Abstract

Th ABC has descended into sensatinalism. It has become a propaganda tool.

Article

Unfrotunately, the once reliable ABC is losing its status through a misplaced desire for grearer penetration through sensationalism.  It oes not need to compete with the tabloids at their level. Is this the consequence of the nature of the government appointments to the governing positions of the institution?

The latest foray concerns the actions of the police in handling a difficult child in custody.

It was blatantly said in headlines that the child had been left naked in the watchhouse for four days. This, apparently, on the written complaint of a social worker, without revelation of important details.

First, there is clear evidence that the child had a blanket at all times.

Secondly, the police claim that the child also wore, as a sarong, a smock which he refused to wear conventionally when it was provided as a protection against suicide.

If this is correct, the child was far from naked, and the emotive statement by the social worker was hyperbole and misleading unless it also qualified the nakedness through these details.  If the report did so qualify it, the ABC report was grossly misleading by omission of a significant feature.

Even if the report were defective in this way, or if the reporter did not know whether it wasso or not, before publication the police account shold have been obtained and put to the social worker.

Most intrestingly, having regard to the responsible police response to a difficult situation, the ABC criticism did not suggest a better course of action. A straight-jacket, perhaps??

That is only one example.  The ABC published a news item saying that, according to "the Chinese Panel", said to consist off lawyers and experts, the Chinese government was harvesting body organs from Falun Gong prisoners. No identification or investigation of "the Chinese Panel" was revealed.  For all one knows, it may be an extreme group opposed to the Chinese government and engaged in false propaganda.  Or is that an absurd possibility?

After all, the ABC from time to time quotes claims by a Syrian "Human Rights" organisation, which Google reveals to be run by a man in England who is an activist against the Syrian government, a fact which is not mentioned when his report of hundreds of civilian casualties,including many children at the hands of the Syrian governmnt and allied forces is being reported. One could not feel that anorganisation with the fine title of "Human Rights" could be guilty of biased misrepresentation.

One never hears of human rights abuses on that side, though if the government forces adopted its tactics, they would be accused of using the civilians as human shields.

The ABC is guilty of sensationalising trivia at a low intellectual level, indulging in woeful puns (mimicking though not as unfortunate as the tabloids), having its presenters engage in empty-minded laughter rather than pleasant presentation, using audio reporters who are difficult to understand because they speak in their upper nasal cavity, descending to contrived silly language like 'conversation' when 'discussion' is appropriate, and generally manifesting an ignorance of grammar (but some of these are the product of the level of qualityof the schools of journalism).

Unfortunately, it has also become a tool of propaganda. Literally, one never hears a news item or commentary about China, Russia, Syria or Iran but that it has a negative slant and never an unqualified positive face. Themost recent relates to a national silence of three minutes at the behest of the govrnment.  While covering that, the commentator could not refrain from saying that the government had not disclosed the correct number of deaths, which is hardly relevant or appropriate to the occasion. 

That charge has been repeated by the ABC on sevral occasionns, without any suggestion of evidence. Moreover, even if it were true, which is certainly possible but, having regard to the 'weapons of mass destruction debacle', it was certainly not necessarily so; and it would at least have been fair and truthful to observe that the Chinese government's deception, if any, may well have been designed to avoid public panic. 

After all, the threat was grossly downplayed by the British and US leaders, a matter which is not mentioned when the Chinese are under this criticism, and the conduct of the Western leaders may have been due to their tardiness to take steps which might adversely affect theiir economies, a tardiness which has had dreadful consequences by way of many deaths which would probably have been avoided by early strong action, such as that practised by the Chinese.

The Chinese experience with the virus, even on the figures which their government claimed, was a very early warning to the rest of the world of the gravity of the danger, and a demonstration of the strength of the nesponse needed by the Chinese to combat it.

Otherwise, the ABC does very well.