Gerard Henderson, in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, on the mates that maintain the fiction of balance
IN December 2006, (Mark) Scott announced that Paul Chadwick would be the first ABC director of editorial policies. A highly qualified woman with considerable experience in public broadcasting did not even receive an interview. From then it was clear the cliques would have little to fear.
When the appointment was announced, the ABC put out a speech made by Chadwick in 1999 praising ABC TV's left-leaning Media Watch program. In 1989 Chadwick invited the leftist academic Veronica Brady to write the introduction to his book Media Mates. She used the occasion to bag the Hawke Labor government - from the Left, of course. Chadwick's background is with the left-of-centre Communications Law Centre and The Age in Melbourne.
Recently Chadwick's department has issued a number of final reports. They all find that the ABC is 100 per cent correct - or close to that. This is similar to the ABC audience and consumer affairs department, headed by Kirstin McLiesh, which rejects 96 per cent of all complaints. In comparison, the equivalent total for the non-ABC Australian Press Council is 53 per cent.
(Chadwick) commissioned Denis Muller & Associates to do studies on the impartiality of ABC Radio National and the ABC Unleashed and Opinion forums, which run online.
Talk about keeping things in the family. Muller's background is similar to Chadwick's. He has worked at the Herald and The Age and taught at the Communications Law Centre.
Radio National cannot find even one conservative-inclined regular commentator to cover US, Australian or British politics. Yet Denis Muller & Associates gives it an A-plus for impartiality. It's the same with online programs - even when, for example, space is given to twice as many opponents (of) the intervention in the Northern Territory when compared with supporters.
Mark Scott announces the introduction of a director of editorial policies in a speech to the Sydney Institute on October 16, 2006:
THE person in this position will be able to provide independent advice on how effectively we are implementing our editorial policies and whether they need further iteration or review.
To achieve great journalism you need to practise journalism that is fair, accurate, balanced and objective. Journalism that lets the facts speak, rather than the private opinions of a reporter. Journalism that is rounded and complete rather than half-baked and half-told.
I want us to be hard-nosed in assessing the bias question ourselves because there are few more serious allegations that can be made against serious journalists. The ABC cannot afford to be biased, or be seen to be biased. It can take no editorial position in its news. And while there is opportunity for opinion on the ABC under the new editorial policies, there needs to be a plurality of opinion.
The ABC covers political and policy debates in more detail than any other media outlet. We provide more airtime to more politicians than any other broadcaster. We take this seriously, as we should, and our goal of providing balanced coverage of political debates is reinforced and strengthened in these new editorial policies.
