Qed

Political coverage on TV

Over 18 months ago the fearless poetry spouting leader of the ABC, Mark Scott made quite a splash about another jewel in the Ultimo crown, a so-called continuous news centre. This worthy initiative was mean to herald a 24hr news service to all Australians, not just those who are prepared to pay for Sky News. According to Scott –

A digital age service, the CNC will ultimately deliver news 24 hours a day to every outlet of the ABC

Unfortunately for the Australian public as viewers, the CNC hasn’t really delivered. Sky News has basically murdered the ABC for speed of getting news to air as tonight’s little fracas with the Liberal Party demonstrates.

In the space of an hour and a half from 7pm, the start of the National ABC bulletin, Sky were all over the story with a complete coverage of the Turnbull presser, as well a series of relevant face to face interviews with senior liberal party politicians. The ABC with a Parliamentary news bureau that dwarfs the resources of Sky could barely manage to get a stream of the Turnbull presser out. As for web content, the problem is that while the ABC journalists were busy generating text and feeding the archaic ABC web platform, Sky is going live on the bigpond site around the country.

The other problem is that the public through their taxes pay for the ABC. The Mark Scott CNC sounds fantastic but as Sky has demonstrated via Bigpond, putting a studio output on the web isn’t rocket science. Instead of grandstanding Mark Scott should do the right thing by the journalists and production staff of the ABC and give the ABC news a chance of being seen to be as good as Sky, otherwise what are we paying for?

Yes Sky are playing the continuous news cycle vs the ABC’s carefully considered and measured reporting but when news breaks, continuous coverage wins in terms of relevance. If you win an audience with breaking news, they are more likely to turn back to you the next time. Of course a complete cynic might observe that Mark Scott really isn’t interested in actually promoting journalism and news coverage at the ABC, he just wants to play tootsies with Planet Janet and her boss (who happens to own a third of Sky.)

The evidence…

The ABC spreads its tentacles

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.

Labor finally honours its pledge

Before the last election the Labor party committed to restoring the position of a staff elected representative on the ABC board, a position abolished by Howard who also went on to stack the ABC board with the likes of Keith Windshuttle, Janet Albrechtsen and a host of other right wingers. Not surprisingly the board appointed a former Liberal party staffer, businessman Mark Scott to the position of CEO thereby completing the right wing takeover of the top level of the ABC.

Plenty of commentators have labelled the staff position on the ABC board as some kind of throwback to the heyday of socialism but few of these commentators actually have any real idea how disconnected management in the ABC is from the actual business of making and distributing media. Of course the politics of the management agenda since the demise of the staff position has been to attack the independent productive capacity of the ABC in radio and TV through a process of amalgamations, realignments and outsourcing while also pursuing an idealogically motivated witch hunt in search of left wing bias in news and current affairs. While the bill proposed by the government is a small step in the bringing more transparency back into the ABC it remains to be seen whether or not the bill get passed and how long it takes before the position gets filled.

In the meantime it is also worth noting that Mark Scott collected an additional $30,000 last year bringing his pay to somewhere between $645,000 and $659,999. Meanwhile, the poor non-executive board members, like Janet, collect a measly figure somewhere between $45,000 and $60,000 – hardly seems worth their while. Obviously with that sort of money on offer, the new independent Nomination Panel will have a hard time finding quality replacements for the likes of Keith and Janet, even if the only thing the board does is turn up to half a dozen meetings every year.

Legislation to strengthen independence for national broadcasters | Senator Stephen Conroy | Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Out-sourcing and now off-shoring the ABC

One of Mark Scott’s greatest achievements, should he retire as CEO tomorrow, would have to be the extent to which he has turned the ABC into a cultural fiefdom for dispensing government funds to the private sector in return for so-called Australian content. In response to a question in a Senate committee the other day Scott portrayed this transition as the –

“way we have migrated a lot of our drama and documentary programs: keeping editorial control but working with the independent production sector.”

What Scott is admitting to is the process of replacing creative productive capacity within the ABC with commercial co-productions using other Australian production houses. Justifying co-productions on the basis that it opens up other financing options is one thing but purposely undermining the in-house capacity of the ABC to produce drama and documentary content is something else, witness the forced disbanding of the Natural History unit of the ABC at a time when public concern was growing over climate change and other environmental problems.

The heart of the matter is the notion of editorial control. Scott and Kim Dalton have spearheaded a dramatic increase in ABC TV’s patronage of external producers, often citing cost effectiveness as a primary incentive. This ignores the substantial investment in infrastructure and personnel that Australians through their taxes have made in the ABC in previous years. Costs continue to rise for the ABC yet actual ABC produced content is declining as more material is outsourced. It is disingenuous of Scott to portray this as financially expedient and deceptive to use the term editorial control without acknowledging the power relationship that exists between senior ABC management and independent producers who are often totally dependent on the ABC for their survival. It is that exercise of financial power over production that motivates a redirection of production from internal ABC units (who have have failed to reflect the views of senior management) to a more vulnerable independent production sector.

But not content with destroying the in-house capacity of the ABC TV to produce anything more than news, current affair and talking head studio material, Mark Scott now wishes to farm out iconic ABC programs to overseas producers. Bananas in Pyjamas (in 3D) is moving off-shore. Notwithstanding the fact that TV has barely managed to make the transition to digital and that HD take-up is still lagging, what is the motivation for a 3D animated version of Bananas? And if the motivation exists, which is dubious, why not exploit the homegrown talents of an industry that despite limitations has still produced oscar award winning animations.

In recent years there has been a distinct trend away from locally produced animation on TV. These figure from Screen Australia show a marked decline in Australian made animations on TV. Yet we continue to train aspiring young Australians in the field of animation. Surely employing Australians to tell Australian stories is implicit in the ABC charter which says the ABC should be

“broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community”

Presumably the only Australian content the ABC is interested in is the free user supplied stuff that will power Mark Scott’s Town Square vision. Paying Australians, let alone paying ABC staff to make content seems like such 20th century idea.

Mark Scott on Journalism

Mark Scott delivered a blunt assessment on the future landscape for traditional media in his A.N. Smith Memorial lecture at Melbourne University. He acknowledged that all the rules have changed and those media players that survive will be the ones that accept and embrace the challenges posed by the new circumstances.

In a speech that portrayed the 20th century as the golden age of media empires, Mark Scott predicted a contraction in old world media. While he said that some iconic mastheads like the New York Times will be able to command pricing power for online material, presumably through advertising and selling premium content, many other newspapers will decline. In an indirect reference to News Corp and the Murdochs, Scott linked declining old-media dominance and power with the old-media management style of command and rule, a habit that Scott said “is hard to break”.

Scott said of recent Murdoch statements that “you sense this rage at the injustice of what the online world is doing to his traditional model” yet as Scott also observed the success of Murdoch in print grew out of a deliberate policy to drive down the cost of content. Given the prediction that Scott and others have made that internet content will remain largely free for the foreseeable future there is something ironic in the current Murdoch move to paid content.

Scott did not avoid mentioning the fortunate position of the ABC or its relative freedom to pursue an internet audience. He did however underline some of the challenges confronting the ABC in the new age; how to maintain the integrity and quality of the ABC while at the same time allowing for more user generated media, how to maintain distinctly Australian stories in a global media market and how to provide a shared national experience.

In response to these challenges Scott alluded to a greater editorial and curatorial role, citing the current ratio of editors to journalists (62 to 4) on the Huffington Post. Hardly numbers that would inspire potential journalists at Melbourne Uni but Scott also predicted an ongoing need for quality investigative journalism, possibly produced cooperatively with other media players. He also predicted additional tools that will allow users to share ABC content and extend the distribution of ABC media into the social network space.

He also touched on the ongoing internal restructuring taking place within the ABC and suggested the ABC was not immune to the need for change. The now familiar ABC new media approach with its continuous news centre and local radio media hubs were again mentioned as Scott focussed on the exciting potential for the ABC to shape its own future in the new media landscape. If the ABC is still around in 33 years and occupying the same privileged position, Mark Scott may well be remembered for his role during these trying times.

The speech is available here for download.

James Murdoch out to ‘destroy the BBC’, says ABC head | Media | guardian.co.uk

Businessman and Australian Public Broadcaster CEO Mark Scott has delivered on his promise to give Rupert Jnr a stern talking to in his Australia House speech to the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.

Scott suggested that Murdoch's antipathy to the BBC resembled the attitude of his grandfather, Sir Keith Murdoch, an Australian press baron who objected to plans for an ABC news service in the 1930s.

via James Murdoch out to ‘destroy the BBC’, says ABC head | Media | guardian.co.uk.

Given his position, Mark would find it difficult not to criticise James Murdoch since by logical extension Jimmy’s little dummy spit can also be applied to the ABC, a point Mark was obviously aware of when he said

“The need for public broadcasting in the digital age is growing, not diminishing…At the ABC, we are confident that our best days lie head of us.”

via ABC chief blasts Murdoch on BBC.

Everyone’s ABC? Only if you lean left | theage.com.au

Peter Costello please stay in Politics, you have such an honest and unbiased view of the world and it is very selfish of you to deprive the wider community of your obvious talents. Of course the ABC is a warren of left wing bunnies which is why your former colleague and culture warrior Little Johnny installed Planet Janet and Keith-Whitewash-Windshuttle to the board of the ABC.

But I hear you say, nothing changed.

That pesky carrot-top on the 730 Report still keeps asking impertinent questions and Phillips Adam remains unchallenged in his oh-so radical left wing opinions. Clearly more action is required and who better than Businessman Mark Scott, political advisor to the former New South Wales Liberal Education Minister, Terry Metherell and champion of the cost cutters at Fairfax. He’ll sort out the rampart communists lurking in the corridors of the ABC. And by golly he has! Editorial Balance! Peter how could you be so untouched by this piece of brilliance by Mark Scott? Surely this counts? And the outsourcing of ABC productions, Peter this too must count! Just think of all the potential for more commercially motivated producers to share their vision of the world.

And Mark’s dream, Peter how could you not be aware of how grand it is? Shiny new stuff everywhere producing nice balanced little bits of floss everywhere, the savings in operational staffcosts is pure poetry. Just think of the money Peter, its all about SAVINGS!

True, that unruly lot in Radio keep poking their noses in other peoples business but who listens to the radio anyway? A man of your standing is surely above such petty concerns. Your obvious sympathy for the fate of the poor lonely single Liberal party supporter in the ABC is impressive, yet I detect a greater worry that might be nibbling away at your quest for a balanced and fairer ABC. Do you think that Mark Scott, former Liberal Party Staffer has gone soft? Worse still, might he have become infected with some left wing ideology? On $430,000 a year? Surely that’s enough to buy anyone? Is Mark Scott a Labor Party Stooge? OMG!

Peter you must stay and help fight the good fight. If you can’t trust people like Mark Scott to stay the hard and difficult course, who can you trust?

Everyone’s ABC? Only if you lean left | theage.com.au.