Until we remove the levers of funding from the government of the day (currently via passing the budget), stop government Ministers from having powers to direct the ABC on matters of national interest (Section 78 of the ABC Act), and make the organisation run democratically, it's never going to stop being soft on the government of the day, nor be able to actually stand up to corporations or lobby groups.

GetUp's campaign on saving the ABC was such a joke to me because they kept saying "save the ABC, save the ABC" and only talking about protesting budget cuts, which is incredibly short-sighted.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that organisations are much less likely to bite the hand that feeds it.

The ABC has been plagued with allegations of bias for years, and because they're not really independent, they kow-tow way too often.

Never forget what they did to David McBride.

I think it's time to link ABC funding to inflation or something via the constitution or some other more concrete mechanism than simply legislation, and make all employees have a say in the running of the organisation. A workers coop that just so happens to be a government organisation (obviously with checks to ensure they can still have funding revoked if the org goes completely off the rails, and that they can't just decide, hmmm, let's just not hire new people and share the funding between a smaller group of employees. I doubt this would with democratisation, though)

[–] eureka@aussie.zone 1 points 8 hours ago

I don't disagree at all. That said, I also want to say I'm glad the ABC exists as a state-funded channel, and it's no secret that I'm very critical of the governments who have held the levers. The main reason I'm glad is because without state-funded channels, we see a more-or-less dominance of the owning class controlling the vast majority of mass media in the hands of the mega-rich and using it to pursue their financial interests and fill the remaining airtime with for-profit drivel. The ABC enables creators to create art and educational shows far far more than commercial media does, it reminds me of George Lucas talking about the filmmaking industry and artistic freedom. When the channel isn't desperate to make money, the employees have more real freedom. And like you said, the ABC is still dependent on the government allowing them to get funding, and they often kow-tow to receive it, but it's miles better than having to please a major shareholder board and major advertisers who don't want to be criticised.

As you've described, the ABC certainly has pressures which bias it against neutrality, and you've proposed some good alternatives which reduce these biases.