The ABC: Service for Funding

There are three key sections of this chapter. The first is the ideal of a public broadcaster as a force for influential good and the role it generally is expected to fulfil, not just in the media but more importantly in the life of a nation. At a time in history when other governments were observed to use propaganda to craft national thinking, radio was seen as a potent means of controlling the national mindset. This chapter also develops an understanding of the power of ABC staff culture and how it has constrained ABC leadership and management with a dismissiveness of management decision-making. Third, this chapter describes the ABC’s slide into same field as Rupert Murdoch of commercial opinion and commentary and how the ABC failed to treasure its Bourdieusian cultural capital and develop frameworks, strategies, succession-planning, bulwarks and policies that would protect its values and reputation in this now primary, highly contested, yet seductive digital media field. The evolving, expanding commercial media field, like the universe itself, consists of a more random assortment of actors and factors than the Aunty could ever have dreamt. This chapter conducts a thematic content analysis of a prominent news story reported by the ABC where there were accusations of bias in the coverage. Ultimately, this research found it was the infiltration of opinion articles, creative writing and images on news pages, which also contained neutral court reports, that upset and compromised ABC impartiality as it competes in, and with, the commercial digital field.