The empire doesn't strike back, so much as lash out in a feral foaming frenzy ...

(Above: by Tony Sowersby, who enlivens the Mornington Peninsula arts and culture scene here. You can find his home page here).


The vile, loathsome, blatant, nakedly self-seeking and self-serving reptiles at the lizard Oz now seek to cash in their election cheque:

As a matter of priority, the Abbott government must review the ABC's reach, role, funding and internal leadership.

Time to open up the ABC insiders to outside review is both blackmail and a shakedown, though it claims to be a fair-minded review.

It opens with some astonishing tripe, as once again the reptiles show that in the current digital landscape they are truly lost:

Under managing director Mark Scott the ABC has expanded and become less accountable. 
It has used extra government funding and favourable allocation of a lucrative government contract to work its way into every corner of the media market, forcing all private media, even struggling digital start-ups, to face a public competitor providing free content. 
Commercial news services can even purchase news content from the public broadcaster. As the number of journalists in the private sector shrinks, the ABC expands. 
Divisions between print, television, radio and online are becoming blurred. The ABC was established to provide a national radio and (later) television service. Now it pushes taxpayer-funded content online at no direct cost to consumers, just as the private sector -- including, of course, The Australian -- strives to convince customers that content is worthy of purchase.

Yes, there's the naked rub, as if The Australian's attempts to convince consumers that blatant ideological ratbaggery and right wing thuggery, dressed up as "content", should be considered worthy of purchase.

Alienate your audience and then bleat if they go elsewhere.

The nakedness of the self-serving moaning is quite remarkable, and remarkably silly:

Mr Scott brazenly championed his empire and the Labor government was sympathetic. Twice the ABC contested a tender for DFAT's overseas television service, worth more than $200 million over 10 years, and twice the ABC lost to Sky News (which has small corporate links to The Australian). 
Yet in a startling decision never convincingly explained, the ABC was given the contract regardless. Still, the Australia Network coverage of the recent bushfires was bettered by global players such as CNN and BBC World. 

The Australia Network's remit isn't to act like CNN and BBC World, but it's all the funnier when you remember the fun that News Corp had with poor old NBC's coverage of the fires.

Oh how they laughed. But back to the self-pity and the moaning:

If we consider whether the ABC is reaching too far, we should also ask whether it is spreading too thin. Instead of asserting his editorial leadership, Mr Scott has been the cheerleader for his staff, extolling their virtues on Twitter. As editor-in-chief, his role is to impose standards rather than merely defend a largely autonomous editorial cohort. 

Reaching too far, spreading itself too thin?

You mean The Australian is pushing shit up hill trying to attract a readership?

Crikey, which relies on subscription, and has its own difficulties competing with the ABC, nonetheless called out the attack by the Australian - and a full frontal assault it is and will continue to be - as the desperation of a rentseeker eager for a government handout.

As Crikey noted back in August, News Corporation's enthusiastic support for Tony Abbott's election comes with a quid pro quo: the company's long list of media "reforms" that will serve its interests. And one of the key reforms is reducing the capacity of the ABC to compete with News Corp outlets. 
News executives have long argued that public broadcasting is a direct threat to them -- as James Murdoch, before he become perhaps phone-hacking's most high-profile victim, complained about the BBC in Britain. And it is: the ABC will always provide Australians with a free, high-quality news service while companies like News Corp and Fairfax shift their operations behind a paywall. Moreover, the ABC consistently scores far higher as a trusted news source for Australians than anyone else in the media, and especially News Corp's outlets, which are rated amongst the least-trusted. This is as it should be: the ABC is funded by taxpayers, who are entitled to expect they will get a better product than that produced by the commercial sector. And it is by no means the case that the ABC's news coverage is perfect -- but it has a transparent, independent statutory complaints process for its TV and radio services, something no newspaper or online media outlet can claim. 
The true motivation for The Australian's assault on the ABC -- made on the day that one of the most significant phone-hacking trials, that of one-time Rupert Murdoch favourite Rebekah Brooks, begins in London -- is an attempt to undermine a rival outlet, one that Australians trust and rely on far more than they ever will for News Corp's products. News Corp newspapers are dying -- some, like its tabloids, dying slowly; others, like The Australian, which loses tens of millions of dollars a year, dying more quickly. And they're desperate for anything that will make life easier for them. 
That's the context in which the decisions of the Abbott government in relation to the national broadcasters must be considered. Any reductions in funding will confirm that the government indeed feels bound to return News Corp's many favours by undermining its competition. And that debt will be one that all Australians end up paying. (You can give Crikey a hit here)

What an admirable and accurate editorial.

The pond has had its quibbles and disagreements with Crikey in the past, especially when they too moaned about the ABC, but if you're going to support a service by subscription, why on earth would you fork over cash to the Oz when you could give a 'smell of an oily rag' service a boost ...

They even published a letter written by the ABC's Michael Millett as a response to the Oz editorial:

"The Australian's latest editorial on the ABC (October 29) exhorts the national broadcaster to display Australian nationalism, open-mindedness, curiosity, plurality and fair-minded debate. What the editorial doesn't mention is that in the past week the ABC has: broadcast the lost masterpiece documentary on the Opera House, started a landmark series on Australian art with Ed Capon, educated a nation on brain nureoplasty (sic) with Todd Sampson, launched a new triple J radio service to promote Australian music and better serve audiences, broken audience records for iview through Chris Lilley, provided a forum for a debate on gender in the media at the Olle lecture, raised half a million dollars for Syria, delivered outstanding bushfire coverage for days on end and broke major stories including the shutdown of Operation Puma in Melbourne and another instance of scientific fraud, this time regarding research into heart disease. 
 "It also fails to mention that Federal Parliament this year unanimously voted in favour of updating the ABC Charter to recognise the importance and popularity of its on-line services. Ultimately, the audience decides if the ABC is doing its job properly, not the editorial writers at The Australian."

Such arguments will bounce off the very thick and desperate hides of the reptiles.

They will drone on and on, in a monotonous way certain to deter all those who resent self-serving rent-seeking ratbaggery.

Do the Murdoch true believers ever stop and listen to the sound of their carefully selected and sorted sheep chanting the same song day in, day out? It's only the football that saves their tabloids and delivers them any readership at all ...

And then wonder why rags like The Australian lose millions a year, always veering towards the right and zealotry, never attempting to appeal to the centre.

All that's left to them is to stomp their feet and demand Abbott help them out.

Produce that cheque - no, no, let's not have a modern electronic transfer of funds, let's stay with the ABC running a radio service back in the 1930s - and demand that Abbott sign it ...

Well if push comes to shove, and Abbott decides to cut back the ABC, hell will freeze over before the pond purchases any product tainted by the rent-seekers.

Especially as they don't seem to have caught up with the news that there are many, many things to read on the intertubes ....

(Below: get your useless statistical guess as to the size of the www here. So many ways to waste time and yet not waste a moment on the loons)