ABC guidelines - one more skirmish in the culture wars

I dare them to finance an Australian program denying the reality of the Greenhouse effect and increasing levels of CO2. Indeed, I dare an Australian filmmaker to make it.

SBS has tried to deal with this in a way which is actually pathetic. A strong film which leads the audience to feel sick about the invasion of Iraq is “balanced” by whatever it can find next week which runs the other way. From a ratings and audience point of view this doesn’t work, because the alternative films are so wussy.

The ABC and SBS already happily support a licensed Right wing filmmaker. His name is Don Parham, and I work with him on some projects, though we fight too much about politics to actually accomplish anything on a controversial film. He always maintains that he is neglected and discriminated against; I answer that he has made more films in Melbourne than most other filmmakers; he tells me it is more difficult for him; I tell him he gets more rope to deal in opinions than anyone else I know … and so it goes.

I think the problem is temporary. There are a pile of political documentaries at the moment from the US which are obviously polemical, but that bubble will collapse as soon as Bush ceases to be president. Unless they find and anoint another Bush heavy, in which case we will probably have more important problems to worry about.

Australian documentaries about political terrain are much more nuanced anyway. The President versus David Hicks followed his father on a journey. Sounds of War explored the Iraq War through music. Etc. As one former head of documentary at the ABC, Mike Rubbo, once put it very succinctly on a panel: “we don’t do agitprop”, and Australian audiences truly don’t want to be hectored, lectured, patronised and led on group hate sessions. (Like, for instance, a lot of Fox News.)

I suppose this piece is just a long journey to something obvious. The ABC and the independent sector are charting the great movements and dilemmas of the times. That, not balance and diversity, is the real importance of the work. The government of the day is out of touch, and committed to policies which are not historically or scientifically accurate, in which they are slaves to prejudice and superstition.

They don’t like funding a great machine for detecting the truth, and they invent the idea that there are other truths, equally important, that are being suppressed.

As a minor worker in that truth machine, this makes me very uneasy. Is my work to be suppressed so they can give the money to anyone who will lie at their bidding?

A couple of specific things from Mark Scott’s speech worried me.

But under our new editorial policies, we will be looking for further diversity of voices - ensuring the ABC is the town square where debate can flourish and different voices heard. I have encouraged the Director of Television to work with the Media Watch team to review their format and content next year to ensure there is more opportunity for debate and discussion around contentious and important issues. It is a popular program, has a loyal following and I hope, a long future at the ABC.

And next year, Jeff McMullen will host a new televised discussion program for us, “A Difference of Opinion”, that will ensure that on contentious issues of the day, there is opportunity for the full range of opinions and perspectives to be heard.

Perhaps Media Watch does deal in what Mark Scott would now call “opinion”. It certainly compares the work of reporters to an idealistic notion of good journalism. It is hard to imagine any example it raises which would survive the ABC’s editorial guidelines, even for internal programs.