Just days after suggesting it would be ''fair enough if people questioned the judgment of the ABC'' over its collaboration with a British newspaper on the release of classified documents revealing the extent of Australian espionage activities in Indonesia, Tony Abbott has chided the broadcaster's senior management for exercising ''very, very poor judgment'' in partnering with The Guardian. Mr Abbott's resort to a more censorious tone will comfort the ABC's critics, some of whom have seized on the Indonesian spy revelations as a pretext for revisiting old grievances - the broadcaster's alleged left-wing bias, its ''questionable'' business activities, and its inability to stick to its charter - to bolster calls for its $1.2 billion annual budget to be cut. If a publicly funded broadcaster has an obligation to refrain from reporting on all matters of national security or intelligence-gathering - and not to embarrass the government of the day - then ABC boss Mark Scott clearly showed poor judgment. But if one accepts that the ABC is an independent media organisation that publishes or broadcasts stories without fear or favour then Mr Scott's judgment was correct. It can be argued the ABC compromised its ''independence'' by agreeing to be conduit for what was in reality a Guardian exclusive, but the story was a significant one that warranted publication. Those who have complained that publishing was not in Australia's long-term best interests ignore the fact that this story was always destined to become public property, and that America's National Security Agency, where significant numbers of operatives and contractors (some of them like Edward Snowden) had access to sensitive material, bears responsibility for the security lapse.
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That the ABC was just the messenger in this episode is of academic interest to its most trenchant critics. Many of them believe that the broadcaster has an unfair advantage over its private sector counterparts, particularly in the provision of online news services, that it is irredeemably biased against conservative governments and that its funding should be cut to allow it to fulfil its charter and no more. That most of these prominent critics are columnists with newspapers published by News Corp Australia will come as no surprise to students of the bare-knuckles business tactics of Rupert Murdoch.
In a 2009 public lecture, the news tycoon's son, James, launched an extraordinary public attack on the BBC, describing the public broadcaster's size and ambition as ''chilling'' and accusing it of mounting a ''land grab'' in a beleaguered media market. ''The corporation is incapable of distinguishing between what is good for it, and what is good for the country,'' he claimed. ''Funded by a hypothecated tax, the BBC feels empowered to offer something for everyone, even in areas well served by the market.'' A little over a year later, the Conservative government announced it was cutting the BBC's budget by 16 per cent. More significantly, the broadcaster agreed not to expand its presence in the British media, and to cut back the size of its online operation.
The arguments being trumpeted by News Corp in Australia have their sympathisers in government too, notably Cory Bernardi. The South Australian senator wants the ABC to be compelled to sell advertising and paid subscriptions online to reduce its dependence on public funding and to allow commercial news outlets to better compete with it. Senator Bernardi's call for advertising on the ABC is unlikely to gain much traction, and with commercial TV broadcasters having enjoyed substantial cuts in their licence fees in recent years, there is little justification for further government assistance. However, with the Coalition government desperate to rein in spending where it can, the temptation to cut the ABC's budget may prove irresistible, particularly if it feels the public outcry might be muted. If the right-wing commentariat is consumed by the ABC's alleged bias, most ordinary Australians believe it is largely impartial in its news reporting, and that it strives for balance in its presentation of opinion and comment. A rush to judge the ABC or to ''cut it down to size'' could have severe consequences in a media landscape as heavily concentrated as Australia's. Politicians like Mr Bernardi should not lose sight of that fact.
