I am working in the Guardians Sydney newsroom this week. I couldnt have planned for it, but this is the same week during which Australias public broadcaster ABC has to announce some drastic budget cuts, enforced by the conservative government which accuses the ABC of a liberal bias. (Sounds familiar?) The most vociferous public support for these budget cuts comes from Rupert Murdochs Australian newspapers. What strikes me here is how very similar Murdochs narratives against the ABC are to those being used by conservative publishers in Europe against Germanys public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, France Télévisions, Italys RAI or against the BBC. To give you a taste of todays coverage in Murdochs THE AUSTRALIAN, here are two snippets (from behind the paywall) that indicate that mixture of commercial self-interest and political agenda-setting which drives these so-called reforms by conservative governments. There is a lot to learn here for European public broadcasters. I will meet with colleagues of the ABC while being here and will most likely make the attacks on the public broadcasters the topic of a speech at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia this coming Spring. See also the Guardian Australias coverage of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: theguardian/media/australian-broadcasting-corporation
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 00:42:30 +0000