Bias against Tony Abbott is truly - PDF document

Bias against Tony Abbott is truly sickening  ANDREW BOLT  HERALD SUN  FEBRUARY 19, 2015 8:49AM THE ABC is trying to destroy Tony Abbott. Its bias — actually unlawful — has never been so ruthless. Even the ABC’s hand - picked reviewer had to admit this week that the ABC’s coverage of the Abbott Government’s first Budget was marred by anti - Liberal bias — and she hadn’t even looked hard. Colleen Ry an, a former Fairfax editor, had been asked by the ABC to check its reporting of the Budget in the week after it was delivered. SENATE IS A THREAT TO OUR FUTURE This Budget was the country’s first and best hope of reining in Labor’s massive deficits. If it wasn’t a make - or - break moment for the country, it sure was for Prime Minister Tony Abbott. And he got smashed, especially by the ABC, our biggest media organisation, with four TV stations, five radio stations, an online newspaper and a publishing house. Ryan singled out four examples of ABC reporting that suggested bias — each time a bias against the Liberals. Most dramatic was the flagship 7.30 program’s hostile interview of Treasurer Joe Hockey. Host Sarah Ferguson kicked it off with a contemptuous statement lightly disguised as a question: “Is it liberating for a politician to decide election promises don’t matter?” Then there was Lateline host Emma Alberici, who asked a Coalition MP: “Do you think voters are really stupid and can’t recognise a lie when they see one?” Ryan also criticised Tasmania’s 7.30 edition for pulling the ABC stu nt of giving the microphone to a parade of Leftist critics, while The Drum copped it for another old trick — stacking its panel with two pro - Labor panellists against one lone conservative. The ABC might argue that four examples of bias in a week of coverag e isn’t much, but Ryan clearly wasn’t wearing her glasses. If she thought The Drum’s stack was bad, why didn’t she also criticise the Insiders’ Budget special? It actually had three Leftist journalists against a lone conservative: Laura Tingle, Lenore Tayl or and host Fran Kelly up against poor Niki Savva. Why didn’t Ryan also mention Lateline’s panel on Budget night? There host Alberici had two fellow Leftists — Tingle, who claimed the Budget had “lots of little, mean cuts”, and The Age’s Peter Martin, who claimed there were “lots of ... promises they’ve broken”. Why didn’t Ryan mention ABC Melbourne radio host Jon Faine, who a week after the Budget announcement twice accused the Prime Minister to his face of “political cowardice” and interrupted him 37 time s? Ryan’s report didn’t even come close to diagnosing the scale of the ABC’s political bias, especially its enmity for Abbott, who dared to make tiny cuts to the ABC’s bloated budget of a $1 billion a year. This bias goes from the very top — the likes of F erguson and husband Tony Jones, who as Q&A host gave Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull every encouragement this week to attack Abbott — right down to the tips of the ABC’s tentacles. BLOG WITH ANDREW BOLT Even a Triple J radio reporter, Jo Lauder, now feels free to tweet that the “Libs have a lot to answer for when it comes to the total dehumanisation and politicisation of asylum seekers”, while protesting that rather than cut “10% of ABC staff”, Abbott could cut the “school chaplaincy program! Joint strike fighter! Direct action!”. But ABC managing director Mark Scott refuses to admit or to fix a bias that is unlawful under the ABC Act, repeatedly offering a misleading defence: “I don’t know how our journalists vote. I don’t know what their personal views are.” Actually, Mark, this is not about knowing how your staff vote — whether for the Greens, Labor or the Socialist Party. This is about their pervasive bias to the Left as ma nifested by their reporting on Abbott, global warming, Islam, Greens, Israel, boat people, “stolen generations” and a dozen other subjects where the Left’s response is distinctive and tribal. This is about an ABC that last year had to apologise for accusing our Navy of deliberately torturing asylum seekers. That has had to apologise for calling one conservative critic, Chris Kenny, a “dogf --- er”, and another, me, a “racist”. It is about an ABC that last week beat up Abbott for days for referring to a “holocaust of jobs” — he insulted Jews!, was the deceitful claim — yet didn’t complain when Labor’s Paul Keating referred to an “economic holocaust” and Greens senator Scott Ludlam to an “environmental holocaust”. And it is about an ABC that doesn’t have one conservative host of any of its main current affairs shows. This cannot go on, not in a healthy democracy. We cannot have the country’s biggest media monolith using taxpayers’ money to drive from office a conservative Prime Minister who dares attack it s creed — and its cash. Originally published as Bias against PM sickening