Once respected as a trusted voice, today the ABC is increasingly viewed as a loose-knit, self-serving collective which appears largely held together by a common hostility for the society in which its members live, work and prosper. Its lack of self awareness knows no bounds.
The recent Coronation broadcast saga is emblematic of its internal dysfunction. No longer hiding its biases, the broadcaster advertised a two-hour special on ‘how relevant the monarchy is to the lives of Australians, and within the broader Commonwealth in 2023’. Predictably, it featured a panel dominated by pro-republic figures, including former Q+A host Stan Grant, who spoke at length about colonisation and the damage the monarchy has inflicted on indigenous Australians.
Comments, described by the ABC ombudsman as ‘jarring and distracting’, were aired in the prelude to the ceremony in Westminster Abbey. Many thousands of viewers complained.
Citing racial abuse and lack of public support from people at the ABC, Grant announced he was ‘standing down’ from Q+A.
While accepting his sensibilities, the bigger question is why, in the first place, did management schedule a programme where his ‘jarring and distracting views’ would likely be aired?
His protest received an apology from managing director, David Anderson, who blamed Grant’s distress on commercial media’s ‘sustained and vitriolic’ anti-ABC reporting. Outraged viewers received no such apology.
The ABC’s ideological crusades are becoming ever more shameless.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry observed that a Q+A program was ‘an outpouring of undiluted and uncontested falsehoods and vitriol’. It sought an apology for ‘inaccuracies and the omission of material context’. An apology was offered by Mr Anderson, which the collective claimed was a misrepresentation. It admitted only to ‘a small number of minor errors, mostly around the nuance in the use of contested terms’. The ECAJ strongly disputed these assertions, adding ‘no Jewish or Israeli voices were represented’. The ABC countered its invitations had been declined, deceitfully omitting they were not as a panel member but merely as a member of the audience.
Read the article by Maurice Newman in The Spectator.