No, and I don't believe they have a left wing agenda either. I do think the people in control of the editorial at the ABC have leftist leanings which are fairly obvious, and there is no desire for any balance.

Any specific examples of left wing imbalance?

That's because all the people with right-wing leanings are all earning big bucks in commercially funded, capitalist media instead of taking the smaller bucks on offer with the left wing government funded media.

Likely true.

So... No specific examples then?

It doesn't have to be a specific example as much as a general environment or perceptible vibe.

Thanks for the world class argument there, Dennis Denuto.

"No".

Of the ABC having a bias to the left? Are you serious?
If I said the Pope was Catholic would you ask for specific examples of how he's Catholic? Actually, you probably would.

Well, the Pope is the leader of The Catholic Church. It would stand to reason that he is Catholic (and would be readily able to be proven if ever challenged). The Pope being Catholic is something that is self evident. That the ABC leans to the left is not.

Is the ABC the very visible figurehead of some leftwing conglomerate that has missed everyone's attention except for yours?

So, without poor analogies... Do you have any specific examples of what you are claiming? I have put forward what I think is the best explanation of why you think the ABC is left leaning, and that is because you have confused the lack of a right wing message as being an imbalance to the left. Asking you to back up your assertion of bias with evidence has Ben met with mockery and derision (without requested examples at that). Who's the arrogant and egotistical one again?

The ABC adheres to a code of practice that demands impartiality. In situations where the ABC has breached this code, it's reported on itself through the way of media watch. On the flipside, News is giving itself awards for protecting it's own interests with a demonstrable bias in its reporting.

i love tony abbott because he loves me and hates dole bludgers like notorganic who try to ride him for welfare

get a job idiot

Except that I don't think it's a justified position to take. I'm asking to be convinced otherwise, and all I've had in return is "oh, every body knows that" and old Dennis Denuto's favourite "it's the vibe".

It's not very convincing.

C'mon Notor - I'm a left winger but I acknowledge that ABC has leftist leanings.

I think it's to due with the fact that they have to be incredibly PC, and bring PC is more apparent with the left side of politics. I can't really give you any explicit examples, but watching q&a and other ABC program's with this in mind, it's obvious that they are inadvertently left leaning.

If I could ride welfare like I rode your mum I'd be rich as shit son.

-PB

REKT

But it's not obvious to me. All I'm asking for is a little bit of evidence. If it were so obvious, I wouldn't think that digging something up would be this difficult.

Batfink used to use Leigh Sales' interviews with LNP figures as proof that ABC had a left bias, until of course there were videos posted of Leigh Sales conducting just as scathing interviews with members of the ALP. In fact the only person I haven't seen Leigh Sales go hard on is Matt Damon.

Adherence to a PC culture doesn't scream 'left' to me. Holding public figures to account doesn't scream 'left' to me. Quaint little quips on Q&A (which are regularly directed at progressive and conservative types alike) don't scream 'left' to me either.

To me the ABC is the closest thing that we have to a completely impartial media source in our country. I don't see where the vested interest in leftism is.

The ABC is a government funded media organisation. Government funded media follows socialist convention, thus being self evident.

[size=9]People bullied out of ET by paulbagzFC[/size]
[size=6]-COYS[/size]




-PB

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Sig it.

Edited by afromanGT: 6/11/2013 07:23:41 AM

Murdoch wants his pound of flesh

November 6, 2013

Elizabeth Knight
Business columnist

Having been the largest single contributor to the election of Tony Abbott's Coalition government, Rupert Murdoch is looking for his reward, according to word around the industry. The Sun King - as he has been crowned - is said to have been talking to the freshly minted Canberra legislators about the possibility of acquiring the Ten Network.

The jungle drums say his agenda also includes discussion on the abolition of anti-siphoning laws restricting the ability of pay-television operator Foxtel to exclusively broadcast first-run premier sports events.

The lobbying is said to extend to the Foreign Investment Review Board (or at least its ultimate master, Treasurer Joe Hockey) and media regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The acquisition of Ten has long been speculated to be on Murdoch's wish list, but under the previous government the notion of doing News Corp any favours was fanciful. It would make perfect sense for Murdoch to revisit this lobbying under the Abbott regime.

Indeed, he was seated alongside Hockey and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the Lowy Institute gala dinner in Sydney last Thursday. Both the ministers, together with A-list business representatives, attended the function to hear Murdoch's lecture on his vision for Australia.

The trouble is that neither of these items would be easy for even the current government to resolve.

Let's take the acquisition of Ten. Under the current media and competition laws this scenario wouldn't pass muster. News Corp is the largest print operator in Australia with near total coverage of all major markets. Murdoch's son, Lachlan, who owns just under 10 per cent of the Ten Network, also owns DMG, a national radio network with stations in each capital city, and is a director of News Corp.

In two markets in particular - Brisbane and Adelaide, where News owns the major newspapers - the obstacles are even greater.

Thus there are a couple of hurdles the Murdochs would need to mount to allow such a move.

The first is getting around the rule that restricts media organisations to owning two of the three media (print, radio and TV) in a market, and the second is foreign ownership.

Murdoch would need to convince regulators that he and his son were not related parties in a corporate sense, and it is hard to see that notion flying. It would be further complicated by the fact that News Corp owns half of Foxtel and all of Fox Sports, which supplies the former with programs.

The ACCC made it clear when Seven tried to take a larger stake in Foxtel that the move was unacceptable. Having said that, it has remained silent to date on recent moves by Ten and Foxtel to a proposed sales force tie-up.

The already close links between News/Foxtel and Ten have been well documented, including the appointment of former News Corp executive Hamish McLennan to run the network.

Perhaps the bigger question is why Murdoch snr would even wish to buy the troubled third-rating network, which has needed its existing major shareholders - Lachlan Murdoch, James Packer and Bruce Gordon - to guarantee its recently refinanced debt package.

There are cross-promotional opportunities and there is a chance that over time Ten's fortunes may improve, and buying it cheaply is good business. It would also serve to extract Lachlan from an investment in television that represents an embarrassing blot on his commercial record.

The abolition (or at least the relaxation) of anti-siphoning laws would be a far bigger boost to News Corp.

Before this year's split of Murdoch's empire, Foxtel's performance was a much smaller contributor to his international empire.

But in the new News Corp, which now houses the international print business and the 50 per cent stake in Foxtel and 100 per cent stake in Fox Sports, these are major contributors to its performance.

Foxtel's penetration continues to be less than half that achieved by cable operators in the US, due mainly to the restrictions on sport coverage.

But to allow Foxtel exclusive live access to premier sport would be so unpopular with the public (and the powerful free-to-air television lobby) that it is difficult to see how this favour could be granted - even to Rupert Murdoch.

But if any government was to allow Murdoch a good hearing, it would be the current one.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/murdoch-wants-his-pound-of-flesh-20131105-2wzhs.html#ixzz2jnyCeMLx

PM stumbling around the international stage

November 6, 2013
Raoul Heinrichs

Tony Abbott has lurched from one diplomatic disaster to another as he compounds rookie mistakes with our Asian neighbours.

The making of effective foreign policy always looks easier than it is. As a result, new governments tend to underestimate the task. The Howard and Rudd/Gillard governments each made tentative starts on the international stage. The current government's diplomatic initiation has been worse. Even allowing for inexperience, the Abbott government appears to be setting a new standard for diplomatic ineptitude. The Prime Minister in particular has lurched from one mistake to another, with each episode more ham-fisted than the last.

Three cases illustrate the point.

When the Prime Minister left for Indonesia on his first overseas visit, he had a clear set of objectives. He needed agreement on one of three approaches designed to ''stop the boats''. A policy based on turning boats around, buying boats, or buying information about boats had been sold to the Australian public. Now it had to be sold to the country whose sovereignty it threatened to breach. Unsurprisingly, this was a non-starter in Jakarta. After a couple of apologetic speeches, the only thing turned around was Tony Abbott himself.

As it happened, the outcome of Abbott's trip had been determined before he left Australia. A few days earlier, in a meeting in New York, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa blind-sided Foreign Minister Julie Bishop with an uncharacteristically sharp rebuke of the Coalition's plans. He then compounded Bishop's humiliation by leaking the meeting notes - later explaining it as ''a mistake''. The message was clear: Jakarta would not be entertaining policies which encroached on its sovereignty, so don't even bother.

Abbott returned from his trip humbled and empty-handed. While the episode had been a disaster, he was spared the full embarrassment. A still-fawning press bought the distracting spin. Meanwhile, the previous government's PNG solution began working, allowing Abbott to quietly backtrack from his commitments while taking credit for fewer boats.

Abbott's second diplomatic imbroglio is likely to have more far-reaching consequences. It was to announce a one-year deadline on reaching a free trade agreement with China. On the surface, this might seem sensible. The government has been explicit about upgrading the role of economic diplomacy in Australian foreign policy. A deadline was intended to convey the government's commitment to that goal and to building economic relations with China at a time when political relations are set to become increasingly difficult.

In fact, announcing a deadline was a blunder of the first order. Trade deals are among the most exacting form of diplomacy. They involve painstaking negotiations for market access, often over technicalities and in the face of opposition from influential constituencies. More than anything, they demand time and patience. With China, our biggest trade partner and the world's most valuable emerging market, it has always been more important to get the agreement right than just finished.

To that end, Abbott's deadline has complicated the job. By injecting artificial urgency, the Prime Minister has pulled the rug from under his own trade negotiators and handed China a massive bargaining advantage. Abbott can't back out of the deal or the deadline, except at significant political cost to himself, and the Chinese know it. Beijing will almost certainly now take its foot off the pedal. By drawing out the next year of negotiations, it stands to secure major concessions at Australia's expense as the self-imposed deadline draws near. For a government determined to put ''economic diplomacy first'', this was a rookie error, indeed.

The government's most serious foreign policy mistake so far, however, has been its embrace of schoolyard diplomacy. Both Abbott and Bishop have repeatedly, and unnecessarily, gone out of their way to describe Japan as ''Australia's best friend in Asia''.

At one level, this just sounds a bit desperate. Announcing hierarchies in our diplomatic relationships serves little purpose beyond aggravating China by highlighting its subordinate place in Australian thinking. It's also inaccurate. Indeed, if friendship is a two-way street, and if Japan really is our best friend in Asia, why has Tokyo not publicly reciprocated the sentiment?

The more concerning aspect about this kind of language, however, is what it portends in future. Open declarations of affection for Japan appear intended to soften the ground for the resurrection of one of two unfinished Howard-era initiatives: a more comprehensive defence alliance with Japan, or participation in an alliance of democracies. Neither would serve Australia's interests. Both are thinly veiled attempts at edging Australia into a more confrontational posture towards China, which is the the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

Such policies would be especially misguided given the current regional security environment. Today, Japan and China are facing off over disputed islands in the East China Sea. China's strategy aims to exhaust Japan through low-level air and maritime intrusions. Japan's is to tempt China into an overreaction that triggers a regional backlash against Beijing. The risk of war is steadily growing. As it does, the imperative for Australia should be to avoid entanglement to the greatest possible extent in the north-east Asian conflict.

By cuddling up to Japan, the Abbott government is pre-emptively forfeiting that opportunity. It is divesting much needed diplomatic flexibility and instead seeking to lock Australia into unnecessarily rigid strategic arrangements. Australians should be aware of the risks. An alliance with Japan, whether bilateral or multilateral, would all but guarantee our involvement in at best a dangerous and escalating rivalry with China, and at worst an avoidable major power war.

Raoul Heinrichs is a Sir Arthur Tange scholar at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/pm-stumbling-around-the-international-stage-20131105-2wz4q.html#ixzz2jnz2PRkP

inb4 batfink labels The Age as left-wing biased.

Haha soon, I only just Luke Dealwithitshire!

-PB

+100

However, to accuse them of subsequent impropriety is absurd. They're providing an alternative perspective to the right wing bias of the commercial networks.

well leigh sales did temper her last interviews leading into the election as she was fully aware of how incompetent and on the nose they were......but you can't deny quentin and kerry were not not lefties.... brisseden isn't so bad....to deny that the ABC does not lean to the left is like suggesting Unionist are left, and the majority of teachers and state employed are not left.......

always struck me as extremely biased that if you were a member of the union and you paid your dues, the union donated and supported the ALP without your input or approval....so IF you are in the union and vote LNP or Greens or Independent are you not being ripped off??????