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Pravda is independent
“The ABC is Australia’s independent and comprehensive national public broadcaster. The ABC’s independence - from government and commercial influence - enables it to report without fear or favour.” FABC Vic Info sheet: GS 1st Aug. 2007 “…Australia …is entitled to genuinely independent, accessible and reliable media outlets whose programming is …untainted by the commercial and/or political interests of proprietors.” – David Salter, Crikey, 21 October, 2014. “…Australia has a strong, independent public broadcaster…”-Michelle Guthrie, Melbourne Press Club, 19th June 2018
Once upon a time at a fashionable city restaurant
Adrain Advartize, Public Relations Officer of the largest fast-food chain in Australia, Krustyburgers, has just arrived at the silver service restaurant, ten minutes early, so as to mentally prepare for his lunch meeting with Barry Broadcaster, the C.E.O. of Channel 8 Television.
Adrian has been told by his board in no uncertain terms that they are very unhappy with Channel 8’s Health and Lifestyle weekly show currently placing so much emphasis on diet and emphasising the dangers of fast food, otherwise described as junk food. As much as he knows Channel 8 will have to acquiesce to his request for the show’s orientation being changed, considering how much money they receive from them in advertising, he still wishes to approach the subject delicately, hoping Barry understands without explicit threats being necessary.
When Barry arrived Adrain was smart enough to start off the conversation with small talk and they both enjoyed their lunches of grain fed Wagyu beef eye fillet steaks with pine mushrooms, artichokes and baked potatoes, washed down with a glass or two of Penfolds Cabernet Sauvignon.
On sipping their post luncheon brandies in their relaxed mode Adrian assumed the time was right to introduce the reason for the meeting, and waited for the next pause in conversation to begin. When it came it was actually Barry who spoke first.
“Adrian, I should take this opportunity to mention that our majority shareholder is very enthusiastic, on a personal level, about the upcoming national referendum to lower the voting age. He asks that in the spirit of reciprocity Krustyburgers should print on all their paper placemats in their restaurants an endorsement of lowering the age.”
“Huh!”
“He asks that in the spirit of reciprocity Krustyburgers should print on all their paper placemats in their restaurants, an endorsement of lowering the age.”, repeats Barry.
“What do you mean, ‘He asks that in the spirit of reciprocity Krustyburgers should print on all their paper placemats in their restaurants, an endorsement of lowering the age.’?”
Adrian is rather taken back. There he was, at a meeting to extort (in a metaphoric sense) a favour from the network chap, and suddenly he finds that it is he who is being extorted.
‘Why on earth should we do that and risk alienating so many of our customers?”, he almost shouts.
“Well Adrian, considering how much prime time air we give you, especially the first in and the last out in ad breaks, I should think it is incumbent on your business not to deny us this favour.”
“But we had to pay more for that, so as to outbid the other advertisers.”
Adrian notices Barry has no response to that, as though conceding that doing a business deal at market rates does not accrue any extra favours. Unfortunately, Adrian realises he now also has no leverage over Barry to ‘extort’ a change of programming. Why should Channel 8 risk their reputation of staying clear of controversial public issues, just to placate an advertiser who can easily be replaced by another, albeit at a slightly lower payment?
Despite the steaks and Napoleon brandy, Adrian now finds he is not enjoying his lunch that much at all.
Confusing the client/patron relationship of ancient Rome with the 'equal footing' contractual relationship of today.
The fallacy in the ‘commercial media is not independent’ argument is that it tends to assume that the advertiser / media outlet relationship is somehow an imbalanced dominant and submissive partner one. The TV/radio station is forever sitting on tenterhooks hoping advertisers will come to them and advertise, and when they do they are so  grateful they will always go out of their way to pander to the advertiser’s every whim.
But why should we think that? Is it not an exchange of values? The outlet gets money and the advertiser gets his product mentioned in two million, plus, homes. When the advertiser allegedly threatens to pull his advertising unless the station takes a different slant on reporting the news / presenting a documentary whatever, what he is doing is gambling with losing the value of having his product mentioned on TV. All the station would have to do is to call the advertiser’s bluff. There might be other media outlets but there are also other advertisers.
One extra incentive to call the advertisers bluff would be that it is not that simple to just change your editorial content to pacify the client. When the outlet does that what it is doing is in effect damaging its own product. The product of the outlet is its reputation and integrity. Being known as a cash for comment media outlet is hardly something to enhance radio or TV station ratings.
In the odd circumstance where a media outlet did cave in its presentation to financial inducements it, it was probably the case that they thought the deal from the advertiser was extremely generous, or that the show host himself had an arrangement with an advertiser unbeknown to the management.
Cash for Comment Scandal
In 1999 it was revealed that two popular talkback radio hosts on Sydney radio station 2UE, John Laws and Alan Jones, had been receiving substantial payments from businesses in return for favourable on-air comments or for ceasing what had previously been critical comments on some organisations such as the banks. This was done without disclosure of such arrangements to listeners, or even the management of 2UE.
When charged with breaking journalistic ethical standards their surprising response was that they were not employed as journalists, but entertainers and as such had no duty of journalistic integrity.
As bad and embarrassing as this was for station 2UE, it is difficult to see how this episode proves that commercial media has a serious ‘independence’ drawback as compared to government owned media. If commercial show hosts abuse their position by selling comments for cash without informing their employers, then there is no reason why one would say it is impossible for government show hosts to try to attempt the same.
Also, this scandal wasn’t discovered by a Royal Commission with its extra powers to summon witnesses and otherwise search for the truth. It was discovered by journalists at a different network who thought, correctly, that it would make a good story. What better way to enhance your networks reputation than by revealing ethical shortcomings in a competing network. And consequently, what better way to ensure integrity for the major news networks than by the fear of being exposed as a media organ that sells comment for cash.
Pravda has High Public Support
TV viewers are happy with ‘their ABC’ with “over 84% of Australians believe that the national broadcaster provides a valuable service to the community.[while] 84% believe that its reporting is accurate and fair; 80% think that it does a good job on country and regional issues and 78% that ABC TV is of high quality.” - Fiona Stanley
“When we ask the public what they think, 85% tell us they value the ABC.” - Mark Scott, Crikey, 27th October 2014
This argument that the ABC is very popular is, unfortunately for its promoters, self-defeating on its face. Media broadcasting companies don’t need anywhere near 80% listener / viewership to be successful. Dominant Australian networks like Macquarie Media or channels 7 or 9 make profits for their shareholders with ratings, for all their affiliates, of around 33%. Even channel 10 seems to remain solvent with their ratings in the low teens.
Either the ABC is popular with Australians or, in reality, it isn’t.
If it isn’t then there is no justification for the taxpayer to finance it, especially considering the plethora of alternative media outlets cramming the airwaves and internet.
And if ABC TV is truly popular, due to its programming and not simply because there are no ads, then what is the harm in privatisation when you would be starting off with very high goodwill/viewership?
No longer would it have to regularly beg the government for appropriate funding, nor put up with directors on the board appointed by politicians. Those Australians who enjoy current ABC programming, and who, statistically, are from higher income levels, could buy shares, not necessarily as an investment, but to use their shareholder vote to become voting stakeholders so as to ensure standards remain as they like them to be. Operational funding would be initially from share offers, but then from either subscription, advertising, corporate donations where they get their name mentioned at the beginning of the show they sponsor, or some combination.
Public Television is Vital to Australian Democracy
"There is a strong link between healthy democracies and strong public service media…”- Ita Buttrose1
This is quite a surprising statement to make. Countries whose governments finance at arbitrary levels and appoint the senior management of the “strong” public service media are apparently more democratic than others. Really? How does it make it more democratic at election time when one of the media outlets reporting on political, social and economic matters is under the financial and managerial influence of the administration currently responsible for managing the political, social and economic matters of the country?
Has Ita every visited nondemocratic third world countries? When she gets settled in her hotel room does she turn on the TV and then channel surf to check out the variety of broadcasters on offer, only to find out that if there is more than one, they are still all run by the government?
When there is the occasional coup de’etat in either Africa or South America, does she not notice that the first actions of the new President are to secure Government House, the military barracks and something no less in importance, the state broadcaster?
To quote Wikipedia: State media,
“As of 2002, the press in most of Europe (with the exception of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) is mostly private and free of state control and ownership, along with North and South America (with the exception of Cuba and Venezuela).” (emphasis added)
So which countries might Ita think are more democratic: Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Cuba and Venezuela, or the others?
“ABC is vital to Australian democracy” -Fiona Stanley2
Erstwhile ABC Board Member and Distinguished Research professor at UWA, Fiona Stanley, has stated in a 900 word publication that the ABC is not just good at what it does in the presentation of news and current events, but in fact is vital to Australian democracy.
Is this a common pronouncement about media in the democratic world? The New York Times declares, “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, not, “Without Us America Would no Longer be Democratic”. The Guardian declares, “Independent. Always”, while others declare, “America’s Most Trusted Name in News” or “We Report. You Decide.”
As best as can be gleaned, the apparent reason for this grandiose claim is that government media helps “…Australians to participate more fully as informed citizens in a democracy.”
The reasoning follows that the serious problems confronting Australia (as of 2014) “include climate change, environmental degradation, mental illness, substance abuse, obesity and inequality”, and that because the ABC gives them more attention, or because the ABC is better in its “critical and clear” presentation, then the ABC is vital to democracy.
Well, it’s true that Australians who regularly adhere to the ABC may well be more informed on the alleged dangers of climate change, inequality etc., but aren’t they only the issues that Ms Stanley holds to be vitally important. Isn’t it a little arrogant of her to claim that she is the arbiter of what threatens Australia. If at elections Australians’ voting is motivated by other issues, does that really make us less democratic because we are not as enlightened to her beliefs and values as she would hope?
The ABC may well contribute to Australian democracy in highlighting various issues, but no more so than the plethora of other media outlets, and if it were to be closed tomorrow, the ideological gap in the market would quickly be filled by new entrants wishing to attract the viewers recently bereft of their ideologically preferred broadcaster.
The irony of the democracy supporting claim is that, if democracy was so important to the ABC, it could have over the years spent more time highlighting and giving special attention to issues that remove impediments to, or enhance democracy in Australia, rather than just happening to report on a democratic issue whenever it might come up. Some of these being:
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One person, one vote, not.
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Two of the largest federal House of Representatives seats, Fraser (111,309) and Canberra (104,222) each have more than twice as many voters as either of the two smallest Northern Territory seats, Soloman (49,912) and Lingiari (45,234)
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In the Australian Federal Parliament the 300,000 Tasmanian voters are represented by 12 senators, while in New South Wales every 300,000 voters are represented by just one senator.
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Current members of Western Australia’s upper house, the Legislative Council, represent different numbers of constituents depending on what zone they live in. MLCs in the Agricultural, Mining and Pastoral districts needed only 127,431 votes to win a seat, while members of Metropolitan seats needed 560,818.3
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Due to the majortarian electoral system our politicians have entrenched upon us, where the gerrymander effect can thrive, in the Australian federal elections of 1954, 1961, 1969, 1990 and 1998, the party that received more preference votes still lost the election.
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Where’s the Deterrence?
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After the 2007 federal election, when the Australian Electoral Commission sent 20,633 letters to apparent multiple voters, 18,037 or 87% responded. Of that number 1,167 admitted to multiple voting, of whom 955 or 82% were excused due to confusion, poor comprehension or age; 10 were referred to the AFP and none was prosecuted.
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Similarly, after the 2016 election, 18,343 people were asked to explain why their names had been crossed off more than once. Some 7,743 allegations of voter fraud were referred to the Australian Federal Police, only 65 were investigated, and again, none was prosecuted.4
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Campaign Finance Legislation in Victoria
1. As quoted by Rob Harris in ‘ABC the embodiment of Australia: ABC chair Ita Buttrose defends broadcaster as essential to democracy’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 2020.
2. Fiona Stanley, ‘The ABC is vital to Australian democracy’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Sept. 2014
3. No thanks to special pressure by any media outlet, this system will finally be abolished as of the 2025 election.
4. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/more-than-18000-people-asked-to-explain-why-they-voted-twice-at-election-20161019-gs5cal.html
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