For the ABC, the US election was a battle between good and evil.

If green Left journalists believe what they want to believe, that is their right,. But when they broadcast balderdash to the public, they are abrogating their duty and misleading audiences.

Chris Kenny, The Weekend Australian, November 8, 2024.

For informed adults the US election was about voters having a say on their future and the nation’s  prospects by choosing between the competing philosophies and promises of two major parties as enunciated by their chosen candidates. For  objective observers that leads to fascinating debates about records and  performance, character and capability, and economics and foreign  affairs.

But to John Lyons, the ABC’s grandiosely titled global affairs editor,  it was a visceral battle between good and evil, befitting a Christmas  pantomime. “(Trump) is building up a campaign based very much on fear,  it’s fear of the enemy within, it’s fear of so-called Venezuelan gangs  who are armed with military grade weapons, its fear of, you know, this  country being swamped, it’s fear of the future,” said Lyons on election  eve, “versus Kamala Harris is very much building something looking at the future and hope, and to almost use a pun the question is, will fear trump hope?”

This analysis told us a great deal about why Kamala Harris and the Democrats lost the election, but not in the way that Lyons intended. This was the false narrative the green left media spews forth so constantly that it  becomes stuck in its own fantasyland, unable to report or understand  reality, because they are too busy concocting their ideological nirvana. Perish the thought any of these people got out and speak to real people who  earn a living in the real economy and might have a practical perspective on government, leadership, the economy and America’s place in the  world. The ABC, at taxpayer’s expense, flew Lyons to the US so he could  spout the very same partisan vitriol and detached delusion that he could just as easily have done from a vegan bar in Glebe.

The reality was close to the polar opposite of the Lyons’ Punch and  Judy show. By promising lower taxes, secure borders and stronger law and order Trump was selling hope, and by branding him a Nazi, fascist and  threat to democracy it was Harris relying on fear. If this is the  distortion we get from senior analysts in the Love Media, is it any  wonder they get their predictions so wildly wrong? And what a scandal it is that they indulge their ill-informed diatribes as they travel the  world at our expense, misinforming millions of taxpayers back home.

No doubt many ABC viewers would have been surprised by the Trump victory. Yet I cannot think of one informed person I have spoken to in the past month who was not expecting Trump to win, or at the very least, for it to be a toss of the coin result. As election day dawned in Australia, the ABC’s false narrative grasped onto a single outlier poll in the inconsequential state of Iowa, comfortably held by the Republicans and carrying only 6 electoral college votes. With this single poll pointing to a Democrat win in that state RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas introduced the pollster as someone who’s results “are often correct” when others are not. “Is it a poll that is going to be a sort of predictor of what might happen?” she mused on air. “If accurate it would reshape the overall result.” Sure; the US system is so data rich that we examine poll averages of carefully chosen reputable polls.

Yet the ABC was fixated on one poll in a nothing state. On morning television Lyons told ABC viewers, “But if Kamala Harris wins Iowa she’ll therefore almost certainly win Michigan and Wisconsin in which case she would be elected president, almost certainly, if those numbers hold.” Forgive me for reminding you that your tax dollars sent Lyons to America to broadcast his green Left feedback loop. By the way, Trump won Iowa by an increased margin of 13 percentage points, and he leads in Michigan and Wisconsin. If green Left journalists believe what they want to believe, that is their right. But when they broadcast this balderdash to the public, they are abrogating their duty and misleading audiences. That is clearly a professional failure, but when it is done at public expense under the legislated ABC charter, it is a fundamental breach of that charter, a failure of the public broadcaster and a serious problem for a functioning democracy. Let me remind you, as I have demonstrated in these pages many times, these same journalists push the same misleading dross on climate change, natural disasters, renewable energy, and even economics. The leftist media run so many false narratives it comes as a surprise when they get something right – like the grand final score.

Also in Washington, at your expense, for the ABC’s election coverage was 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson. That might sound reasonable given her role, but let me remind you that Ferguson compiled a three-part Four Corners series in 2018, modestly billed as the “story of the century,” that claimed Trump colluded with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to win the election and “subvert American democracy.” This preposterous and vainglorious effort must have cost taxpayers at least a million dollars. It was absurd at the time and the central allegations have been completely discredited by subsequent congressional and judicial inquires. Yet the erroneous stories are still there on the ABC website for anyone to see, there has been no correction or apology. And we pay for Ferguson to “report” on the election for the ABC.

The only value taxpayers got out of this saga was seeing Ferguson’s face turn sourpuss at the result. Maybe it was the Russians again – time for another series. What hope did ABC viewers have of getting factual election coverage, or objective analysis of Trump’s strengths and Harris’s weakness? We got only the reverse. So, they got another big story wrong – just like they failed to see the fall of Kevin Rudd coming, the rise of Tony Abbott, or the first Trump win. They also failed to see how Malcolm Turnbull was in strife or pick Scott Morrison’s path to victory. Neither do they seemed to have noticed a causal link between renewable energy projects, storage, subsidies and transmission projects on one hand, and power price increases. If the media are describing the world the way they would like it to be, they are not sharing the facts. Lyons told viewers after the election that Trump’s return to the Oval Office would lead to a trade war with China, which would be bad for Australia, adding that Trump 2.0 would be devastating also for Ukraine, Palestinians and the Lebanese.

Sounds like a disaster. Yet reputable experts would argue Trump’s return might be very good for Israel, and Ukraine, and bad for Hamas, Hezbollah, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At what point do leaders of media organisations step in and demand some professionalism from their employees? At what point do Leftist political parties realise they need to base their policies and strategies on reality rather than parlour games? This is a critical problem for the media – the false narratives of the American mainstream media also have been dramatically exposed – but this is an existential challenge for green left politics. So long as they believe their own publicity about conservatives being evil, voters being deplorable idiots and garbage, and renewable energy being cheap and reliable, they are going to keep running headfirst into blue walls of reality. As US commentator Kristin Tate summarised it pithily for me on Sky News the day after the election. “Nobody on the Left right now is asking, why did people vote for Trump, they’re just asking how could people vote for Trump.”

The Democrats, the broader Left, and the media tried to defeat Trump in 2016 by demonising him. It failed. They spent all their energy when he was President doing the same, running the Russia hoax rubbish, the impeachments, the wild mischaracterisations of his admittedly loose comments. They might have been better served developing policy and nurturing candidates. But when they won in 2020 they made the mistake of thinking those attacks worked – it was actually the liberalised pandemic mail-in ballot rules that boosted turnout by about 20 million voters enabling the Democrats to craft a victory. Those voters were nowhere to be found this week.

The Democrats needed to entice voters out. Personal abuse of Trump does not suffice as a campaign strategy. It is bad enough if the Left creates a false narrative that misleads voters, alienates people and costs them victory. But if they believe their own bunkum it can see them drift further away from reality and the concerns of voters. They need first to ask that simple question. “Why did people vote for Trump?” And as a former political adviser, I will give them some free advice. It was not because he is a fascist, wants to be a dictator for life, intends to surrender Ukraine, injects bleach into people’s lungs, plans to put his opponents in front of a firing squad, or plans to kill the planet.

ABC’s Williams right to criticise its news failings

Gerald Henderson’s Weekly Column, The Sydney Institute, August 10, 2024

Kim Williams, the recently appointed ABC chair, was in the news again this week. The Nine newspapers reported on Monday that, addressing ABC Radio National staff in late July, he had criticised the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster’s digital news platforms. Put simply, Williams claimed that much of what the ABC presented as news was not really news at all – but rather, a collection of lifestyle stories. Choosing a particular morning, he said that, after a reference to President Joe Biden, there was a story about drug usage over Christmas along with two stories about tennis. Williams complained that there was no mention of the Israel-Gaza war, or Ukraine or the recent NATO meeting or the French election.

This is not the first time that Williams has criticised ABC news and current affairs. On June 24, 2012, The Australian reported that he had told the Sky News Agenda program: “It (the ABC) breaks remarkably few stories relative to the amount of money invested in it” and added that, “we break thousands of stories a year; the ABC breaks dozens”. The “we” was a reference to News Limited – now News Corp – of which Williams was chief executive at the time. He was referring to The Australian, News Corp’s metropolitan papers and Sky News. Williams acknowledged that 7.30, Four Corners and (the now defunct) Lateline broke news – but only “occasionally”. What Williams said in 2012 remains true today. A couple of examples illustrate the point. News of the terrorist group Hamas’s early morning attack on southern Israel on October 7 reached Australia later that evening. This was already a huge international event – perhaps one of the biggest stories of the 21st century. But not to ABC TV Insiders the next morning.

The overwhelming focus of the Insiders program on October 8 was on the forthcoming referendum on the voice. There was only the briefest mention of the breaking of a ceasefire by Hamas and the terrorist organisation’s attack on civilians in the introduction. Moreover, this issue had only been discussed for a minute by the panel when presenter David Speers declared “it’s time to move on”. The last nine weeks have witnessed considerable news with respect to the Israel-Hamas war, the US presidential election, Ukraine, the French elections, civil unrest in Britain, the lead-up to the Australian elections, cost of living, and more besides. But the ABC TV Q+A program has been on what some journalists like to term a well-earned break – and replaced temporarily by a light-hearted sports program. Q+A will resume next Monday. For much of the year its panels and audiences have been leftist stacks. And then there is the ABC TV News Breakfast program which airs on the ABC main channel as well as on its dedicated news channel. News Breakfast is often replete with lifestyle stories and has overall an air of tweeness. The Sky News’ First Edition breakfast program, on the other hand, carries much more serious news.

Williams’ comments about the softness of ABC news has been welcomed by some former ABC personalities. However, as the ABC chair knows only too well, he has only limited influence over what the ABC puts to air. In a portrait piece by Martin McKenzie-Murray in the March 2024 issue of The Monthly, Williams was quoted as saying that “it’s also important to remember that there’s a management that runs the place and to understand the separation of responsibilities between a board and the management”. Quite so. The ABC chair and his/her board cannot run the organisation on a day-to-day basis. Nor should it. Sure, the board has an oversight role. But it’s the ABC managing director and the senior staff who run the organisation. In theory, at least. In fact, the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster is very much a staff collective – some call it a soviet – where the staff effectively control the organisation on a day-to-day basis with respect to content.

So far, Williams’ contribution to the debate about the ABC has been positive – and direct. In March, he told the Fourth Estate podcast – hosted by former ABC journalist Monica Attard – that he expected that ABC staff should be ﾓfair-mindedﾔ and added: “If you don’t want to reflect a view that aspires to impartiality, don’t work at the ABC.” Moreover, Williams understands the sensitivity of ABC staff to criticism that leads many to go into denial when challenged. In his June 2024 Sir Redmond Barry Lecture, he said: “No one enjoys being critical, but well-run organisations must be honest about their performance. And if we’re honest, there are important areas for improvement.” However, the evidence suggests that Williams has not come to grips with the ABC’s central problem – beyond the fact that some of its staff are activists who lack impartiality and can’t take criticism. Namely, that the ABC is a conservative-free zone with respect to its staff and it lacks viewpoint diversity.

Some political conservatives will not appear on the ABC due to the treatment they receive from audiences such as those on Q+A or on social media. Other political conservatives are not invited – read cancelled. As a result, there are numerous ABC panels where everyone essentially agrees with each other while the presenter agrees with them in a left-of-centre way. Most recently, on Insiders last Sunday where the viewpoint on Indigenous issues proclaimed by Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was not heard in a 60-minute program devoted primarily to Indigenous issues. Sure, some ABC staff are activists, while others lack impartiality, while others still are underperformers and most are super-sensitive to criticism. Yet the real problem with the ABC is that it lacks viewpoint diversity on political issues within the organisation and on its platforms.

This helps explain why the ABC has lost so many viewers/listeners in recent years. Many conservatives have deserted the ABC for other news sources in which conservative views get a run. After all, where do the likes of Williams believe the Sky News subscription channel and the free-to-air Sky News Regional channel obtained their audiences

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