The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is the major publicly-funded broadcaster – TV and radio – in this sprawling southern continent. In recent years it has also become active on-line and consequently does an increasing amount of “narrow-casting” as well.
It’s often said “the ABC is the most trusted media organisation in Australia”.
I think it likely the ABC’s public credibility is higher than most of the privately-owned media – although I also believe the perceived integrity of ALL the mass media is in decline. More and more people with the ability to double-check media spin on-line simply don’t trust mainstream media any more.
On definable news subjects – especially topics of keen interest to the Zionist Lobby and/or the so-called “intelligence agencies” – I don’t consider the ABC trustworthy at all. Many folk have yet to catch on to what dreadful liars they are. But that’s a changing too…
In the media, credibility is power. Power should come with responsibility. But to whom is the ABC really responsible?
The popular notion is the ABC is run by frightfully clever people – a government-appointed board of the best minds and highly professional senior staff – who can be relied upon to do the best job possible on behalf of the broad public interest. That’s more or less what I used to believe. I don’t believe it at all any more. I’ve come to believe this organisation is heavily manipulated by some covert power configurations. It must be.
WTC-7 - not even mentioned in the US Government's initial 9/11 report
Like many people, it was 9/11 that woke me up. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time considering the matter is aware there are INSOLUBLE problems with the official narrative.
That’s why so many highly-qualified people have taken career risks to demand a new inquiry. Clearly the fairytale of fanatical Muslim hijackers which has been used to sell recurrent wars and to rationalize plummeting civil liberties is bogus. What really did happen and who was responsible is open to legitimate dispute – although even that thorny subject has been persuasively sketched-in over recent years.
That, of course, is to present just one person’s perspective – my perspective. I believe that like everyone else in this country, the public broadcaster should give me a voice – one voice among the many. It should not set out to censor my views. That’s not serving a news function; that’s acting as a control agent.
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Earlier today I happened to post a comment on The Drum, which is the busy ABC blog where selected articles are posted and comments from the public are invited (but not always approved).
The article Journalism education v profession: who has lost touch? was by journalism academic Jenna Price. I read it with interest. After all, I’d blogged about this same issue only yesterday.
Comment sumbitted to Jenna Prrice article in The Drum
I posted a comment under her article. It wasn’t a brilliant comment. In fact it was rather grumpy. But it did open new ground in the discussion and was broadly on topic.
My comment (see right) wasn’t published.
Of course, every blog is free to choose which comments to publish – but my question is this.
Why should Australian citizens – as a whole – pay the wages of ABC staff if they select only those articles and comments of which they approve?
What’s the value these ABC people add to our national debate by exercising that largely covert censorship function with such evident bias? Whose interests are they serving? Whose interests are they completely disregarding?
More and more a key role of publicly-funded media looks to me like social control.
That was a theme in my article Come in No 12! Taking a Megaphone to Australia’s Finkelstein debate, published here yesterday. I’d hoped to be able to point anyone reading through comments at The Drum to the article. But the public censors decided otherwise.
The ABC is an organisation funded by all Australians. It now occupies webspace (such as The Drum) that independent initiatives could take instead. Yet it exercises an inexplicit, unjustified (and in my view wholly unjustifiable) censorship function.
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ABC Canberra 666
Here’s another case of ABC censorship – and a good example of the contempt in which ABC staff often hold people whose views they consider beyond the pale.
This afternoon I happened to come across a tweet from ABC Radio in Canberra. I learnt that a discussion was already underway about “conspiracy theories” (stupid term!) and 9/11. I tuned in to 666 to listen.
The presenter, Genevieve Jacobs, was in the process of interviewing a man who was identified as a (so called) ‘Sceptic’. He was in the mould of the USA’s Michael Shermer, or Australia’s most pompous radio commentator, Philip Adams. Like Shermer and Adams before him, the interviewee enjoyed himself immensely ridiculing “conspiracy theorists” none of whom, needless to say, were on-air and able to talk back. Genevieve asked him occasional soft ball questions. They joked together. Both were clearly having lots of fun.
ABC 666 tweets re "conspiracy theory"
I called in.
I was asked what I wanted to say and put on a call queue.
When asked, I’d decided to be honest and explain that I’m highly critical of the official 9/11 story; apart from anything else I wanted to see how I was treated as someone with those unpopular views.
Would I get to be interviewed on air?
The answer was no. After ten minutes or so, the line went dead.
I called the ABC back, but was told there was no time for more calls from the public. I pointed out the entire conversation had been 100% biased towards the perspective that the official story about 9/11 is correct. All the phone-in callers had concurred on that point. I’d identified myself as holding the opposite view but given no chance to speak. Didn’t they want to treat the subject with any fairness at all?
The voice at the other end of the phone started to sound annoyed. Today’s discussion, she told me, followed another on-air segment the day before, when a real “conspiracy theorist” had been on air. I asked his name and whether I could get a transcript of that interview. She curtly told me to try ‘Media Monitors’ (a paid service) and hung up.
So much for the ABC’s responsiveness to public inquiries.
Genevieve Jacobs; thinks it's a giggle that people still ask questions, a decade after three skyscrapers collapsed at near free-fall acceleration on one "unique" day in NYC
During the parts of the show I heard, Genevieve Jacobs’ discussion about “conspiracy theorists” was more than dismissive. She actually pathologized the people with whose views she disagrees. Listeners were invited to join in and say why anyone might possibly hold such nutty views.
Except we weren’t really invited – not unless we agreed with the Genevieve Jacobs line on 9/11.
Her minder made sure of that.
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Let’s suppose Ms Jacobs actually wanted discussion on the topic of 9/11 on her show.
Let’s suppose , that is, she wanted a serious discussion (which doesn’t mean boring): a discussion which aimed at investigating the truth and exploring the range of cogently-argued positions on the topic – as opposed to merely celebrating the current dominance in the mass media of one view over another.
Ms Jacobs could still invite all her chums to participate as usual – but she’d also need to speak with scholars such as Dr Graeme MacQueen and architect Richard Gage. She’d need to sample the best of the case for and against – not merely ridicule one side.
I challenge her to do this.
I doubt very much she will, because I suspect she’s really a phony “journalist” working for a fake news organisation, aka ”their” ABC.
Genevieve has enough talent to make fun of people who are grappling with the truth – but has she got the inclination or skills to really explore the complexities of the subject of 9/11? I doubt it. Perhaps it touches on one of her cultural blind-spots?
Now… please do go right ahead and prove me wrong Ms Jacobs!
Make my day!
On the subject of 9/11, I think you’re more a propagandist than a journalist. A shill, not a honest commentator.
No wonder you and your chums giggle about “truthers”. You gleefully celebrate the ascendancy of The Lie! 666 indeed!
I bet you won’t get a green light to interview knowledgeable genuine sceptics such as Graeme MacQueen, Richard Gage or David Ray Griffin - even if you wanted to. I doubt your controllers would allow it. You’re not smart enough to best such interviewees. Serious intellectuals like MacQueen, Gage and Griffin would make their points effectively. You couldn’t stop them. So, I doubt your bosses would dare let you take the risk – even if you had the curiosity and nerve to consider taking on such a challenge, which is also highly doubtful.
OK ABC… why not show me I’m wrong?
How about taking up my challenge Genevieve?
Have you got what it takes to discuss 9/11 on a level playing field?
I doubt it.
