Simple as ABC: Murdoch out to crush competition
Date
December 12, 2013 - 4:28PM

There are few institutions more beloved of mainstream Australia than the ABC. When firestorms roar at the edge of settlement, or flood waters rise, millions of Australians instinctively turn to the national broadcaster. But they are there too for the in-between years, when nothing really happens, nothing really matters, to borrow from the Oils.

Once upon a time we reached for the bakelite dials on the Emerson Clockette Radiola. Of late we might fire up the smart phone app. Not all of us, and not every day. For many, months might go by without finding reason to listen to Aunty. Others all but live there.

The ABC is as much a part of Australian life as the first ball of the cricket season or a hot pie at the footy in July. It is the old Australia of gardening and antique shows, but also the new Australia of Good Game on iView and hundreds of Aussie hip hop artists on Triple J’s Unearthed.

Much as Cory Bernadi might dream of winding the clock back to a time when the ABC came into our homes via the crackle of a simple AM radio station, we are long past the era of anyone knocking pencils on a wooden block to pretend the cricket commentary came live from Lords. It is no more possible to separate the old and new national broadcaster than it is to separate the old and new Australia.

If you’re wondering why the harmless and largely inoffensive ABC (the odd Chaser sketch aside) has become the target of the right wing and the criminal conspiracy also known as News Corp, it’s only partly because the ABC represents the Australia of the Morphy Richards toaster and boiled mutton at the same time as it represents the country which celebrates an antipodean Ramadan or conceives of January 26 as Invasion Day. It is doing what it is meant to do, telling the story of all Australia back to all Australians and in doing that it is drawn into a struggle over the definition of what constitutes Australian culture.

But always always always there is power and money to be considered; the power of a conservative government in the short term, the wealth and power of the Murdoch family over the long arc. Abbott’s unimpressive bullies hate the idea of being exposed as fools and scoundrels in exactly the same way that the Hawke and Keating governments hated it. Note well that when politicians of any stripe complain of bias they don’t actually mean bias. They mean anyone who questions them; who subverts their designs; who gets in the way. There is no more biased media anywhere in the free world than that owned by the Murdoch clan, but crucially for the moment it is biased in favour of the Abbott administration. So that’s not bias.

Murdoch meanwhile is utterly transparent in his motivations. The ABC is a competitor, one funded by the public treasury and thus not amenable to being brutalised by market power in the same way as smaller, weaker challengers, be they businesses like Fairfax or even widely unread individual bloggers who make The Australian’s highly paid economics writers look like idiots.

In the end it would not matter if every ABC staffer was sacked and replaced by neo-fascist butt monkeys. As long as Aunty is taking a single dollar in potential profit away from the Murdoch Clan, they will try to destroy it.



Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/blogs/blunt-instrument/simple-as-abc-murdoch-out-to-crush-competition-20131212-2z73f.html#ixzz2nFlcm9ik

Second hand news source or STFU.

ABC > Fairfax > News Corp

BBC, Reuters or Al-Jazeera. Fuck the petty squabbles of Australian media.

Sloppy Sausage Time.

Fox and Al-Jazeera are shit house, I like CNN.

You realise the two are more or less interchangeable, right?

Best International news source is clearly BBC in my opinion.

How so?

Fox's main rival is Time Warner, CNN's owner. The two news networks are essentially interchangeable just CNN isn't quite as conservative driven and fear mongering.

Ah ok, CCN(international) have some great people like Fareed Zakaria and Christiane Amanpour, for those interested in World news etc.

[youtube]Dbq5Oue3xVo[/youtube]
:lol:

I can't stand Piers Morgan though.

Edited by iridium1010: 12/12/2013 11:45:48 PM

Nobody can. The only reason he has followers on twitter is so people can rip on him 24/7.

SBS...

Edited by iridium1010: 13/12/2013 01:21:27 AM

If you're going to get your news from SBS you may as well just cut out the middle man and go straight to Reuters.

Chris isn't an option?

Murdoch has done this with the bbc. His daughter on the other hand has stated that people need a national broadcaster that doesn't fall on the whim of a owner and just broadcasts news. He is doing the exact thing here.

interesting SBS doesn't even get a mention......

SST. Legitz.

I get all the relevant news I need from the EA Games Australia Facebook page.

8-[

FourFourTwo

i like watching APAC from time to time.......to see what ACTUALLY occurs in the parliament and senate......

#facts

I won't pick up on you advertising EA if you give me a signed Bale top 8-[.

Surely he must be paying some kind of royalties to FFT.

I suppose you'd be used to having to pay extra to actually read the content...

Russia Today, obviously.

ABC.
Quite frankly my preference for news is still Al Jazeera.

RedKat.