Tim Blair

Bloke I know works at the ABC. Lefty. Nice guy, but lefty.

Left-wing ABC employee. Now THAT is tautology!

What's a tauto ... oh, never mind.

NPR is the same here in the US. I still don't understand why there have to be ANY government funded broadcasting activities in this day and age.

I was commenting on the BBC's bias problems, and happened to mention the similarities with the CBC (Canada), and also the ABC. My wife wife then asked "what is it about publicly funded xBCs that seems to lead to the same obvious bias?

Suggestions anyone?

"In understanding the BBC approach to any subject, you should bear in mind that there is the ‘BBC view’ and the ‘mad view.’ie Workers rights are a Good Thing - any other view is mad."

George Junior at
http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com/

Tim, a tautology is a tautology. So is that.

How in h*ll did so many people convince the law-makers of various countries that funding those places was "good"...when all they are are make-work slots for the otherwise unemployable.

Watching the BBC on PBS is like someone taking a crap directly onto my eyes while pissing in my ears.

Come on people, it is only really the news and current affairs part of Government broadcasters that need to be flung into the outer darkness. These broadcasters much better drama and comedy programmes than commercial telly, or at least they the commercial channels up to the mark.
In fact I would say that the BBC, ABC et al are the only welfare that most of us A and Bs get.

"In fact I would say that the BBC, ABC et al are the only welfare that most of us A and Bs get."

True enough. Like the pimples on the kid serving the burger and fries, sometimes you have to look past the presenter and focus on the content.

Caveat: current affairs, mediawatch and eric berner require frequent application of corrosive anti-pus poultice

It's not just the ABC, BBC. There's a majority of luvvies on most broadsheet subs desks. Fortunately down to 50% in the opinion pages. Still 80% in the letters editors desks.

Why are government-funded places pro-left wing? Maybe because they don't have to worry about ratings, and therefore can do news and current affairs the way they like it. I guess the next question would be why journalists (and virtually any profession needing uni training) tend to be over-represented by left-wingers.

Would there be any merit in the theory that the movement to the left towards a leftist position follows the trend that journalists now tend to be university educated rather apprenticed or trained as tradespeople if you will?

This is not a rhetorical question, nor an ironic post. I would like to be corrected if I am making silly generalisations.

Complaining about bias in publicly funded bodies is ultimately a waste of time. By nature, they attract people with left tendencies. It's how it is.

Problem is, it's gotten worse over thirty years because the lopsided growth of social engineering in tertiary education - any course with " - Studies" on the end - has exponentially increased fodder for these outlets. Media Studies courses teem with academics who are so far left they just about meet Hitler coming round the other side.

It's amazing how people whose mantra is diversity cosy up in such protected, insular enclaves, clutching their broadsheets to their hearts and nodding to each other in the warm recognition of reflected sanctimony.

Oh, and another latte, please waiter. Can it be a bit warmer, this time? Thanks. That last one was a bit cold.

If the ABC didn't exist, it wouldn't be necessary to invent it. The ABC is just a sheltered workshop for intellectually and culturally disabled nonentities locked in a '70s timewarp who couldn't survive in the real world. Instead of offering an exciting and stimulating alternative to commercial radio and TV (its only justification for existence),it feebly attempts to copy them.

Those people who argue that only the ABC maintains our cultural standards are deluding themselves. Take classical music: ABC FM's programs are conservative, amateur and unadventurous. As for jazz, an hour a day is considered sufficent - too much might lead to riotous behaviour! If you want to listen to jazz broadcasts in Sydney, you go to Eastside FM or North Shore FM for all day broadcasts. These are small, private-sector, creative, community initiatives which are challenging the grey boring fuzz that comes out of the Winter Palace on Harris Street.

Everyone's ABC is no-one's ABC.

Or should that be everyone's taxes are no-one's ABC. The orchestras used to be OK, though. But the bookshops? Please.

Several of you have asked why so many people working at government-funded enterprises are left-wing. I spent over a decade as a fully paid-up member to the "Whining Lefties Revolting Against Everything And Everyone We Can Think Of". And the answer is really very simple.

Left-wingers refuse to work in free market enterprises because they believe that in doing so:

1. a capitalist employer will exploit them

2. they will be part of the system that exploits others, and

3. making profit is evil.

Working in a government-funded enterprise allows them to believe they are not part of the exploitative capitalist system. If they are forced to work in a profit-making venture (such as a newspaper), then they do their level best to maintain their values by ensuring that at least on the surface they uphold good old fashioned marxist thinking by waging war on capitalism, the 'system', the government, the right wing, you name it.

Is this delusional thinking? Yes. I never said it made sense. But it's a pretty accurate picture of what I lived for more than ten years.

I'd miss the public broadcasters if they were gone.

Yes, their current affairs are biased. But their documentaries are much better than commercial offerings. I'd much rather watch a science, history or business doco from one of the public broadcasters than the crap they put on the Discovery channel.

I'd also say that initiatives like Triple J fill a void left by the commercials.

PK, their docos were once good but now usually have the most appalling left-wing spin put on them irrespective of the subject matter.

Docos once explored places and people, now they 'explore issues', meaning they project their preconceived ideas onto all manner of subjects and present this as impartial information.

Publicly-funded bodies do this best of all.

James Hamilton is right. We can blame the demand for credentialism for sloppy left-wing journalism.

The old tradition of a solid hard-nosed apprenticeship, learning on the job approach has been discarded in favour of questionable qualifications in communications/media studies taught at third-rate institutions by third-rate academics bitter and twisted because they
couldn't get a real job, who fill their heads with theoretical garbage.

When it comes to journalism, there's a lot to be said for being educated in the University of Life. Plus some remedial work on English.

As I posted some time back, the late Robert Nozick wrote at length on the media's opposition to capitalism. An excerpt follows:

The opposition of wordsmith intellectuals to capitalism is a fact of social significance. They shape our ideas and images of society; they state the policy alternatives bureaucracies consider. From treatises to slogans, they give us the sentences to express ourselves. Their opposition matters, especially in a society that depends increasingly upon the explicit formulation and dissemination of information.

Intellectuals now expect to be the most highly valued people in a society, those with the most prestige and power, those with the greatest rewards. Intellectuals feel entitled to this. But, by and large, a capitalist society does not honor its intellectuals. Ludwig von Mises explains the special resentment of intellectuals, in contrast to workers, by saying they mix socially with successful capitalists and so have them as a salient comparison group and are humiliated by their lesser status. However, even those intellectuals who do not mix socially are similarly resentful, while merely mixing is not enough--the sports and dancing instructors who cater to the rich and have affairs with them are not noticeably anti-capitalist.

See at: http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html

An extensive von Mises library can be found at: www.mises.org

Eoghan Harris is one of the few Irish journalists not steeped in left ideology. A friend who is a journalist (also one of the few) told me an interesting story about Ireland's major journalism school. The head of department is a closet IRA supporter and it is he decides which graduates get which placements. Be a good lefty and you get the plum national daily. Think for yourself and go work for a free sheet.

Don't watch the discovery channel....At least on Foxtel in Australia, it's pretty sad. The History channel, on the other hand, plays nothing except docos 24 hours a day. Infinitely better than anything the ABC could serve up - and not publically funded! How is that even possible?

I couldn't live without the ABC, with whom I have a love-hate relationship, because where I live it is all I get. I love it because when it is good, it is very good, but when it is simpering lefty rot (that is, most of the time) it is utterly infuriating.
Let's not forget kids shows: how could I have survived having twins without Bob the Builder, Brum, Little Bear...