ABC accuses Sky News of changing the rules by withholding live feed of Rooty Hill debate
The ABC has accused Sky News and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph of “locking out the public” from their Wednesday night election debate.
But Sky News has declined to make a live feed of it available to its new rolling news rival ABC News 24, only making footage available on an hour’s delay.
The event was organised by the News Ltd owned-Telegraph. Sky News is part-owned by BSkyB, which is also controlled by News Ltd’s parent company News Corp. News Corp executives have previously questioned the public interest justification for launching the ABC’s new news channel which finally went to air last month. While Sky news is available only via subscription TV, ABC News 24 is a free to air digital channel.
In a press release today, the ABC accused Sky News of failing to reciprocate on clean feeds it has previously provided to broadcasters of other election events, and offering to stage the production of tomorrow’s debate itself.
However, Daily Telegraph editor Gary Linell described the ABC’s complaint as “preposterous” saying full footage would be available an hour after the debate begins at 6pm.
The ABC issued a press release saying:
PUBLIC LOCKED OUT OF CAMPAIGN EVENT
A significant section of the Australian public has been denied live access to Wednesday’s major campaign event involving the following a decision to ban live coverage on the ABC.
Both leaders agreed to participate in a town-hall style public forum at Rooty Hill RSL in Sydney to answer questions from undecided voters.
However, the event will not be shown live on ABC NEWS 24, the ABC’s new continuous news channel, or streamed on radio or online because it is being withheld by the organisers of the event – Sky News and The Daily Telegraph.
This is in stark contrast to every other major appearance involving the two leaders and the major policy debates at the National Press Club, which have all been produced by the ABC and made available live and as a “clean feed” to all other networks, including Sky.
“At all times, the ABC has put the public interest ahead of media politics in this campaign,” says ABC News Director, Kate Torney. “At the request of other media organisations and the two major parties, we have provided these campaign events to all media outlets. Now it appears others have chosen not to play by these rules, and the Australian public will be disadvantaged.”
Before the election campaign, the ABC provided live coverage of the National Press Club debate between former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. Since the start of the campaign, the ABC has also provided live coverage of the official debate between Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott, despite being the rights holder, with the exclusive right to live coverage of Press Club events. The costs of these events were borne by the ABC, resulting in a significant subsidisation of the activities of all other media outlets.
“We did this because the ABC is committed to public access to key campaign events,” says Ms Torney. “We believe that as many Australians as possible should have the chance to engage in events of national significance, not just the 30 percent of households who have access to subscription television.”
ABC NEWS 24 has achieved a five-city weekly reach of more than 1.3 million Australians since it began broadcasting, providing Australia’s only free 24 hour television news service. This audience will now be unable to watch Wednesday’s forum involving the two leaders.
Ms Torney said the ABC was prepared to mount production for Wednesday’s planned forum and make it available live to all media, including Sky, as it has done with similar events in the past. She called upon the two parties to take up the ABC’s offer in the interest of providing the Australian people with the best possible coverage of the campaign, across platforms.
The Daily Telegraph issued this statement from Linnell:
“The ABC’s preposterous claims would be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that taxpayer funds were used to make them.
“This is an event devised and staged by The Daily Telegraph. We invited Sky to be the live broadcaster and clean feeds will be provided to all media.
“Australia Decides – The People’s Forum” is about returning politics to the constituents. It is not about the ABC’s push into digital television. It will be broadcast live on Sky and streamed live and free at www.dailytelegraph.com.au
And Sky News CEO Angelos Frangopolous issued a statement saying:
“Sky News will make available a feed of its live program, The People’s Forum, to the ABC and all other media outlets (at no cost) for broadcast from 7pm (aest) this Wednesday night, August 11.
The ABC clearly does not understand the difference between a television programme and an open campaign event.
Today SKY News provided its coverage of the Communications Debate at the National Press Club (at no cost), which was aired live and in full on the ABC.
The ABC has declined to provide a live feed of its television programs, such as last night’s Q and A featuring Prime Minister Julia Gillard.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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In “Fantasy Australia”, the following would happen:
Julia Gillard refuses to participate in Murdoch-controlled and staged event citing his media outlets’ demonstrable dishonesty and bias.
She says “with a virtual monopoly over Australia’s media comes a responsibility to honesty and ethics, over many years it has been proven beyond all doubt that Mr Murdoch’s organisations have not only failed to meet these responsibilities but have abused their power to the detriment of our democracy.
Therefore, I will not be participating in a staged News Ltd run version of “privatised democracy”. I also use this opportunity to announce my new media ownership policy.
In the National Interest, it is important that we remove the corrosive effect of Mr Murdoch’s control over our national discourse and, if re-elected, we will re-introduce restrictions on foreign ownership of our domestic news media with the immediate effect of dismantling that unhealthy level of interference in our democracy.”
And they all lived happily ever after.
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Does it really matter that much that it will be delay on free-to-air by one hour? Will the interests of public be put at a significant disadvantage by this wait, considering the average punter is more interested in Masterchef than the policy announcements of either political party?
So, 30% of households get it first. AAP will still watch Sky News or watch the live streaming on the Daily Telegraph’s website and then write copy … which will pop up on 70% of news sites.
Let’s get real.
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Simon, what you say is true. It won’t have any meaningful effect.
However there is a very important principle involved. News organisations are supposed to provide each other clean feeds. It’s an unwritten (and written) rule. The main issue is the hypocrisy shown by News Ltd in this situation. They are on a jihad against the ABC, and are relishing in the fact that they have tripped up the ABC.
Wait until the ABC shuts out Sky from something. The cries from News Ltd will be deafening.
News are being very coy about their terminology of the feeds. yes they are making them clean, but they are providing a 1 hour delay. And in the news business that is death.
Lucky that the two contestants are as boring as bat shit and won’t say anything meaningful anyway.
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Carob is right. There are journalistic principles at stake here. Regardless of the level of interest in this programme, an agreement should be honoured.
News Ltd continues to put it’s own profit before the journalistic ethics and standards.
I trust the ABC to deliver impartial information and contribution to unbiased debate.
I don’t trust Sky News; The Australian, the Tele or Fox News to do that.
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Thed Murdoch press needs to show bias to offset the left wing bias we are all so use to on the ABC
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Dennis, that is such a flawed argument. The ABC goes to a lot of effort to be independent. The argument that the ABC is so full of left wing bias is something that has been refuted numerous times. To make a statement like that is to impune the credibility of the journalist involved. And trust me. Those journalists in particular take their independence very very seriously.
The issue at hand is that people on either the right or the left see the world through such a subjective prism that centrist media will appear left to the people on the right and right to the people on the left.
The fact that the ABC seems to upset people on the left and teh right seems to prove to me that they remain by and large in the middle.
And the Murdoch press show bias that reflects the feelings of their owner and the judgement call that they make to sell the most papers or get the most viewers. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but they are NOT doing it in order to rectify some sort of imbalance caused by the ABC. They do it cause controversy. And by taking a position that is to the right, they maximise sales with the right wing, and don’t loose readers on the left who are not engaged with their brands anyway.
It’s just creating a content for your audience.
What makes News Ltd uncomfortable (actually, that is an uderstatement). What drives News Ltd batshit is that the ABC produces content without having to have think about what they have to say in order to have as many people as possible engage with that content. Well that’s the ABC’s claim. They have the luxury of saying “we don’t care about the ratings” when a show tanks, and crowing about the ratings when a story does well.
And teh fact is, News faes a new world order. With their fundamental business model being the delivery of news across a whole slew of platforms, they need to reduce competition as much as possible. And whilst the internet is takinga way business. It is impossible to target the army of bloggers and independent psuedo journalists that it has created.
An easier target is state run broadcasters. They are big, highly visible, politically vulnerable and able to be targetted easily.
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All you good little luvvies railing against Rotten Rupert — I assume you were equally vocal in 2007, when every News Ltd paper, except the Herald Sun, backed Kevin Rudd.
And if you want to complain about Lupert the Love God’s near-total domination of Oz old media, take it up with the Clock Collector. It was Keating, and his paranoia about Melbourne’s establishment , that inspired the changes to law allowing the takeover of the Herald & Weekly Times.
So, instead of three Big Media behemoths, Australia was reduced to just two. And as one of those was Fairfax, where SMH editor Peter Fray today urges his reporters to channel their own “inner David Marr” (see Mumbrella’s text of his assinine speech), it was all but inevitable that Murdoch would end up with control of the whole country.
Today’s release of newspaper circulation numbers will further make that point about Fairfax — especially the Fin Review and The Age.
Blame Keating, you labor-voting hep cats — except if it happens to be one of those years when Rupert throws in his lot with the left.
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@ Bold Type: I don’t believe I said I was a labor voter. I said I didn’t trust Murdoch media reporting because it was often biased.
As opposed to your writing, which tends to fall under the category of smart arse.
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@BoldType: I don’t think anyone here (other than yourself and dennis) is turning this into something politcial.
The issue here is more how Rupert responds to competition. That is what is being analysed.
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Carrob wrote: “The issue at hand is that people on either the right or the left see the world through such a subjective prism that centrist media will appear left to the people on the right and right to the people on the left.”
Ah-ha. Now I understand. Hitler was a centrist because he riled both Churchill and Stalin.
Apologies to Godwin and his law, but a moment’s reflection should have stopped you putting that shallow piece of logic on pixels.
Why should Murdoch, like him or not (and I don’t), help the ABC? Mark Scott has almost a billion dollars of taxpayer money at his disposal and is using to compete with private-enterprise operations who must risk their own capital and, when market share is dimished by state-subsidised competition, the wrath of shareholders.
If you think think this is a flawed analogy, it would be interesting to see your opinion of, say, government plans to build a taxpayer-backed automobile.
Ford and GMH would be ropable. And Wendi’s octagenarian paramour has every right to be just as stroppy — and non-cooperative.
Sylvia Bennett: Smart arse? Thanks for that. I’ll take that crack as an endorsement, given its origin
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@BoldType,
My logic i not flawed at all. Although your Hitler analogy is such a long bow that it so laughable and not even worth responding to such rubbish.
Your anology on automobiles is flawed, and it is flawed because there are somethings that are just run better by the state. The private sector has proven itself, many times over, to not be the best way of providing every single service that people in a modern society require. You know that. And yes, even the government has been heavily involved in the automobile industry. How much of GM does the American taxpayer now own? Are they ropable about being bailed out by the government?
Mark Scott has a billion dollars to run an independent media organisation that the Australian government, has, in its wisdom decreed is necessary to have in a stable democracy. And I couldn’t agree more with that logic.
Having an independent media is important. And as news ltd is discovering, delivering news is not a particularly profitable business. Sports, drama, movies and entertainment is where news makes most of its profits. Not delivering news.
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@Bold type. Perhaps I shouldn’t have referred to your writing style as smart. So I’ll say it again, any political leanings I have are irrelevant, I simply said I cannot trust Murdoch Media because it often contains bias .
With reference to the underhanded treatment of the ABC – it seems you defend it on the basis that News Ltd is in business.
Is that also the reason we must accept copyright infringement (Fox News), telephone hacking (News of the World), publishing fake photos (The Australian) and on-going attacks on public media (BBC, ABC)?
The US long ago lost its battle to keep its public media strong and independant, and I for one am very much against he diminution of public space, especially public broadcasting space by private enterprise that cannot be trusted.
Be in business by all means, but do not threaten the ethics and standards of journalism to stay there.
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The Hitler Card
Urban Dictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com.....ler%20Card
A common last ditch effort in a heated political debate to steer the argument back in one’s favor by declaring your opponent’s position to be that of Adolf Hitler. Often times this is done with little thought as to whether or not adolf hitler was for or against a particular side. Who cares about logic it’s just fun to insult your opponents by likening them or their beliefs to tyrannical despots.
If you wish to play the Hitler Card and not look like a total tool here’s some examples of Adolf Hitler’s stances or at least what he claimed publicly.
He was For: abortion, capital punishment, censorship, eugenics, gun control, racial purity, and vegetarianism.
He was against: atheism, capitalism, communism, democracy, drinking, the disabled, feminists, Jews, Jehovah’s witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, labor unions, pornography, prostitution, psychoanalysis, and smoking.
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“Although your Hitler analogy is such a long bow that it so laughable and not even worth responding to such rubbish.” – And this one isn’t such a long bow?? – “They are on a jihad against the ABC”. So going by your logic then Carrob, Murdoch media are in a Holy War with the ABC???? AND…
“Wait until the ABC shuts out Sky from something. The cries from News Ltd will be deafening.” – Did you actually read the story. Here is a line from the report: “The ABC has declined to provide a live feed of its television programs, such as last night’s Q and A featuring Prime Minister Julia Gillard.” And this isnt the first time they have done that. AND…
“And the Murdoch press show bias that reflects the feelings of their owner..” – With the likes of Wendy Harmer, Laurie Oakes (Kevin Rudd’s mate) to name but two of many journalists and commentators that are unashamedly slightly left and employed by News Ltd I would have thought that there is equal opportunity for all. AND…
“I simply said I cannot trust Murdoch Media because it often contains bias” – Sylvia, no more biased in their views than Fairfax press. AND…
“There are journalistic principles at stake here.” Come on Sylvia. The whole idea of journalism/news is to get the scoop on your competitors. I am sure even the ABC journalists would agree with that. It isnt a perfect world where everyone shares and shares alike. Of course there will be dirty tricks to get the scoop on competitors. If that means gprovciding the rights to broadcast an hour after the program starts….so be it.
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Mathew,
Have you not noticed the vitriolic nature of News Ltd in their attacks on the ABC of late? What about James Murdochs attack on the BBC earlier this year?
Yes, the Murdoch machine is on a jihad against public broadcasters around the world. It’s irrefutable and any media commentator worth their salt would agree with me.
Except of course the ones employed by News Ltd.
Oh, and of course,
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Top of the thread was interesting, but here we are the bottom with Carrob referencing the worth of everything and anything according to “I think”, “I believe” “I know” etc. Look, I’ve raised a bunch of teenagers, so I understand the ego-based emotionalism and insecurity. And don’t worry, you’ll grow out of it.
As for Stephen, he’s so eager to demonstrate he knows how to Google, he can’t quite grasp that the Hitler reference wasn’t a comparison but an example of reductio ad absurdum. That’s from the Latin, Stephen, and it means, like, you know, reducing a contention to the really really absurd in order to demonstrate the falsity to the original.
Hitler was also a rabid anti-smoker, a vegetarian and tee-totaller whose deputy was a junkie. Apart from those well-known character flaws, he would have made a great Greens candidate.
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Boldtype: oh look, Im sorry, I didn’t realise…. You’re a mother or father or something – you must be right.
Matthew.. I wasn’t talking about Fairfax, I was talking about News Ltd. No-one seems to disagree that News Ltd publishes/broadcasts “news” which has the same bias as its owner…. which must mean you have all come to accept unethical journalism.
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Sylvia, I know you were talking about News Ltd. I think if you read what I actually wrote other than the quotes from you, you will see I said …”no more biased in their views than Fairfax press.” I never said you were talking about Fairfax. I simply put forward a fact that they are no more biased in their views than other media (using Fairfax as an example). I am sorry that you could not understand my rhetoric. I will try to explain it next time to make it easier.
Also I am sure that all the journalists that work for News Ltd across all media are appreciative of your comments of them being unethical. I am almost certain they would like to discuss this with you. Maybe a letter to the editor so they have the opportunity to refute your comments.
Carrob, really…a jihad? That’s pathetic. Again, maybe this is something you should take up with News Ltd journalists as well. A letter to the editor or to all News Ltd journalists. Or is the prospect of both Sylvia and yourself been proven wrong and publicly ridiculed too confronting?
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@BoldType, What you are actually saying is “I have nothing to add to this discussion, best just attack the people discussing it”. I can’t help but wonder where you work though….
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@Mathew, Are you serious? Happily take it up with News Ltd journalists. Most Fridays. Most amused by the fact that you feel that you have convincingly won the argument. That takes a special kind of delusion.
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Have I stumbled into Delimiter?
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@ Carrob. Hahahaha….Thanks for that. So the personal attacks on one’s character begins because thats all you have. That’s great. I am really confused though as you obviously are? Where are the signs in my comment that I feel I have convincingly won the argument? You obviously feel I have to say that. There is no need to attack me personally with flipent, ignorant and stupid comments about being delusional. I never made a comment or attacked your personal character. I simply was opposing your comments as I would in any debate. Obviously you are not able to debate without taking comments into the gutter and attacking individuals. And could you please advise me of where you take on the News Ltd journalists most Friday’s please?
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@Mathew Lewis. The Aurora Hotel. For your reference I will remind you of what you wrote “Or is the prospect of both Sylvia and yourself been proven wrong and publicly ridiculed too confronting?”
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@ Matthew. I have written to the editor of the Australian several times. Never had a response though. Nor do they print my comments to their online stories anymore.
I emphasised that I was talking about New and not Fairfax because you seemed to be using Fairfax as an excuse for News Ltd’s lack of ethics.
Thanks for the rhetoric though….
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