National broadcaster has lost the plot and prestige

THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 31, 2014 12:00AM

AS a former journalist, a politician who famously insists on writing his own major speeches, Tony Abbott has erred in criticising the chronically wayward Australian Broadcasting Corporation about its coverage of claims navy personnel had mistreated asylum-seekers.

During a radio interview on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said "it dismays Australians when the national broadcaster appears to take everyone's side but our own and I think it is a problem". He went on to say the story should have given "the Australian navy and its hardworking personnel the benefit of the doubt". It is a sloppy piece of political rhetoric and positioning by Mr Abbott, reducing the ABC's journalistic and institutional sins to a lack of patriotism or respect for our defence forces.

The slip in messaging has given Mr Abbott's critics the opportunity to claim the Coalition believes the national broadcaster, and by extension commercial media outlets, should be a cheer squad for the government and the country; that critical stories should be dropped in favour of Soviet-style propaganda may be one extreme interpretation. Of course, that is not the view Mr Abbott subscribes to. He believes good journalism is healthy for our democracy. Mr Abbott expects the ABC to be a "straight, news-gathering and news-reporting organisation," he told 2GB radio host Ray Hadley.

The proper critique of the report by ABC Indonesia correspondent George Roberts involves questions about journalistic rigour, verification, editorial standards, the experience and skill of reporters in the field and, finally but most importantly, the judgment of -- and overall direction of the national broadcaster set by -- managing director Mark Scott. In day-to-day journalistic pursuits, ABC news director Kate Torney should be responsible. In a letter to us last week, Torney defended her foreign correspondent, who aired claims navy personnel had beaten and burned asylum-seekers during a tow-back operation this month. "When serious allegations are made against our Defence Forces, it is not the job for the national broadcaster to look away."

Sure, but it is the duty of all serious news organisations to look deeper, to ask hard questions and to gain more evidence before publication. That basic journalistic due diligence was performed by Seven News, which reported the story earlier and with more rigour and scepticism than the ABC. Now some ABC journalists believe the lurid claims are "likely to be untrue" and are fossicking around for fresh material. As any journalist knows, this is too little scepticism, too late. We look forward to a prominent correction, although it may not be as gleeful or breathless as the ABC presenters who introduced the alleged scoop. Certainly, the prominence given to an Indonesian quiz show host, a known rent-a-hater of Australia, on flagship programs such as ABC1's 7.30 invites the question of who is making the big editorial calls or holding managers to account.

Plainly, following the ABC's handling of the intelligence material stolen by Edward Snowden -- Mr Abbott said the ABC showed "very poor judgment" in hooking up with Guardian Australia on that project -- the infiltration of Leftist political and cultural activists, the proliferation of platforms and the de-skilling of staff, this latest episode shows that Mr Scott is failing in his role as editor-in-chief. Who is taking responsibility for stories? That the answer is so obviously "no one" may give comfort to the ABC's collectivist, inner-city clique of broadcasters, bloggers, latter-day Trotskyites and inked hipsters, but it should chill the blood of taxpayers and a broad audience seeking reliable, factual and comprehensive news and current affairs. The ABC is spread too thin, compromising its reliability.

You could draw an analogy with the modern university. The ABC operates as a bunch of freewheeling little fiefdoms, each program unit following a communal culture and a progressive agenda. ABC managers have the luxury of public funding but they should be asking the same questions that editors and producers in the commercial world face every day: why are we running this story? When there's a problem, someone takes charge. Mr Scott is like an ambitious vice-chancellor, too busy building an empire to worry about content control. His vision splendid as a media baron stretches to multiple platforms, across the vast terrestrial plain and in the digital ether; his stated mission is to build a taxpayer-funded service that is a counter to the right-wing shock jocks, "a market-failure broadcaster" in Scott-speak.

That's a flawed, dangerous project. This newspaper's ethos, stated in our first edition in 1964, is to promote national prosperity. The ABC charter does not veer into the realm of correcting for the biases, real or imagined, of its media rivals. Instead of reporting without fear or favour, guided by values such as balance and fairness, the ABC instinctively leans Left. The asylum-seekers issue is a case in point. Border protection under John Howard and Mr Abbott has been depicted as harsh and inhumane, while the "PNG Solution" of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd largely escaped those criticisms.

It is in the personal agendas of ABC presenters, reporters and commentators that we can see a clear direction. Ex-Labor staffers such as Barrie Cassidy and veteran activists such as Fran Kelly are key internal opinion-makers and role models, as is, bizarrely, a non-entity such as ageing Chaser lad Julian Morrow, whose antics Mr Scott has defended. Don't take our word for the ABC zeitgeist: get on the web and read the Twitter feeds of Jonathan Green, Mark Colvin or Latika Bourke to taste the flavour of their biases. No one is seeking to deny ABC journalists their beliefs, but they should admit Aunty's age-old values of fairness and balance are merely a pretence and that the news agenda across radio bulletins and ABC24 is driven by the Greens-Left activist complex.

To solve the problems at the ABC, The Australian would never advocate harsh government controls. Ms Gillard and Stephen Conroy tried to do that to us. It's not appropriate to the kind of nation we aspire to be. The ABC should concentrate on its core business and raise its standards. There are many former newspaper editors and executive producers with the nous, courage and journalistic stature to restore the fortunes of the national broadcaster. Mr Scott is an executive out of his depth, a man who lacks the focus or strength to lead the ABC in a new era.