Phil Lohrey
…Well, let’s skip that authority. I intend to write to the new Minister, Stephen Conroy, but I need your help. Tell us if you have noticed that Local radio has ignored pulp mill developments. Share your experience if you feel blocked out of talkback. Let us know if you feel angry. I will forward your comments to the Minister. Many highly informed talkback callers have dropped away. You are not alone.
The Minister won’t be able to ignore written evidence of a flood of criticism for apparent ABC censorship. Neither will Media Watch. Nor will the local ABC.
IT”S HARD enough watching the things that we love going under, but our public broadcaster seems to be avoiding the splash.
We see narrow federal approval for one of the world’s biggest pulp mills. It has massive impacts. It is right in our midst. We are witnessing history in the making. It’s a pity that our ABC is not.
I’ve written many times to the ABC about Local Radio’s apparent avoidance of pulp mill issues since the re-vamping of talkback last October. The Tasmanian Times has plenty of forums on the mill. The ABC does not. I want to kick off a forum about censorship; not the mill per se. We have to know how many of us have been shut out of debate, even silenced.
Have you? …When is the last time that you found an opening to ring talkback about the latest controversy surrounding the mill?
Can’t remember? Try this date: 14 October 2007. The Sunday Examiner featured the magazine story ‘Lend Me Your Ears’, in which ABC morning presenter Tim Cox boasted of his new format: ‘I instigated the changes myself. I thought the format was getting a bit tired.’ …’I decided it was time for a change. I certainly have not been muzzled.’
Well, Tim Cox has certainly succeeded in diffusing debate.
For many years, we could ring talkback with anything on our minds in dedicated Open Line between 9am and 10am weekdays. Then, the presenter replaced Open Line with a format in which talkback was integrated with music, sport and interviews between 9am and midday. Suddenly, we had to wait for talkback in random time slots.
More telling, the ABC would decide which topics would be discussed in grabs throughout the morning.
No wonder we haven’t found openings for the topics niggling us. Could they be concerning the mill? You bet…
The Sunday Examiner’s Helen Kempton visited Tim Cox in the studio a few weeks before the federal election and the Howard Government’s green light for the mill. Ms Kempton wrote, ‘Today almost every caller has the pulp mill debate on their minds.’ She observed that the mill proposal was the biggest debate of the presenter’s career.
It had been.
Tim Cox told Helen Kempton, ‘I don’t need to do much research on that topic – I have been doing the story for so long now.’
If so, why did the presenter tell a caller referring to mill debate in the Tasmanian Times that he was more likely to read Vanity Fair than this website?
Here’s a couple of excerpts from the many e-mails that I’ve sent to the ABC; all of which have been ignored or dismissed:
Hi Tim,
You told us more than you think when you stated this morning that you are more likely to read Vanity Fair than the Tasmanian Times.
Well, Tim, don’t boast about your ignorance of local affairs! The Tasmanian Times is highly informative. As it unfolds, carbon trading will condemn your blinkered view of the world. Tasmanians like me will blame the approval of our obsolete pulp mill on you, as much as any government or corporate interest.
And…
Dear Tim,
Peter of Devonport began to tell listeners that he had photographic evidence that the Gunns sign had not been damaged in the pulp mill protest last week.
Within moments, you boomed: ‘Hang on!’
This was so predictable. We heard this in the context of the near-silencing of pulp mill debate by Local Radio since reformatting the Morning Show.
As soon as the caller had made his point, discussion was diverted. We heard a lengthy discourse on how to access Local Radio on-line. How ironical for thousands of listeners desperate for access to the biggest debate that the ABC hasn’t had for months. Finally, a related e-mail was read, with Tim’s predictable lament: ‘Another lawsuit…’
The presenter has alluded over the months to a writ or similar received from Gunns Limited. Don’t we deserve to know the full details of any attempt to silence the most influential Tasmanian voice in public broadcasting? Let’s demand to know!
Manager of Local Radio, Catherine Hurley, backed Tim Cox:
Open Line talkback was becoming too predictable and unfocused and many people were opting to switch off. This editorial decision was made by ABC Local Radio to improve the focus and flow of the program. We do not accept that the new format limits audience access to the airwaves. Indeed, the reverse applies.
Head of ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs Kirstin McLeish re-stated these comments and passed on a further explanation from Hobart:
The Mornings and Drive programs on ABC North Tasmania have carried much of the discussion on the subject. In August and September 2006 for example, the Northern Tasmania Drive program conducted a series called ‘Back to Basics’ that looked at all aspects of the pulp mill debate. The issue was also extensively covered on the program last year.
Kirstin McLeish summed up:
My point is that there has never been an unqualified right for callers to have their views aired on ABC radio.
…Well, over to you, readers. Local Radio appears to have written to Audience and Consumer Affairs about the period up to spring last year. How many times since then have you been angry that pulp mill debate has not been a designated topic for talkback?
Here are some views from Tasmanian Times readers:
Once again in attempting to avoid close scrutiny of the mill and its finances ABC mornings talkback decided that this important report wasn’t worthy as one of their ‘chosen’ topics. Instead we got four interviews on the burning of the Australian flag, one brief interview on Tamar siltation and a rehash of the boxing being taught in schools topic that was covered yesterday.
Posted by David Mohr on 29/01/08
Absolutely right Dave. Have (Gunns) asked the suits to send Coxy and the team a letter or two? The pulp mill issue was conspicuous by its absence this morning. That report deserved some serious debate. We are only talking about the single biggest project in our state’s history with our biggest company and their government lapdogs blatantly staking the state’s economic future on it.
Whilst the ABC news headlined the report the presenters wouldn’t touch it, preferring to canvass lightweight crap. I mean, every year on Australia Day some young tear-away burns the flag and the media have this tiresome debate. All of the cuckoos come out and it is just so boring. And boxing in schools. Talk about making a mountain out of an absolute molehill. Gutless ABC. Just soooo gutless. They have abdicated their responsibility to cover the big issues and are now at a stage where they are not doing that which they are being paid to do.
Posted by Pilko on 29/01/08
ABC Tasmania needs an enema. The staff always ends up taking the soft option on serious journalism because to do otherwise would invite vituperation and disrupt their comfortable, pampered existences.
Posted by R. Clifford on 30/01/08
The new Cox format was introduced as ‘The Morning Agenda’. Funny how the content of debate changed with the name of the show…The name was apt, until it was quietly dropped, just like the Howard government term ‘Work Choices’, when it became unpalatable.
ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs stand behind the changes. Kirstin McLeish has told me that my next recourse is with the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
…Well, let’s skip that authority. I intend to write to the new Minister, Stephen Conroy, but I need your help. Tell us if you have noticed that Local radio has ignored pulp mill developments. Share your experience if you feel blocked out of talkback. Let us know if you feel angry. I will forward your comments to the Minister. Many highly informed talkback callers have dropped away. You are not alone.
The Minister won’t be able to ignore written evidence of a flood of criticism for apparent ABC censorship. Neither will Media Watch. Nor will the local ABC.
This isn’t another mill forum. We have to demand intelligent debate in the mainstream. What do you think of ABC coverage, and talkback? The pulp mill debate can not be won by Tasmanian Times readers alone.
Please post here. Let’s make contact with each other and compel the ABC to do its job.
Phil Lohrey
