This is the time of year when ABC viewers see ads for that book about history from that bloke on that Radio National show and think, “Oh, my dad might like that.”
Needless to say, getting your books promoted extensively on prime-time TV is a huge boon for any publisher. The cost of TV advertising is way beyond the actual income any normal book brings in. So who is on the end of this unique advantage? HarperCollins, which you may remember is owned by those notable ABC fans at News Corp.
Beyond the irony of the ABC having such a fruitful relationship with a company owned by the employer of Chris Kenny, Chris Mitchell, Janet Albrechtsen and countless others who dedicate a considerable amount of their professional energy to slamming the public broadcaster, there’s the question of how all this actually works.
The ABC entered into this commercial partnership with HarperCollins back in 2009, and some Australian publishers feel there’s a lack of clarity about the deal and whether it will ever come up for tender or renegotiation.
“It is frustrating to see such a big contract apparently locked away without opportunities to get involved or tender,” Hardie Grant co-founder Sandy Grant told Crikey. “The ABC is a prime source of potential book content and we have had situations where discussions we initiate with journalists [about potential books] have ended up published by HarperCollins due to some form of obligation.”
We asked the ABC if there was any public tender process in determining who publishes its books, but it didn’t get back to us by deadline.
This isn’t the only bit of literary domination from News Corp at the moment — as editor Peter Rose notes in December’s Australian Book Review, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards’ judging panel has a remarkable number of News Corp figures on it. Six of the 10 judges have a close association with The Australian, including The Oz’s literary editor Caroline Overington, senior writer Troy Bramston, and the publication’s former editor-in-chief/current columnist Chris Mitchell.
Then there’s the fact prime minister Scott Morrison made the appointments just before the May election.
This was always Scott Morrisons modus operandi. Report favourably about me and my team, and I will reward you with honorary appointments and give you the break on new emerging stories. It was mafioso in nature. I’m glad this “Don” of gutter politics is no longer our PM.
the ABC often advertises News Ltd and it’s staff, in clear breach of its original charter. The ABC was set up as an independent alternative to commercial media, not as a promoter of it. This is what ABC has become, and it needs to change.
Yes, they quote Murdoch “news” constantly in their news programs
What the papers say is a segment that reports each state’s Murdoch paper, each following the current Murdoch idee fixee of the day. The ABC seems to have an inhouse rule that the very notion of there being a Murdoch line or the Murdoch bias must never be mentioned. Shameful grovelling. Then there are the ex-Murdoch types employed:Speers, karvelis. PK as she loves to be called uses Speers and Sam Maiden each week for political analysis. This kind of thing is never brought up by LNP senators in ctee attacks on the ABC. The Drum has a disgraceful record of bias in panel selection. Again, never mentioned by the anti-ABC folks on the Right.
I agree very much with this. The ABC has been being slowly taken over by commercially born-n-raised journalists and meeja execs for years. The joint is essentially a defacto commercial media player now, any shred of a genuine ‘public broadcaster’ ethos long subsumed by tacky ‘wannabe big swinger’ ambitions after cross-meeja giganticism, cartel-like desertification of the wider Oz broadcast media landscape, and a surrender to a privileged elite of indulged, overpaid Star Bylines…who quite genuinely cannot understand the distinction between ‘the public interest’ and that of (and in) their own careers/egos. True public interest journalism demands the self-effacement of the reporter. The current crop of profile hacks at the ABC simply wouldn’t know what I’m talking about if I suggested that the story is more important than their telling of it. Like the witless irony of those endless ‘Your ABC’ self-promotions – which of course meta-advertise the exact opposite, the true message – senior journalist and executive staff now simply can’t even conceive that there’s any difference between the ABC’s charter obligations and their own personal media judgements, much less embrace the former as the ABC’s definitive, institutionally-collegiate sector differentiator. It shouldn’t surprise us, nor is pointing this out necessarily an attack on any of them. It simply stands to reason that media figures like Buttrose, directors like Judith Whelan, Michael Carrington, Helen Clifton, Gaven Morris, senior execs like Nick Leys, Sally Jackson and the (now) many more ABC leaders who were largely incubated in commercial media, are always going to see a media role in terms of applied information power; in terms of information ‘wins’ and ‘losses’, ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. It’s a complete category error at a public broadcaster, where there should be no invested interest in any information (or culture!) war, at all. No brand ‘protection’, no ‘defending’ of journalists should be countenanced – or needed. What’s to lose? If an ABC reporter gets something wrong, just…correct it. No-one loses, or should do. Least of all the journo. Facts change. Stories evolve. Good reporting today mustn’t be scared of admitting yesterday’s mistakes, nor of ruling out the chance that today’s good reporting might similiarly need correcting tomorow, too. A taxpayer funded journalism platform is supposed – is designed – to enable this information indepedence; to neutralise any need to ‘win’ any kind of information ‘war’. The reason the ABC has dug so disastrously in on any number of misfired yarns over the last few years is because…well, all its leadership figures do think they need to ‘win’ something. The information ‘fight’ against Rupert. The information ‘fight’ against the LNP, the Catholic Church, Trump, this, that…you name it (it’ll be the ALP soon, them being in power). Everything is an information fight at the ABC now, and – like a Packer, a Murdoch, a Conrad Black, a Citizen Kane – the ABC simply must ‘win’. And that mindset, obviously, demands…partisan choices. Whether you happen to agree with the ones made or not, it’s just not what the ABC is for. Its most destructive force of the last two decades hasn’t been left political bias within, or right political bullying from without: it’s been Boards that have simply failed to insist the Charter be observed, and successive Executive leadership teams that have had no grasp of what that looks like, and why it’s vital.
There’s a place in journalism for the narcissistic, swaggering, hit-n-miss – but also risk-taking, gutsy, potentially effective – activist-journalism of a Louise Milligan, Sarah Ferguson, Patricia Karvelas. There’s a place for bold, strategic, freewheelin’, blue sky thinkin’, corporate media disruption. I’s just not at the public broadcaster. Such figures should go and take their chances in the high-stakes commercial realms. The ABC is too powerful, too fragile, and too essential to ever be allowed to become the vanity publishing and posturing outfit of a select few stars and would-be hotshot big swingers, who spray stories about, who make their slick ‘deals’ like it’s tabloid TV/radio land. And – like tabloid TV/radio land – never concede when their ‘big deals’ are actually just taxpayer-underpinned self-aggrandisments, corporate cartel/bullying of the HarperCollins kind, or when the Big Names get stories just plain wrong, but refuse to correct them, or properly follow them up, for the sake of protecting their individual egos and the sector market value of their byline brands.
I think Ita and Murdoch are on the same page on more issues than just this one. Trojan horse comes to mind…
I think Ita and Murdoch are on the same page on more issues than just this one
I wondered how far down I’d have to scroll before finding this said. The ABC is an echo of News Ltd, getting its daily political news agenda and framing from The Australian, and basing its ‘Insiders’ show on Murdoch and ex-Murdoch (most of Nine’s personnel) compere, guests and talking points. Murdoch, LNP and IPA people litter shows like The Drum, and Speers inhabits every space for ‘commentary’ on RN and the local ABC station.
Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to screw us…or
There are none so blind as those who will not see…
“PM’s Literary Awards” judge Troy Bramston?
Who was promoed on last night’s The Drum – with neither reference to this connection, nor questions about his company’s partisan, pro-Coalition political campaigns, latest being this year’s federal and Victoria’s “neck-and-neck”?
True he wasn’t challenged about his company’s activities but he was pretty fair about Gough Whitlam. A big difference to the mealy-mouthed column written by George Brandis in Monday’s SMH.
… Chris Kenny, Chris Mitchell, Janet Albrechtsen and countless others who dedicate a considerable amount of their professional energy to slamming the public broadcaster,…
Going for some wild understatement there, Charlie?