Dear Editor, 

I still trust the ABC and Four Corners. I believe it is objective, but it receives a lot of criticism. Part of the attacks stem from outlets owned by the Murdoch family interests. If people are accessing ABC platforms or watching ABC programs, they are not consuming News Corporation outlets. The easiest way to attack it is through their outlets. Friends and acquaintances to the left attack it as being right wing, we know those of the right attack it as being left wing. It can’t be both.

It depends where the individuals themselves stand. If I drew a line, there would be individuals along that continuum at either end and at various points. If you are right and you look centre it would still appear to you as being left, if you are along the left, the centre perspective would appear right.

A couple of old expressions or proverbs come to mind.  “He who pays the piper gets to call the tune” and “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.

Commercial media receiving advertising dollars are not going to investigate or attack the industry that pays them. To use real examples, Four Corners recently examined food labelling, food origins and exploitative labour impacting our supermarkets. Coles and Woolworths are huge advertisers, and investigative reporting is much less likely to be undertaken by a commercial media outlet due to the hundreds of millions of dollars expended on advertising.

The ABC as a public broadcaster can do this, as it is not reliant on advertising revenue.

Other examples are previous Four Corners programs looking at aged care, and insurance. These contributed to two Royal Commissions. Anyone who turns on early morning television will see a huge amount of advertising for age care facilities, retirement products, and funeral insurance policies. At other times, we see Budget Direct advertising, Youi and others. Is a newspaper, commercial TV or radio network going to risk the advertiser’s money?

The ABC better serves the public interest.

I trust it, especially knowing that a number of Royal Commissions have come from it.

It is vulnerable however, and it is subject to budget attacks by its opponents. Pauline Hanson has stated she wants to defund it and SBS. The coalition in office cut its budgets.

We have seen the impacts of those cuts, loss of shows like Lateline, Q&A and The Drum. Viewers acknowledge Q&A. It always had people from both sides, including Government and Opposition of the day.

The Drum panellists included for example a wide range of people including Nick Greiner, and Kerry Chikarovski from the coalition, Craig Emerson from the ALP. 7:30 often has Christopher Pyne and Bill Shorten together. Years ago Insiders had Gerard Henderson and David Marr sparring together.

The ABC is held to a higher account than commercial media. For years the staple of commercial current affairs has been weight loss treatments, diets and celebrities.

So yes, I still trust the ABC and 4 Corners.