Why the ABC, and the public that trusts it, must stand firm against threats to its editorial independence
As the public debate over the ABC rages on, trust and editorial independence will make or break the public broadcaster, argues The University of Melbourne's Dennis Muller in this crossposting from The Conversation.
The people who are turning up at Save the ABC rallies around the country are defending a cultural institution they value because they trust it.
In particular, they trust its news service. Public opinion polls going back to the 1950s consistently show it is by far the most trusted in the country.
So at this time it is pertinent to look at what creates a trustworthy news service. The cornerstone is editorial independence. As opinion polls have shown time and again, where people suspect a newspaper, radio, TV or online news service of pushing some commercial or political interest, their level of trust falls.
Editorial independence does not mean giving journalists licence to broadcast or publish whatever they want or to avoid accountability for their mistakes.
It means encouraging journalists to tackle important stories regardless of what people in power might think, then backing them to make judgments based on news values and the public interest, not on irrelevant considerations such as commercial, financial or political pressure.
Editorial independence is hard won and under constant pressure from outside the newsroom.
In commercial media, this pressure comes from big advertisers or company bosses with financial or political interests to push.
In public-sector broadcasting, the pressure comes from the federal government, which provides the funding and has powerful means of subjecting the broadcaster to intense political pressure.
A robust editorial leadership is essential to resisting this heat. It’s a daily battle. If the senior editorial management wilts, the weakness is swiftly transmitted down the hierarchy.
Middle-level editors and the staff journalists who work to them start looking over their shoulders, tempted to take easy options and avoid possible heat. The easiest option is self-censorship, dodging sensitive stories, leaving out material or watering it down.
This is where the ABC is at a crossroads. It has as its managing director and editor-in-chief Michelle Guthrie, a person with no journalistic background and who until recently showed scant signs of understanding the impact on the ABC’s editorial independence of the Turnbull government’s relentless bullying.
Then last month she gave a speech at the Melbourne Press Club in which she said Australians regard the ABC as a great national institution and deeply resent it being used as “a punching bag by narrow political, commercial or ideological interests”.
It was a start, and now the cause has been taken up by ABC staff themselves and by the wider public in the Save the ABC movement led by ABC Friends.
It is strongly reminiscent of events at The Age nearly 30 years ago, when I was an associate editor there. Then, a Save The Age campaign showed how effective a public outpouring of support for a news outlet can be when they set out to defend one they trust.
The campaign’s origins lay in concerns among senior journalists at the paper over what might happen to its editorial independence when receivers were appointed in 1990. This followed a disastrous attempt by “young” Warwick Fairfax to privatise the Fairfax company, which was the paper’s owner.
A group of senior journalists, including the late David Wilson and the distinguished business writer Stephen Bartholomeusz, formed The Age Independence Committee. It drew up a charter of editorial independence.
The key passages stated that:
- the proprietors acknowledge that journalists, artists and photographers must record the affairs of the city, state, nation and the world fairly, fully and regardless of any commercial, political or personal interests, including those of any proprietors, shareholders or board members
- full editorial control of the newspaper, within a negotiated, fixed budget, is vested in the editor
- the editor alone decides the editorial content, and controls the hiring, firing and deployment of editorial staff.
The Save The Age campaign generated tremendous public support. Former prime ministers Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam, who had barely been on speaking terms since the Dismissal 15 years earlier, joined together at the head of a public demonstration in Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens. One of the campaign slogans was “Maintain Your Age”, a pun on Whitlam’s post-Dismissal election slogan, “Maintain Your Rage”.
Eventually, the receivers signed the charter and so, after some wrangling, did the new owners led by the Canadian-born newspaper baron, Conrad Black. Black is gone but the charter remains.
Like The Age in 1990, the ABC today has strong public support.
Like The Age in 1990, senior journalistic staff, most notably the Melbourne “Mornings” radio presenter Jon Faine, and former presenter of 7.30 on ABC TV, Kerry O’Brien, have shown leadership, lending their profile and authority to the cause.
But unlike The Age, the ABC does not have publicly acknowledged bipartisan political support.
Whatever Malcolm Turnbull’s private views of the ABC, and whatever the stated policy of his government, the facts are that since 2014 the Abbott and Turnbull governments have cut $338 million from the ABC’s funding, and the federal council of the Liberal Party voted last month to sell it off.
It is quite possible that when it reports in September, the present inquiry into the ABC’s competitive neutrality will provide some impetus to this proposition or propose some other ways to clip the ABC’s wings.
It is significant in the context of editorial independence that the inquiry is taking a particular interest in the ABC news service. That is the part of the ABC most detested by politicians, and on which the present government has focused its most intense pressure.
If editorial independence weakens, public trust will weaken too. That would make the ABC an even more attractive political target for a hostile government.
Denis Muller is a senior research fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
“since 2014 the Abbott and Turnbull governments have cut $338 million from the ABC’s funding”
Yes Mr. Murdoch, no problem sir, consider it done…
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By ‘editorial independence’ you mean, of course, ceaseless, unwavering left-wing clap trap funded by Australian taxpayers.
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That a “senior research fellow” at the “Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne” could write such rubbish is troubling, particularly for any student unfortunate enough to come under his tutelage.
To start with, in (repeatedly) lining up a private-enterprise media outlet – The Age – against a publicly funded one, he’s comparing apples and oranges.
Also, he states as a fact that the ABC has been subjected to “relentless bullying”. What rot.
He fails to address the reason why people want it privatised, shut down, whatever: It’s rampant, daily, inherent bias.
Yes, Labor MPs may well be criticised, but always from the left.
I employ journalists regularly.
I sure hope none have been exposed to Mr Muller’s warped view.
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I wouldn’t be looking to the Age as a guide for successful philosophical or commercial underpinning of anything. Advertisers abandoned its pages over a few short years as the editorial tone and particularly the columnists increasingly made clear their contempt for ‘trade’ in their relentless attacks on what they saw as consumerism.
Imagine being the advertising manager for a major retailer, invited to regularly spend tens of thousands to extoll the excitement of the very thing being sneeringly derided in the column on the facing page. That would grow old very quickly.
Add to that the fact that ABC Online was able to eat Fairfax’ lunch, indulging their very similar demographics nation-wide for free and denying Fairfax any chance of ever erecting a paywall in the transition to online. An unfettered ABC in this context has done our industry more harm than good.
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If only the ABC did as the above recommended:
“The proprietors acknowledge that journalists, artists and photographers must record the affairs of the city, state, nation and the world fairly, fully and regardless of any commercial, political or personal interests, including those of any proprietors, shareholders or board members”
But the ABC journalists, in fact the complete ABC outlook is a summation of all the one eyed people inside.
However the biggest issue is that its shareholder is a representative of all Australians and therefore its journalists cannot have their own way in terms of independence. It must cater for all views, and it does not.
The ABC actively interferes with politics to the detriment of, quite often, the mass of voters. It has one line on illegal immigrants, it has one line on the Greens issues on the environment, it has one line on provision of social services, (infinite growth), it has one line on swamping the airwaves with its news and current affairs output, (i.e. its own journalists views) such that no commercial network can get an economic return in this highly profitable current affairs segment of the media audiences.
What these ABC journalists have done is limited the progress of the Aboriginal race socially and economically, it has largely aided the de – industrialisation of Australia though its economically illiterate “green” advocacy, and led, through its multicultural based high population immigration support, despoiled the infrastructure amenities and social comfort for existing tax payers .
What a trail of woe.
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Enough of the self righteous posturing. The ABC can remain “independent” yet be made accountable. When you take money from taxpayers, there are strings attached, like it or not.
Every government organisation operates by that principle.
The ABC is no special case, and if it thinks it is, it needs to be shut down immediately then rebooted with adults in charge. Right now the ABC is behaving like young adolescents who’ve been told they have to to chores to justify their pocket money. Grow up!
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If you want to know what IPA employees do during their coffee break, read the comments above.
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Geez Mumbrella, It’s not even a full moon yet, but here they are trolling en masse, the usual angry Murdoch ugly’s.
Roger Colman; Don’t be such a blow- hard. Remember the ‘Less Is More’. Ad?
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… of course what Mr Muller conveniently omits to mention is that the $338 million is spread over nine financial years during which the ABC’s taxpayer-funded appropriation will be close to $10 billion – so less than 3.5%. Any commercial operation in the real world competing against the international giants invading their territory would be thankful for such a small reduction in revenue.
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Mueller completely misses the point. Editorial leadership is about quality. The problem is that too many organisations in media don’t employ leaders who understand the consumer.
The Age and the ABC (and the Oz) are platforms for individuals who think journalism is about lecturing the public.
What the digital era has done is put the power with consumers. They simply go find what they need rather than be force fed by dominant channels.
Right now the biggest business opportunity is for a media investor who gets that. And an abc board that is not clueless about content.
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Trust.
Do I trust the ABC to:
1. Cover the energy debate in a balanced fashion?
2. Cover the environment in a balanced fashion?
3. Cover the struggle of our regions (against the latest refugee / humanitarian expose)?
4. Cover the political debate in a balanced fashion?
5. Cover news stories that don’t fit it’s oft-denied-yet-ever-present ideology or politics (eg. an ex-PM being investigated by two sets of state police for corruption – and the ABC judging this as not news-worthy?)
No – I do not trust the ABC any more.
Yes – I would like to see it reformed.
And finally, no – I don’t think I’m a minority view on this.
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Well that’s a bit of the chicken and the egg….the reason you don’t known you are in the minority for not trusting the source is because you don’t trust the source which shows you are in the minority.
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… said with the confidence of someone who doesn’t actually know anything about it …
According to figures promulgated by the very people who are organising the protests against the upcoming “freeze” to taxpayer funds, the ABC is “trusted” by 82% of the population, but only “accessed” by less than 50% in any given week (12 million). That means that a third of the population who say they trust the ABC do so without actually viewing, listening or reading anything it produces.
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