ABC political editor Andrew Probyn has been stood down as part of a new five-year plan. Managing editor Michelle Pini takes a look at what this signals for the public broadcaster.
ANDREW PROBYN has been retrenched from his role as political editor at the ABC.
This is not in defence of Probyn who, as political editor, should really have had someone to edit his own privilege-laden, often blatantly biased commentary before it was unleashed for public consumption.
Also, let’s not get started on the standard of Probyn’s recent questioning of people like former Prime Minister Paul Keating, for instance, which was, at best, devoid of any substance or insight.
And no, we don’t think Probyn was let go, as Nick Cater suggested in an apparently non-satirical piece for The Australian (where else?), because he was white and male!
Since Probyn was made redundant rather than replaced, the issue here is not about him, specifically, but about Aunty’s direction. And it appears political news coverage at the national broadcaster no longer warrants a political editor, at all.
Probyn was one of 120 employees – including 41 news staff – to be retrenched as part of:
‘...A range of savings measures and reinvestment initiatives designed to address rising costs and support its transition to a digital-first media organisation.’
Whatever that means.
According to ABC managing director David Anderson:
“We have made clear our vision for the ABC to be an essential part of everyday life for all Australians through our high-quality journalism and content, wherever they may live across the country.”
This statement may be particularly hard to swallow given the ABC's "high-quality journalism and content" currently on offer — before this latest move to dumb it down further and leave us all even less informed.
Insiders, for instance, is now little more than a publicly funded catch-up between (most often) white, male, right-to-extremely right-leaning buddies, who are regularly given yet another platform to spout their increasingly out-of-touch opinions. They don't call it "insiders" for nothing, after all!
News Breakfast now looks like a less polished version of Sunrise. There are recipes, updates on what Taylor Swift is up to, “news” delivered via rehashed News Corp/Nine headlines and an abundance of "hard-hitting" stories, such as this morning’s feature on the demise of Fantales lollies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but where is the foreign affairs coverage? The regional coverage? The analysis of issues?
And if you still need evidence to attest to the sad, broken state of our public broadcaster, surpassing all the above in stupefying discourse, there’s Q&A.
This week, the program featured Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, whose inane commentary makes Love Island contestants look like a collection of Mensa minds. Apparently, Bridget "Sport Rorts" McKenzie is now a sought-after ABC A-lister, given she also guest-starred on Insiders the day before, where she was given a platform to justify the Senator Gallagher witch-hunt.
Her own party's mishandling of the Brittany Higgins allegations or the latest allegations against the Liberal Party Senator, David Van, were all fine, though.
This is apparently because McKenzie declared the relentless questioning of Gallagher to be "legitimate" and since, according to host David Speers, the issue "was weaponised by Labor in 2021"! Oh, also, "Peter Dutton took swift and decisive action" against Van, so we should all just move on.
But back to Q&A on Monday (19 June).
McKenzie was offended by comedian Reuben Kaye's following joke, first shared on The Project:
“I love Jesus. I love any man who can get nailed for three days straight and come back for more.”
Asked why she found it so offensive, McKenzie said:
"You know, I am a person of faith. And it wasn’t just the Christian community that got offended. The Islamic community did, as well. Although, I guess...Christians have been persecuted for over 2,000 years."
To which Kaye quipped:
"Oh, give it a break! You’re standing next to a Jewish homosexual, and you’re going to say Christians have been persecuted?"
And Senator McKenzie's scintillating observations didn't stop there. In a discussion about the national broadcaster's latest cost measures, after ten years of savage cuts in funding by the Government of which she was a member, Bridget turned to Labor Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten and asked:
“More money [for the ABC], Bill?"
Nowhere was the ABC's change in approach to news and information more obvious, though, than when it suspended all regular news coverage on both ABC TV and ABC Radio to be replaced with weeks of dedicated coverage and 'special programming to reflect on the life of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, following her death at the age of 96'.
As we reported earlier,
‘…Viewers tuning in to News Breakfast to find everyone dressed in black and ABC Chair Ita Buttrose herself appearing to discuss with Sarah Ferguson and David Speers the gloves she wore when the Queen last visited this colony, surpassed parody.’
The only remaining bastions of serious news coverage seem to be Laura Tingle’s segment on 7.30 and the iconic 4 Corners program, but hey, give the powers to be at ABC a bit more time to "fix" those too!
As Dave Donovan tweeted:
ABC Media release 15 June 2023
In response to budgetary pressures, the ABC has regretably been forced to make the following cuts:
– 7.30 will become 6.45;
– Q&A is now &A; and
– 4 Corners is henceforth to be known as Triangle.
Thank you for your support of public broadcasting.
You can follow IA managing editor Michelle Pini on Twitter @vmp9. Follow Independent Australia on Twitter @independentaus and on Facebook HERE.
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