The background. ABC presser then Crikey in bed with Smart Company plus New Matilda and of course LP.
So what monday! Chris Wallace takes an early break and misses the big media story of the day. Mark at LP dips out on a plumb gig over at Aunty and Crikey gets set for shake-up, meanwhile Media Watch is also on holidays. Is there something going on here, could the ABC be carefully avoiding scrutiny by waiting for the watchdogs to take a break or am I just overly paranoid? Either way it’s an interesting development.
Perhaps Margaret’s story about Crikey is code for a broader malaise in the Australian news media. So “not vastly profitable, Crikey is now a significant media presence” may well sum up the state of play but it alerts us to the key factors, making money and being significant. I’m not significant and the pay is crap so I often wonder how in this day and age private media companies can afford to pay big salaries to people just to write stuff. Is it about reputations? Certainly reputation is important, naming names is part of the game otherwise we wouldn’t be interested in Jonathan Green. He has an impressive track record and no doubt will add a certain gravitas to the ABC, however is this a good thing? Will Australian’s be served by an increasingly dominant ABC any better than by a Murdoch monopoly? I think there is a huge danger in media monopolies regardless of whether they represent corporate interests or the state.
I going to make an argument that comes from recently working at the ABC for 8 years. During that time the ABC completed a move, started with the infamous Dix report, from a largely disparate and unwieldy organisation to its current centralised corporate structure. Certainly some of those rationalisations were overdue, however the extravagant ivory towers that now represent the ABC seem to lack some of the diversity that used to be a hallmark of the ABC. I think in a very real sense, the swanky new ABC buildings are about the public perception of the ABC and self-glorification of those that work in them. Lacking in the new ABC is the larrikin element that used to inhabit the dusty corridors of the older sites around the country.
When I started, ABC Canberra consisted of an old building circa the late sixties that housed some distinctive and uniquely designed radio studios, a small TV studio and some office space. Attached to the old building was a terrapin hut and adjoining the TV studio was a beautiful enclosed garden where they once made a gardening program. Inside, the place was a bit of a mess. The TV studio had been gutted after the local news service was axed in 1991. At that time Canberra was well served by a long running commercial TV news service from what was once Australia’s largest regional TV station, Capital Television and the new system of aggregation was about to unleash even more local TV news content so the ABC’s departure was, although contentious, only missed by a few.
In 2001 the long running campaign of The Friends of the ABC coincided with market place rationalisations and a new ABC agenda for providing state based TV services which resulted in a restoration of TV news for Canberra. It also signalled an overhaul of ABC buildings around the country and money was diverted into an expensive building program which saw towering edifices like Ultimo assume pride of place in the middle of Sydney. These buildings, the physical manifestation of the ABC, are accounted for in the ABC annual report but I would argue that the intangible products, the quality and nature of the media the ABC produces is more valuable to its audience. These days any media can be produced almost anywhere but production environments, the physical, the social and the general locality still contribute distinguishing features to the symbols embedded in modern media.
The bland consensual pap that has become a hallmark of the ABC in recent times not only reflects a very Sydney centric view of Australia but also embodies the spirit of an expensive and centralised ABC corporate structure, one which rewards subservience and punishes dissent. Despite a significant spread of staff and facilities around the country, most decisions are made from comfortable offices in the middle of the Sydney CBD and most TV, Internet and News content originates from Ultimo. Other than the Parliament House bureau, the ABC in Melbourne and some regional radio, the states provide only marginal input into the mix of media that is your ABC. Importantly, this is not a question of ability or capacity which exists in abundance, rather it is a predictable outcome arising from such a centralised corporate structure.
One exception that is often cited as proof of a wider more representative ABC is its regional radio network however this network is threatened by the convergence of technology and shrinking demographics. It should also be noted that the regional radio presence rarely contributes to the national media mix and has become largely a symbolic flag flying exercise frequently couched in terms of regional disasters. The Town Square idea is simply an extension of this flag-flying with an added gatekeeping role on a smaller budget. I’m sure it is hoped by Scott and others that the addition of online to certain radio sites will help transition the organisation as their traditional audience declines but another key management consideration is maintaining the ABC brand and mindshare.
Here is where we arrive back at Simon’s quote. Significance and profit. The ABC is a significant player both in terms of reach and in terms of resources, particularly financial. In the past the ABC has been somewhat held in check by a relatively robust and viable privately owned media sector but with a rise in corporate concerns for profitability, there is a corresponding shift in favour of the ABC. The claimed new media revolution cannot deliver overnight an alternative to the 800lb gorilla that is the ABC but it can be harnessed by the monolithic media organisation as it seeks to extend its influence. It’s a clever ploy, the ABC becomes a self appointed gatekeeper for local opinion and simultaneously, by virtue of its tax payer infrastructure, undermines alternative points of view which must rely on some form of advertising or subscriptions to survive.
The Scott vision from his comfortable office high up in fortress Ultimo is for a powerful centralised ABC that avoids contention and panders to the cultural elites while continuing to pay lipservice to the ideas of diversity as evidenced by the spread of ABC online and digital TV. Part of the Scott vision also includes an element of self aggrandisement and he clearly wants to claim he did something big for the ABC. As CEO and board member he is very much involved with the internal rationalisation of the ABC getting rid of legacy artefacts such as inhouse documentary production for TV and specialist radio programming like the Religion report. Then there are the attacks on the culture of the ABC disguised as the new management sanctioned “ABC Values” and the earlier plan for “editorial balance” driven through news rooms across the country which complements the famous ABC management decree of “refer upwards”. Mark Scott’s tactic is to push the ABC in terms of aspiration goals such the online Town Squares and the international blueprint while simultaneously undercutting dissent within the ABC by a softly softly approach to outsourcing.
Outsourcing occurs on several levels within the ABC. On one level is the outsourcing of key parts of the ABC, such as TV production and technical distribution. Then there is outsourcing of staff. In a recent article the Age canvassed the number and fiancial success of Australians now working as contractors. Contracts are very popular with management because (generally) they return power to management and remove the onerous restraints of the award system as well as the potential for industrial action. The ABC use of employment contracts has been strategic, for instance entry level work is often filled with short term contracts breeding compliance and in other instances key positions in news are filled by contractors with suitable financial and editorial rewards.
While the ABC is probably no different to any other organisation in Australia with regard to managing its workers and risk, the net effect is an ABC that is more responsive to the wishes of senior management. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing when management is committed to providing pluralistic and dissenting points of view but obviously a management philosophy that reflects a narrow right wing viewpoint and is unable to cope with internal divisions except by way of top down directives is intrinsically not going to deliver a broad range of opinions or points of view.
You cannot simply attack dissent internally and then somehow expect, as if by magic, for your news media to be cutting edge or breaking new ground. For all of Scott’s theatrics on the new media front, what’s really at work is an expensive exercise in getting rid of subversion in the mainstream of the ABC and broadcasting the same message of conformity to rest of Australia. The ABC is fast becoming the messenger for Sydney’s North Shore, aided and abetted by an image sensitive government in Canberra. Neither is really interested in genuine journalistic values or in robust public debate, it is all about perception management and they are able to get away with it because the private media sector is struggling to stay afloat.
Australia’s democracy would be better served by providing funds that support a wide variety of expressions and enables the pursuit of truth and quality. There is something quite chilling in the extraordinary high level of popular support for the ABC while the private media cannibalises itself and the community sector starves. Anyone who thinks critical analysis can happen when only one voice speaks loudly isn’t thinking. The vast sums of money squandered by the ABC creating its impressive steel and glass facades seeks to hide the fact that quality content, material that challenges audiences and questions the orthodox has been replaced by the soothing balanced perspective that is your ABC.
