ABC forced to make further cuts

by Peter Mac

The Howard Government's slow strangulation of ABC funding has resulted in 
further funding cuts. Last week ABC management announced it intended to 
scrap its cadet journalist training scheme, its children's current affairs 
program Behind the News (BTN), parts of its current affairs 
programs, most of its midday news and much of its activity in other 
areas.

The ABC had already announced it would axe its digital children's channel 
and some children's TV programs, in order to save $26 million and that 
these and the latest cuts will affect 100 members of staff, 25 of whom will 
be made redundant.

ABC management has now revealed that its budget shortfall is actually some 
$4 million larger than the $26 million previously announced. This has 
ominous implications for ABC news and current affairs.

The crisis stems from the Government's decision several years ago to cut 
funding by $50 million. It has refused to reinstate the previous funding 
level, and has made further savage cuts in specific areas.

The decision to cut cadet journalist training has been hypocritically 
condemned by some commercial broadcasters, who have historically benefited 
by recruiting talented new ABC-trained broadcasters.

They also claimed that cuts could have been made at boardroom level, even 
though ABC management has no control over the Board's members, many of whom 
are Howard government appointees.

With astonishing hypocrisy, the chauffeur-driven editors of some newspapers 
have suggested that the ABC could have avoided the latest cuts by 
disbanding part of its (very useful) car fleet.

Others have suggested that cuts could have been avoided by not having 
popular presenters such as Indira Naidoo flown to Sydney for weekly 
broadcasts. They conveniently ignore that fact that the ABC has been forced 
to centralise TV production in Sydney in order to cut costs.

Behind the News is one of a number of children's programs which will 
be discontinued as a result of the ABC's decision to abolish its 
educational production unit in South Australia. These cuts will be a 
terrible loss to school children around the nation.

The loss of BTN in particular has been slammed by the commercial 
media. They ignore the fact that the Government itself has refused to 
commit to funding BTN when its current funding runs out.

However, others such as the NSW Parents and Citizens Federation have 
clearly attributed blame for the cuts to the Government. The Media, 
Entertainment and Arts Alliance said that inadequate government funding 
meant the ABC would be forced to "eat its own future". The Deputy President 
of the NSW Teachers' Federation, Jennifer Leete, attributed the cuts to 
"the Howard Government's decision to engage in an exercise of political 
payback."

The Federal Minister for Communications Richard Alston initially expressed 
delight at the shrinking of ABC broadcasting. He said ABC management's 
"tough decisions" demonstrated it could live within its budget limitations 
without adversely affecting its program range, which he described as 
"vast", suggesting he favours even more program cuts.

(His previous outburst against program cuts mainly concerned the 
termination of digitally broadcast children's shows, which will slow the 
general conversion to digital broadcasting.)

However, after the public outcry over the loss of Behind the News, 
Alston did a hasty "about face" and joined in the commercial media's attack 
on ABC management.

Significantly, one of the programs he singled out as his preferred choice 
for axing was the ABC's Media Watch, which has frequently offered 
biting criticism of the failings of commercial media, and which as a 
consequence is hated by the media barons — as well as by the minister, 
naturally.

He also nominated the youth comedy program Glass House, whose host 
recently made some particularly hurtful remarks about Alston's political 
orientation.

National editor of the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program, John 
Cameron, commented: "We've got about 14 bureaus around the world and about 
20 correspondents, and we will have to look very seriously at whether we 
retain all of those."

Minister bias

Alston is still attacking the ABC over alleged "bias". He previously 
accused the ABC of being unable to properly handle complaints of bias, 
after its complaints review panel rejected all but two of his 68 
allegations of ABC anti-American bias during the Iraq war.

He now claims that ABC management attempted to nobble the panel, and that 
they "cannot be trusted to oversee a genuinely open and independent 
complaints handling process".

In a frankly contemptuous rebuttal, ABC management replied that "Two weeks 
ago he questioned the independence (of the panel) and its members. Now we 
are to believe he is a champion of their independence."

The Australian Press Council also rejected the Minister's comments. It 
described his suggestion for establishment of an independent organisation 
to examine ABC bias as "raising the possibility of further government 
restrictions on the media to freely report matters of public interest and 
concern".

Not that this will deter Alston from further attacks on the ABC, which he 
appears determined to emasculate, commercialise or even eliminate 
altogether. But better men than he have tried that, and failed.