ABC bias

During the week commencing 12 March 2018 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired a number of programs on a Big Australia — the phrase used to encapsulate debates about the desirability of Australia’s rapid immigration-fuelled population growth. The specific programs included episodes of 4 Corners and QandA. Subsequently I submitted an official editorial complaint as per the ABC’s complaint-handling process. In the complaint I took care to refer in detail to the ABC’s own documented editorial standards. The ABC has acknowledged receipt of the complaint and will respond in writing in due course.

Growth lobbyists outnumbered environment and democracy proponents three to two on Last Monday's Q and A on ABC 1, with Jane Fitzgerald (Property Council of Australia), Jonathan Daley (Grattan Institute) and Dr Jay Song (Immigration professional who arrived here two years ago) and Tony Jones (Compere) vs Tim Flannery (Population scientist and author of the famous Future Eaters) and Bob Carr, (journalist, environmentalist, and former Premier of New South Wales). The show started with a brilliant question from audience member, Matthew Bryan. He read it off his mobile phone, with a steely emotional intensity that only someone blinded by dollar values could have ignored, and all the growthists did, of course. Nonetheless since the ABC almost never invites representatives of the non-growth side, we could call this an improvement. Read on for a commentary on some of the highlights and lowlights of this historic confrontation between truth and lies and ignorance.

The page I am writing about is on the Australian ABC website, entitled, "You decide Australia’s population, we’ll show you how it looks," by journalist Inga Ting, Mark Doman, Ri Liu and Nathan Hoad. The arguments presented are a kind of demographer's fantasy. Demography is not population science; it is maths and statistics. Maths and statistics are not themselves science. They can be used as much for population science, to test theories, as they can be used for advertising and propaganda. Demographers are often also economists and they usually try to establish trends in population numbers in isolation from the environment, social values, or deep history. What they call population science is usually only economics, which many people think is now practised as a dogma. They do not tend to challenge propaganda and, for this reason, they are very useful for governments and corporate media that want to push peoples' thinking in a certain direction about population.[1] This interactive article on the ABC gets the reader to make certain decisions, comes up with biased feedback, and then invites the reader to change their minds. To be unbiased, this interactive would need to list the positives of lowering population growth. It fails to. It does mention some as opinions, but it does not employ related arguments in its presentation of demographic trends in Australia.

“We note your concerns” is a response that ABC critics are familiar with. It seems to mean, “We’ve ignored your arguments but made a small mark on the negative side of the “balance” tally.

"Before becoming an academic I was for many years a journalist, with the Herald and Age in Melbourne, with UPI and AP in London and with the 'daily star' in Beirut. Thus I have a reasonable idea of what journalistic standards should be, and again, in publishing Sophie O'Neill's report, 'bombed, starved, trapped: this could be the worst place on Earth to be a child', the ABC has again violated them." (Dr Jeremy Salt). Dr Salt is the author of The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands, University of California Press, 2008) See also https://www.candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/7778.

I note that the ABC is planning to air Four Corners and Q&A programs on the issue of population and a ‘Big Australia’. The topic of a ‘Big Australia’ is a contentious issue in public debate. Several opinion polls show more than 50 percent of Australians believe Australia has enough people or should not grow any larger than 30 million people. On the other hand, the major political parties (including the Greens) are in lockstep marching to the tune of a Big Australia. Thus there is a major gap between elite opinion and the general public. In view of this the ABC has a special responsibility to ensure that its Editorial Policy number 4 — Impartiality and Diversity of Perspectives — is fully achieved in this case.

Dear Marina,

As producer of the segment this morning about the current campaign to liberate Eastern Ghouta from its terrorist besiegers, I would like to offer this alternative perspective on what is actually happening in Syria. I understand only too well that all Western governments, NGOs and UN organisations, including Amnesty International, speak with one voice, but they still present the situation in Damascus and its suburbs in completely misleading and false terms.

Australian Dick Smith, techie, environmentalist who founded National Geographic, and millionaire, has recently attempted to educate Australians about the wealthy population growth lobby in their country, which benefits from Australia's rapid immigration-fueled population growth whilst the rest of us pay the cost. To do this, he has run his own expensive campaing, including taking out expensive ads in newspapers. Among other things, Smith has decribed Australia's public media, the ABC, as biased in its failure to fairly report the costs of population growth. We on candobetter.net cannot help but be impressed at his community spirit. Are Dick Smith’s ads having an effect on population reporting further afield? Maybe. Here's an example of what we hope may be a new trend in truthful reporting on the matter by the ABC.

An effective declaration of war on Russia in Syria by the US over the last two weeks has gone unnoticed in Western media. How long can they keep this deception going?

Dick Smith has started a campaign supporting the ABC TV news and current affairs as his favourite network, but wants them to show more balance when it comes to reporting population issues.

When I lodged my nomination as a candidate for the SA House of Assembly seat of Fisher 2 years ago, the very first communication I received was a letter from the ABC telling me I would not get any coverage for my campaign. This was despite the fact that I was the nominated candidate for a registered political party with over 300 members, and I was spending about $6000 of my savings on campaign expenses and nomination fees." [...] "the Earth adds approx. 225,000 mouths to feed EVERY DAY. Australia adds approx. 1000 to its population each day. The implications of this are enormous, and yet it is very clear to me that the ABC soft pedals the matter. To be more specific, it is very common that, when an issue of national importance such as housing affordability comes up, there is very little mention of the influence population growth is having on the matter. The interviewers commonly host guests from the property industry to put their views, but people from such bodies as Sustainable Population Australia never seem to be asked to comment."

Tonight (11 September 2017) the ABC’s Media Watch program contained a section in which presenter (Paul Barry) attacked Dick Smith’s views on population and specifically Dick Smith’s complaints about the ABC’s refusal to cover the issue of Australia’s rampant population growth. Yet for much of the time he did not defend the ABC. He did not answer points Dick Smith makes at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-tv-news-current-affairs-bias-growth/or that William Lines and I have made at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-bias-chapter-overloading-australia/ about ABC bias. Instead, Paul Barry seemed more interested in attacking Dick Smith. [Mark O'Connor is a well known Australian poet and co-author with Bill Lines of Overloading Australia.]

Subsequent to Dick Smith's complaints to the ABC about bias towards the growth lobby on the subject of population, on 11 September 2017, Paul Barry, of ABC Media Watch, launched what many thought was a personal attack on Smith, in lieu of dealing fairly with the vital issues at hand. Dr John Coulter (former Senator and leader of the Democrats) wrote the following complaint to Media Watch, where he protests at the treatment of Dick Smith by Media Watch and documents a number of instances of pro-population-growth bias in the ABC. You can also read some a few comments published by Media Watch on this issue here: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4732374.htm.

Kindly and patriotic Australian businessman, Dick Smith, has been very poorly treated by the ABC on episode 158 of its The Drum program. This is a very serious problem because, in mistreating Dick Smith, the ABC misinforms Australians on a subject of vital and democratic importance. The ABC seems now undifferentiated from the commercial TV channels with regard to reporting on population. Apparently the ABC has actually banned Dick Smith from the program. The letter inside, from Dick Smith to Ms Julia Baird, the Presenter of The Drum, asks for right of reply. We have embedded Dick Smith's video ad at the beginning of the text so you can judge for yourself whether Ms Baird has a leg to stand on. To us it is obvious that what has caused the media to go after Dick Smith is the fact that he has linked growthist population policy to Australia's reigning politicians and they are going to try to destroy him.

Unconventional Economist, Leith van Onselen again takes the ABC to task over its shocking bias in reporting and discussing the impacts of Australia's population growth. In this case he exposes the failure of political guests and the moderator on Q&A to respond to the core of an importance audience question about Australia's population ponzi and housing unaffordability. Article first published on Macrobusiness on April 13, 2017 at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/04/yet-abc-refuses-discuss-population-ponzi/.

Days of incessant propaganda from the ABC, SBS and all other mainstream media toeing the Trump/US Establishment line on chemical weapons in Syria, without any overt logical basis, prompted the author to make a complaint. David Macilwain was in Syria in 2010, corresponds internationally with diverse people concerned about Syria's rights, and has visited Russia twice in the past three years, in a quest to discuss and share views on current events and to build up contacts who might be interviewed by the Australian press rather than the narrow sample usually referred to.

How shallow the ABC’s Mediawatch (‘Media war over Syria’ [11 April 2017]) treats such an important issue, the 6 year long war against Syria. They have cobbled together a few tweets so as to defend the war story of the US and Australian Governments, and the state and corporate media (ABC, BBC and UK Guardian) which faithfully reflect that line.

"The suffering of the civilians of Madaya is terrible but it is the armed men who have infiltrated their town who bear the first responsibility for their plight. No government in the world could allow a situation to continue in which a terrorist group is holding a civilian population hostage. This is the reality of Madaya. Knowing the essential facts there is surely no Australian watching your ‘Australian Story’ who could regard a group like Ahrar al Sham with anything other than abhorrence yet in your report on Madaya this group is not even mentioned. Neither is there any attempt to question Mr Nanaa about his dealings with this group and possibly his affinity with its ideology. It is certain that he could not have operated in Madaya without its support and without at least appearing to support its aims, The outcome is a report that is superficially heart-warming but is by no means the true story of what lies behind the ‘siege’ of Madaya."

For the record, the below is a partial record of correspondence between Susan Dirgham, National Coordinator of 'Australians for Reconciliation in Syria', and Q&A, the Australian television program. Like most Australian media outlets, the ABC almost invariably presents Syria in a squewed, ahistoric manner that supports the continued and disastrous interference by the US, NATO and its allies in the region, maintaining war.

This is a letter written to the Second secretary at the Russian Embassy in Canberra, Alexander Odoevsky, subsequent to his interview on ABC Insiders, about the biased representation of the Syrian Government and related matters by Australia's ABC.

Dear Alexander Odevsky,

I recently contacted the embassy as the spokesperson for AMRIS – Australians for Reconciliation in Syria, which has been working for the last three years to try to spread correct information on the Syrian conflict and on the nature and intentions of Syria's allies, particularly Russia.

Following Russia’s intervention to help the Syrian army on Wednesday 30 September, there was a report on the World Today by Barney Porter (who also produces the program). It left an awful lot to be desired, not all of which could be blamed on Porter and his choice of interviewees. He only allowed Kerry to describe his own delusion that ‘Assad only controls 25% of the country’ – ( so Russia is backing a loser..). But of course the whole tone of the report was anti-Russian and Anti-Putin.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights and Irin both purport to be disinterested information sources on conflict in Syria and boast that the UN relies on them as its primary source. But they are not disinterested. There is abundant evidence that they promote the 'rebel' or terrorist side of the conflict and that their funding is from organisations and countries aligned with US-NATO support for aggression in the region. They are in fact promoting war propaganda against Syria and it is amazing that people one would expect to be more discerning, take this on face value. In this article I try to find out why Tim Costello, of World Vision, came to accuse the Syrian government of killing more people than ISIS without taking into account that these deeds were actions by a national army defending its people from multiple assaults by violent gangs, including ISIS, many of them supported by US-NATO funding and arms.

This short article around a letter from Bob Couch, records how the ABC spontaneously contacted a candidate for an alternative political party to tell him that the ABC would not give him any time to talk about his policies. The candidate had not approached the ABC, they approached him. Candobetter.net has run a few articles about how the ABC excludes candidates outside the major parties and we are running this story because the issue is so important. The ABC should be informing Australians of all the political alternatives out there so that we can really choose people who will represent us on issues of concern. See also and http://candobetter.net/node/1159.

In Geraldine Doogue's interview with war strategist David Kilcullen on ABC's Saturday Extra (Blood Year, 23 May 2015), there was every sign that Ms Doogue accepted his point of view without question despite his being someone who works closely with the deadly U.S. war machine in Iraq and the region. Yes, Kilcullen is an ‘expert’ in that he has spent time in the ME and he has studied terrorism. He is eloquent. He is personable. He is an Aussie: he seems calm and reasonable. But in his work for the U.S. military, what truths does he omit, what ‘facts’ does he invent?

This is a letter to Malcolm Turnbull, Communications Minister, from Susan Dirgham of AMRIS. It draws his attention to the danger presented to Australia by biased reporting on Syria. Ms Dirgham points out that such biased reporting may have caused young Australians to join ISIS and other 'revolutionaries' in the mistaken impression that they were fighting for freedom. She also gives a link to where an Al-Jazeera reporter called for the genocide of Alawis in Syria and suggests that the tens of thousands of Alawis in Australia may not be immune from similar intimidation either. She asks Mr Turnbull to exercise some leadership in this matter. Candobetter.net Editor: We have updated this article (which initially contained the words of an email document sent yesterday) to reflect some changes in the wording of the hard copy which was sent today.

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I think the ABC Radio National program, Rear Vision, (see inside) owes to the Greek people and to its Australian audience to tell the truth about Greek history. The account of the Greek Civil War (see Appendix 1) is untrue. The Greek Communist Party led the resistance to the German occupation and had overwhelming support of the Greek people. In 1944, the British tricked the Communist partisans into disarming whilst they secretly re-armed those who had collaborated with the Germans against fellow citizens. They were able to do this because of the betrayal of the Greek Communist Party and the unquestioning support for Stalin by the Greek Communist Party. The Greek Communist Party abused its support from the Greek people to convince then to lay down their weapons. The result was a massacre of the most patriotic Greeks by former German collaborators whilst the British looked on. At this time, the heroic partisan leader Aris Velouchiotis was murdered by collaborators. He died in the knowledge that the Greek Communist Party leaders that he supported had denounced him as a traitor for refusing to lay down his arms.

On April 4, 2015 the ABC and other new services reported on fierce 'clashes' as a newly formed organisation turned up in large numbers to oppose rallies in several states by a political group called Reclaim Australia.

"Organiser Mel Gregson [1] said No Room for Racism was formed with the express purpose of shutting down the 16 rallies across Australia planned by Reclaim Australia. The Reclaim Australia members, on their facebook page, describe their mission as "We as patriotic Australians need to stand together to stop halal tax, sharia law & islamisation.""

Gregson also campaigned against the Melbourne Tunnel Project.

Reclaim Australia.

So is Gregson, and all who support her, denying people the right to demonstrate peacefully about something they believe in, thereby displaying intolerance and bigotry? If she was at an anti-nuclear demonstration, would she cry "evil capitalism" if thugs hired by the nuclear power lobby turned up for a hostile confrontation against her?

Australian mainstream media, including the public media, continue to report some critical world events in a dangerously one-sided manner, while the world increasingly risks a third world war. In this letter of complaint to the ABC, David Macilwain appeals to presenters Barbara Miller and Michael Brissenden to consider the multiple reports and perspective in all Russian media, and in many alternative internet fora, to better understand the nature of the powerplay in Ukraine, instead of uncritically reporting the slant on these matters given by western governments.

"7.30 has acknowledged your concern and agrees it was inaccurate for the program to state as fact that flight MH17 was shot down by “Pro-Russian militia” and “Russian backed rebels”. The program understands the cause of that incident remains unresolved and is the subject of ongoing investigation." (ABC Corporate Affairs). After David Macilwain, candobetter.net author and 7.30 Report viewer, complained, the ABC has made editorial changes to a report entitled, "Tony Abbott promises to ‘shirtfront’ Putin at G20 Summit." Mr MacIlwain's complaint appears under this ABC response. This is a positive response from the ABC since the kind of unfounded bellicose reporting that MacIlwain complained about is helping to move the world rapidly towards another world war. The ABC can help the world by reporting truthfully and respectfully. (Also published by AMRIS at https://susandirgham.wordpress.com/abc730-editorial-correction-mr-bill-shorten-president-putin-and-mh17/

UPDATE 24 Nov: We have just published an apology from the ABC regarding this complaint, here: http://candobetter.net/node/4197 where they have apologised for their misinformation.David Macilwain again complains to the ABC about their uncritical recycling of propaganda about the MH17 aircraft downing. He also expresses his disgust at the posturings of Tony Abbott with regard to the G20 and Vladimir Putin, based on this propaganda.