ABC would ever dream of publishing documents that would damage the national interests of Russia, is as Jones’ might muse “a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to”.
I would hazard a guess though that The Guardian would not release such material because it is not interested in exposing Russian secrets, only those which would damage the web of Western nations which share democratic values.
As an Australian, I have no qualms considering the national interest.
The Guardian was always going to publish the material stolen by the defector, but I question the need for “our” ABC to assist that media group in promoting the damaging allegations in our region.
If the ABC was truly interested in freedom of the press, I would never have had to challenge Insider host Barrie Cassidy last March, or later in the year when I asked why the ABC had so consistently failed to broadcast any news about the ongoing Victorian police investigation into former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s involvement as a lawyer in helping to set up the AWU Workplace Reform Association (which she later described as a “slush fund") and providing legal advice to her former boyfriend Bruce Wilson and AWU member Ralph Blewitt. Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case will be given yet another airing in the Victorian courts tomorrow, though whether the ABC breaks with its habit and reports this is “a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to”.
Meanwhile, the ABC continues its attempts to smear the Abbott government over the spying allegations.
On Wednesday, the AM program began its report of the Indonesian response to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s letter to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono thus: “Mr Abbott’s initial refusal to explain documents showing Australia spied on the President, his wife, and senior ministers, angered Indonesia, causing the President to suspend cooperation.”
Get it? Most reasonable people would think the Indonesians were angered by the spying but the ABC wants its audience to see Abbott as the villain.
The ABC sucks more than $1 billion from the taxpayers.
What’s more, Labor rewarded it for its support with more money and was prepared to twice ignore a tender process and award it with the Australia Network to pursue “soft diplomacy” on Australia’s behalf in our region.
The ABC is a bloated failure in the hands of ideologues. It should be stripped back to its charter, at the very least, or broken up and sold, if possible to commercial interests.
In a world of expanding media, the notion of a taxpayer-funded national broadcaster is anachronistic.
Those who want to keep “our” ABC, should fund it. Those who don’t should not have to pay for it.
Biased ABC leads a howling media mob
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
THE government has been in office 77 days but the Canberra press gallery has already written it off. Where fault can be found it will be furiously exaggerated. Where success occurs it will be ignored.
It began with the so-called expenses "scandal", when Tony Abbott's electioneering at sports events was recast as some sinister attempt to rort the public purse.
Then he was blamed for the Indonesia spying scandal which occurred under Rudd.
BLOG WITH MIRANDA DEVINE
On border protection, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has been hammered for not divulging operational detail about exactly how asylum boats are being stopped. He revealed this week that November had seen the lowest boat arrivals in five years, but all anyone wants to talk about is his "hostile" attitude to the media. Well, hello. He's only human.
Education Minister Christopher Pyne is the latest punching bag for refusing to implement the Gonski education funding model, as prescribed by Julia Gillard. Why was that a surprise to anyone, least of all Barry O'Farrell?
Treasurer Joe Hockey is being lambasted over the non-sale of GrainCorp, over which, hilariously, lefties are siding with the free market - anything to beat up on Abbott.
The contrast to the honeymoon period of the Rudd government is staggering. Kevin Rudd was feted as a messiah for more than a year.
At the end of his first three months, he was preferred prime minister over Brendan Nelson by 68 per cent to 10 per cent, according to ABC-TV's Insiders' "poll of polls", which relishes Abbott's less impressive lead of 44-29 over Bill Shorten.
Rudd's popularity soared to record highs thanks in large part to all the positive coverage lavished on him and his lame-brained ideas, like the 2020 summit, FuelWatch, GroceryWatch, an ETS, green loans, free pink batts, the end of homelessness, and dismantling border protection.
The media was dazzled, especially the ABC-Fairfax Media axis of love. But even conservatives gave Rudd the benefit of the doubt for too long.
To its eternal shame, The Australian newspaper even named him Australian of the year in 2010. Uh oh.
Rudd's media honeymoon was so prolonged that it seemed few people were more surprised when his party ditched him for non-performance later that same year than the press gallery.
More than any other news organisation, the ABC gave Labor a free pass over the past six years of calamitous government.
Remarkably, it has run dead on serious crime allegations against senior Labor figures which are currently being investigated by police, while
ferociously hunting down every verbal misstep or stumble by the new government.
Labor bodies are piling up and stinking behind the doors the ABC refuses to open.
Instead it fires all its barrels at the poor saps who barely have their feet under their desks.
So when Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi launched a scathing attack on the ABC in the Coalition party room yesterday, he was reflecting the opinion not only of his party's conservative base but of the bulk of his parliamentary colleagues.
The applause he received was a pointed rebuke to his old foe, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who continues to defend the national broadcaster.
"I'm concerned because it's not our ABC, it's not my ABC, it's 'their' ABC," Bernardi said.
"It's a taxpayer-funded behemoth that is cannibalising commercial media while spreading a message that ignores the majority views of Australians."
Bernardi told colleagues he does not advocate privatising the ABC since it has a role to play in regional communities.
But the national broadcaster "no longer complies with its charter of fairness and balance.
"It is politically biased, regularly unfair and has priorities completely at odds with its raison d'être,'' he said.
"Gone are the days when it simply operated TV and radio services. It has a massive online presence providing at taxpayers expense what commercial media operations need to charge for, four television channels and who knows how many radio licences.
"It is out of control and needs to be reined in. It needs to be broken up and returned to its primary purpose rather than the engorged propaganda unit it has become."
Bernardi is on the backbench because he was marginalised by many in his own party before the election for refusing to maintain a safe, politically correct line. Turnbull particularly targeted him because Bernardi led the revolt against the ETS which ended his leadership and launched Abbott.
Now Bernardi is leading the conservative revolt against the ABC, and again he is on the right side of history
The ABC's evil plan to get tentacles into kids
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
http://www.abc.net.au/btn/
THE ABC is an enormous beast, with tentacles stretching across the internet and digital TV at a time when other media organisations are struggling to survive.
Its success at enforcing the narrow groupthink of the Left cannot be over-estimated, and not just on obvious flagship programs such as Q&A.
Take its controversial education show Behind The News, watched by more than one million unsuspecting children each week.
With a cheery youth-friendly style, it promotes the soft-left line on everything from asylum seekers to gender equality to big government spending.
Yesterday's episode of BTN began with a story about Education Minister Christopher Pyne's "broken promise" on Gonski funding.
Next was "Why sorry seems to be the hardest word over the Indonesian spy scandal", complete with footage of Kevin Rudd making his Stolen Generations apology. Praise for Rudd was cleverly delivered using Tony Abbott's words.
"So it seems Tony is a fan of people who say sorry too. Well, he was."
That is, until the Indonesia spying scandal erupted. No mention that the spying occurred during Rudd's sainted reign.
At the end of the package the young BTN host, sitting in a school he identifies as Norwood Primary, asks the children around him if they think "Tony" should have said sorry.
It's no surprise that the majority, about 30 children, put up their hands to say yes the Prime Minister should have apologised.
A scan of other BTN stories this year finds similar examples of loaded commentary: "The new PM Tony Abbott hasn't repaid some money that he claimed for going to a few running and cycling events. The fitness freak says they were genuine community events, so it's OK for the taxpayer to help foot the bill."
Subtle propaganda to children is all part of the ABC's long march.
