ABC tech editor claims broadcaster “gagged” his NBN coverage

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news The ABC’s outgoing technology editor today claimed he had been “gagged” by the broadcaster from publishing further articles about the National Broadband Network, after several initial articles heavily criticised the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix model.

Since April 2010, experienced technology journalist Nick Ross (pictured, right) has been the leading technology journalist at the ABC as the editor of its Technology and Games sub-site. Ross is considered a veteran tech writer in Australia, having worked for a number of other outlets, including serving as the editor of PC Authority Magazine.

In 2013, the journalist came under heavy fire from other media outlets and political figures for publishing a number of articles which were heavily critical of the Coalition’s rival NBN policy, developed by then-Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

At the time, The Australian newspaper published several articles claiming Ross had failed to meet the ABC’s editorial policies. Turnbull himself accused the ABC in mid-2012 of “creating relentless propaganda” to support Labor’s NBN policy and singled out Ross for particular criticism.

The issue was raised during the regular Senate Estimates process, and then-Communications Minister Stephen Conroy heavily criticised both The Australian newspaper and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for what they said were “outrageous” attempts to vilify and discipline Ross.

Since the events, Ross has published no new articles about the NBN, leading to speculation that ABC management had requested him not to cover the topic.

Ross has stated that he has taken a “scientific” approach to analysis of the NBN, and many Australian technologists hold a strongly positive view of the journalist’s NBN coverage, regarding him as one of the few journalists in the mainstream media to have taken an evidence-based approach to analysing the rival NBN policies.

However, Ross is regarded by Coalition figures and some independent industry figures as being broadly biased towards Labor’s near-universal fibre model for the NBN and against the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix approach.

The ABC’s own Media Watch investigated Ross’ coverage in March 2013, largely vindicating Ross’s approach (with a few caveats).

Host Jonathan Holmes found that Ross, using his expertise and specialist knowledge of the NBN topic, had delivered analysis grounded in reporting work, using hundreds of reports and other sources; and had no political affiliations to weigh him down. In addition, he noted that mainstream media outlets such as The Australian Financial Review and The Australian newspapers had taken a broadly negative approach to the NBN; in contrast, he noted strong ABC reader support for Ross’s work.

However, Holmes also found that Ross had stepped a little over the line with his coverage, entering into the realms of advocacy for the NBN. But that conclusion was mainly a technicality in terms of the ABC’s stringent internal guidelines, he said.

Today on Twitter, Ross noted that he had “left the ABC” and could “potentially write about NBN again”. Asked point blank whether he had been “gagged”, Ross answered: “Yes”.

“I also don’t have to let any public lies/criticism about me go unanswered anymore, can be more active on social media and also I have no requirement to fend off all your questions about what happened to me over the past three years any more,” he added.

Ross is considering carrying out a questions and answer-style ‘AMA’ with social networking site Reddit to go through the issues with his NBN coverage.

In the wake of Ross’s departure, the ABC has deleted the Technology and Games sub-site which he had edited, forwarding readers instead to the technology section of its news website.

“At the end of the day I’ve already been lied about and had my reputation sullied by major media entities & pollies already,” he wrote.

The ABC has issued the following statement in response to Ross’s claim:

“Nick Ross has resigned from the ABC and we are not in a position to make any specific comment about his situation or circumstances other than to wish him well. He was a valued and respected staff member.

The ABC does not “gag” the coverage of any issues or topics of public importance. As our record makes clear, the ABC covers all issues of public importance thoroughly and independently.

The only “restrictions” on the issues the ABC covers and the way we cover them are our Editorial Policies, which set standards for things like accuracy, impartiality and fair dealing. All of our journalism is required to adhere to these standards at all times.”

Delimiter believes it was ABC head of current affairs Bruce Belsham who spoke to Ross about the NBN coverage issue.

Fraught history
The furore around Ross’s NBN articles are not the only time the ABC’s coverage of the NBN has come into question.

In May 2014, for example, Delimiter revealed that the ABC delayed publishing an article by Lateline co-host Emma Alberici starkly critical of the Coalition’s rival National Broadband Network policy until after the 2013 Federal Election.

An analysis conducted by Delimiter in May 2014 of the NBN-related coverage of three of the ABC’s top flagship current affairs programs over the preceding 18 months found that only one — Lateline — covered the issue regularly or in any detail, while others such as 7:30 and Q&A have almost completely ignored the issue in that period, despite regular appearances by the Coalition’s communications policy leader Malcolm Turnbull.

The issue was shut down live on air on Q&A several times.

For example, in April 2014, the ABC’s flagship panel discussion program Q&A appeared to actively censor the National Broadband Network issue from being discussed on an episode featuring Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull; ignoring a flood of questions from viewers prior to its filming, leaving the issue out of pre-show briefing documents and shutting down discussion on air.

opinion/analysis
I suspect we will be hearing more from Ross shortly on this topic.

Image credit: Screenshot of the ABC’s Q&A program, believed to be covered under Fair Dealing

88 COMMENTS

  1. So will we be getting complaints of ABC bias “FOR” the now incumbent government for gagging a tech reporter who for all intents an purposes did his job properly and correctly w/ detailed analysis on his OPINION backed up w/ research?

    Oh of course not! ABC did the right thing there! It’s only bias if your talking against the Coalition right?

    • I have been an avid ABC listener and watcher for years. However since about 3 years ago I have noticed many things creep in that I do not like and now this is yet another.

  2. Nicks work was well researched and scientifically accurate. No one could refute that. No guesses as why he was gagged. He was deemed too dangerous. But as you noted, he wasn’t the only one gagged. There was an active policy to gag all negative nbn debate, whether it was accurate or not.
    There is an obvious political influence within the ABC and is seriously hampering it’s independence.
    A federal or senate enquiry should be commenced asap, before the election.

  3. I note that the ABC doesn’t explicitly say that they did not gag Nick Ross specifically, just that they don’t gag coverage of specific issues.

    More to hear about this, I suggest.

  4. None of it matters any more. The damage is done, there’s no going back. The telecommunications landscape of this country will have to deal with the legacy of a mish-mashed network of technologies for the foreseeable future.

    It really frustrates me to imagine a future where I could have moved into any house in the country and been assured of a minimum standard of internet connection — and actually get what I pay for.

    I just can’t believe the short sightedness of this government. In 20 years the internet has become the literal backbone of our society, we wouldn’t function without it. Yet when given the chance to provide the foundation to adopt all the as-yet unimagined uses for the future internet the coalition and their voters decided to hamstring us.

    And now it seems that the dirty tricks went so much deeper. Essentially gagging voices of dissent. What has this country come to? Will the coalition and its major players ever see any repercussions of their actions? I can say unequivocally that there will never be any repercussions or admission of fault. Sometimes I feel so frustrated I feel like I am on the verge of having a stroke.

    • When any any crime is committed the damage is done and there is no going back. That doesn’t mean that we don’t examine the circumstances of the crime to dole out blame and examine how such things can be averted in the future.

      When the dust is finally settled on the NBN, we will owe it to future generations of Australians to find out who was responsible for sabotaging the Australian economy with an inadequate broadband infrastructure, why they did so, how to fix it, and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Or at least not in the same way.

    • I don’t wish to make excuses for Turnbull but if you think its bad in Australia its a lot worse in the U.S. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the issue of net neutrality.

      • We need a law like Canada has to prevent Murdoch and LNP propaganda being presented as news!!!

        http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/a-law-against-lying-on-the-news

        the CRTC last month scrapped a proposal to revoke or relax a rule on “prohibited programming content” that includes “broadcasting false or misleading news.” The CRTC withdrew the plan when a legislative committee determined that the rule does not run afoul of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which like the U.S. Constitution, guarantees press freedoms.

  5. Finally confirming what many already suspected, the ABC has been actively silencing reporters with negative stories about our current governments policies. The so-called ‘peoples’ TV station is now undeniably nothing more than just another biased mainstream media outlet. Australian democracy is in shambles.

  6. How much more money is going to be wasted in band-aiding infrastructure repairs
    How many more trunk replacements are we going to have to put up before they even consider delivering the failed fttn model..

    In a technical level placing the exchange where the d/a (distribution area) lays in the pillar converted to node doesn’t fix the line length issues are not cured past 4km being relegation to 4/1mb is. Tgoing to be standard…

    Line of sight doesn’t compute with line distance values

    • Yeah, El Reg has an article up about recently released cabinet papers … so that we are all quite safe, expect that to go to a century?

      • The current gov, even without the mad monk, continues to exhibit most of the signs of fascism imo.

        https://iweb.tntech.edu/kosburn/history-202/12_warning_signs_of_fascism.htm

        eg:

        * Enemies Identified – eg Asylum seekers

        * Rights Disappear – eg metadata tracking, attempts to crush unions while refusing to look at the Corporations wrong doing etc

        * Secrecy Demanded – eg FOI watered down

        * Corporations Shielded – eg not paying tax and having laws brought in to help them hide the fact while social services funding is cut. Banks crushing customers illegally

        * Corruption Unchecked – see NBN Cronyism, blatant lying to Aus public and ~20 LNP Pollies resigning nationwide over corruption or rorts in the last few years

        * Media Controlled – ABC cowed and Murdoch dominating the Media landscape while backing the LNP

        * Rampant Sexism – this has improved slightly under MT but LNP still getting in hot water for being sexist pigs

        * Intellectual Bullying – eg LNP bullying Gillian Triggs, Bernie Fraser, Climate Scientists etc etc

        * Militarized Police – Border Force anyone?

        * Elections Stolen – imo nearly 6 years of blatant partisan positive media coverage for Tony Abbott and the LNP while at the same time being hostile to anything the ALP did qualifies as stealing an election. Yes the infighting in the ALP didnt help, but had the MSM been truly independant and provided fair and balanced coverage of both sides (and especially the good stuff the ALP/Green gov with Gilliard at the helm did) we’d prolly have not had the ALP implode and been replaced by the most dishonest governemt in our history.

    • Ahem we have never had democracy in Australia. We have majority rule. There’s a big difference

  7. Hmm, always enjoyed reading Ross (or Braue), and Whirlpool of course, :).
    Let’s see if money/ pollytics/ media spin cycle will change.

  8. I suspect we will be hearing more from Ross shortly on this topic.

    I look forward too it, in general I switched off from watching the ABC at least a year before the 2013 election as it had become increasingly obvious that the ABC was not doing its job. it was no longer providing fair reporting and analysis of anything even remotely political. Even wild claims like “Whyalla will be wiped off the map by the carbon tax”, “The NBN cost 90 Billion dollars” etc etc were not being challenged and pretty much any claim to come from the liberal party was reported as a fact. In contrast, anything from the ALP or Greens was broadly covered in highly critical terms as framed by the Murdoch commercial media.

    • And the reason for Murdocks media supremacy is just as much a fault of the Labor Party as the Libs. The Labor Party was in bed with Murdock when it served their purposes. How can anyone get 70+ ownership of the print media without the support of both major political parties. How can we teach our kids to be honest citizens when the people at the top are rotten.
      Out of the 21 known civilizations 19 have died from internal decay.

      • Very true, the alp allowed Murdoch passed the old 30% mark Iirc and then as soon as Murdoch had what he wanted, he turned on them and showed his true conservative colours. His rags have been supporting the libs ever since.

    • I live by a simple rule. Where possible don’t buy a product or service that support a Murdoch company.

  9. When are we going to speak out about policial interference to the ABC shame on you Turnbull for stopping the truth about NBN I thought you were bigger man than that and admit you got it wrong

  10. Finally.

    Mr Ross apparently stepped over the line when he shouted a denial to one of Mr Turnbull’s claims about FTTN. But it doesn’t follow that he would then stop writing about the NBN entirely. Sure, Mr Ross may have tempered his edge after a reprimand, but to completely shut up on the subject suggests that he was specifically denied the right to cover the NBN.

    Tin Foil Hat: the ABC upper management wanted PM Turnbull too much.

      • I refute that there is anything “fun” in your fact, in-fact I believe your fact to be entirely “fun” free.

        :-(

        • Well, you have me smiling, but I guess that’s coming from someone who is taking peoples minds off all the famous deaths lately by reminding them of Robin Williams.

    • Nailed it!

      From Ross’ AMA:

      “In early March 2013 I was told by a senior ABC manager that ABC Management was expecting the Liberals to win the next election and that Malcolm Turnbull would be in charge of the ABC and that they didn’t want to upset him. From this point on I documented everything.
      After that I had articles held back (one wasn’t published at all) and heavily pressured not to write anything on the matter.
      On one occasion, four months before the election, with regards to this article which raised huge questions about the viability of the copper network I was told that “there was nothing wrong with the article per se” but that ‘The NBN was dead and so there’s no point in causing a fuss.'”

  11. The ABC has been gagging the NBN for years. You never heard word 1 about it anymore. This is just the smoking gun proof I’ve been waiting for.

    The big question is WHY, and who knew what and when.

    There’s no doubt they are censoring NBN coverage though at all.

    Someone at ABC needs to be held responsible for this, even if it extends up to MP’s or outside pressurers or blackmailers.

    • I would also note that this does prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the ABC does censor stories. If they censor this they also censor other sensitive or controversial stories.

      People need to stop giving the ABC and SBS a blank cheque, total trust etc, the way they say Fox news lies, equally ABC and SBS lie, just may not be as obvious as the lies at Fox.

      Anyone whose seen media watch will tell you the news media is full of bias and cannot 100% be trusted. You need to get your news from multiple sources and even then may not be 100% accurate.

      I want the funding pulled for ABC and SBS. Sell them off and let them stand on their own 2 feet. 1 billion dollars per year is ridiculous for a clean feed censored government news station.

      • Then the only news we would get, would be from the commercial channels trying to past off fictitious soap operas as news items. Politics is just like media….
        THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS

        • But don’t you get it MikeK?

          The news media spins bullshit 24/7 (ALL NEWS MEDIA), when you say ABC/SBS is better than 7/9/10, you’re completely wrong. It’s not. Not even better by a little bit. By and large the “NEWS” or what I call “INFOTAINMENT” ABC/SBS/7/9/10 spew out all day is biased garbage and the tax payer sure as hell should not be paying 1 cent for that.

          Secondly most people DON’T EVEN WATCH TV ANYMORE. WHY FUND IT???

          What the ABC & SBS need is to be cut loose, then they WILL be independent their funding cant be messed with, they will be competing with 7/9/10 on a level battleground. That’s what NEEDS to happen.

          If you have to pass some kind of legislation to safeguard their coverage but they need to be cut loose before they get censored to the point of uselessness.

          The model they are operating in right now, the head of the ABC is not even responsible, there’s always some bureaucrat or MP or ETC held responsible. In a private company the buck stops with the CEO. And that’s what needs to happen for them.

      • The problem started with Howard stacking the abc board in an attempt to eradicate the ABC’s “left bias” (translation, truth bias) and the culture change initiated during that period has been eating away at the ABC like a cancer ever since.

      • I actually agree. For the first time ever, I can not see any reason for taxpayer funds going toward the ABC – we have enough privately funded Murdoch news sources as it is.

        • +1 I stopped watching it about 3 years ago (aside from the odd Chaser or Good Game episode).

  12. The long and the short of it is, no one seriously wants Malcolm’s 2nd rate fftn.
    We still want the real deal FTTP.
    Vote Labor at the next election.

  13. ABC = Australia’s Broadcaster for the Coalition.

    Thanks Mr Scott, you did well (for them, not us).

  14. Since when is saying fibre to the premises is just Labor’s option, instead of being the best option? I was surprised to read in NBN material online, that laying fibre to the home, would cost only $360. Then I re-read the material and realised it was $360 just to submit an application, then another $360 to draw the plans. So after $720 wasted on bureaucracy, then actual building had to wait until all NBN work was completed (presumably using copper wire) before a cable replacement can be laid, costing on the order of $5000. No wonder FTTP is so expensive!!!

    • Everything involved in the rollout of any form of NBN is expensive. The rebranding of ‘NBNCo’ to ‘NBN’ cost $700,000.

      Like any statistics, there is room to interpret the figures to suit an existing position. The ‘cheaper and sooner’ argument from the Libs was based on the premise that kicking the costs related to ‘last mile’ further down the road will make their bottom line look better. Then they had to go cap-in-hand to Telstra and renegotiate the copper buyout.

      The Libs wanted the private sector to foot the bill. But when TPG found a loophole which allowed then to build a competing FTTP/FTTB network, the Libs changed the laws to try and stop the competition.

      Kevin ’07 stuffed up when he thought he had the political capital to spend. By the time he worked out he didn’t, the FTTP NBN plan wasn’t entrenched enough to avoid having it ripped up.

      If the ALP had written into the contracts a bunch of booby traps like those that the Victorian Libs wrote into the East-West contracts, would the pro-FTTP advocates be calling Kevin a hero?

      The idea that any NBN would be based on commercial / economic reality went out the window then Kevin turned the $1b tender won by Optus into the FTTP NBN that kicked off the political pissing contest.

  15. Hopefully he can point the finger @ Mal seeing he was the comms minister at that time. My money says Mal was in contact with Nicks boss and told him to put a stop to Nicks articles.

  16. “The ABC does not “gag” the coverage of any issues or topics of public importance. As our record makes clear, the ABC covers all issues of public importance thoroughly and independently.”

    unadulterated BS of the highest order.

  17. Really looking forward to hearing from an uncensored Nick Ross.

    His article in March 2013 was a long read but certainly an informative one. I would love to see a follow up from this.

  18. BOTH approaches to the current NBN are doomed to replacement within a decade. FTTP is just silly expensive in the existing environment, and FTTN won’t deliver the end-user experience that everyone wants yesterday.
    The solution is to map out a longer strategy with massive bandwidth, and low latency to every street corner.

    Then as technology and demand accumulates, build it out to the door.
    Today, probably only 20% of subscribers need more than 20mbps sustained at any time of the day. This demand and expectation will grow, but not needed today….
    Of course we’ve already wasted half a decade to roll out a comprehensive network that actually serves nobody other than the political parties.
    Even if we accept the current $50 billion will get high performance to the nodes, it will take another $30 or $40 billion to reach end users over the next decade- and won’t be an integrated solution.

    My wet finger cost estimate for multiple, patched together solutions is more than $150 billion over 20 years. And in real. numbers it could have been more flexible for more people in the same time – for half the money.

    Put it in the the same bucket as myki and the East-west traffic link. Eventually they will, and must work… but only after ensuring the financial and political security at the top end of town.

    • Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat failure … I can just imagine you 15 years ago telling us no one uses more than 1.5mbps….

      • You’re exactly right.
        Fifteen years ago, that would have been a good baseline, just as 20 is today for that ‘mum n dad’ user scenario… In another 15 years, I’d be hoping the baseline is 100 Mbps, but ‘power’ users will need ten ie more times that – and with the right infrastructure it would be available.

        • “Fifteen years ago, that would have been a good baseline,”
          15 years ago, Telecom was saying the need for a nation-wide FTTP rollout was imminent, while simultaneously ruling out HFC and FTTN as too expensive/end of life.

          Enter the Howard government…

      • Mike the only problem with your argument is how would you know the demand when the current tech doesn’t support it. Eg. How would you know people want 100Mbps when all you are supplying is 20Mbps.

        But the is FTTP really silly and expensive when they could have rolled it out for only $8B more than what they are building now.

        • That’s another wet finger guess, but most Aussie businesses would be loathe to fund server capacity to support tens of gigs per second.. say a hundred concurrent users at 100mbps. There’s one immediate bottleneck.
          The whole thing has to thought through with an extensible and affordable plan that meets that curve of supply and demand. Not a ‘push’ of technology that only benefits the vendors and their cronies.

        • +1

          Pretty much this. The amount of productivity and use for the internet when HFC was first introduced in Australia and then when ADSL came around went up leaps and bounds.

          You can’t say you’ll never use it if your artificially putting up a barrier on capacity.

          It’s like when people were surveyed ages ago if they were “satisfied” w/ their dial-up connection at the time when HFC was getting traction. Most would have answered yes… mostly because that was the ONLY tier available to 90% of people at the time so for what they can get then yes it was “fine”. That didn’t actually say whether they would have used/preferred better speeds if they had access though!

          And funnily enough 1.5mbps had plenty of uses even back 10 years ago. Especially in other countries which had started to expand their internet connections. You just didn’t get much “use” over “here” because of the artificial caps forced up on us. =/

    • Are you saying FTTP will be doomed to replacement within 10 years?? I cant actually believe you can be saying that with a straight face.. Where did you get this information from?

      • No, not at all.
        FTTP is simply one of several options, and the best available today… that is only of real use to maybe 20% of today’s subscribers.
        Put in the backbone, and flesh it out as demand, prices and technology bring it together.

        • Except it never gets “fleshed out by demand”. Because “demand” is artificially controlled/capped by our unique position of pseudo incumbent monopoly

          Australia is in a wonderfully unique position of isolated local markets when it comes to technology. They don’t NEED to invest because preserving status quo is much more profitable than improving the network over here.

          We’ve stagnated so much precisely because of this. We *should* have been upgrading to keep pace with the world years ago when HFC started. Instead market monopoly control shut that avenue down and forced us on slowly stagnating technology that barely works or handles what is even just a baseline need to work w/ the rest of the world.

          We will NEVER upgrade past the current builds unless you get another outside push (like the NBN) or a radical change in the technology sector. Because once it’s all laid out there will be very little impetus to “upgrade” again whilst it’s still bare minimum working because of a lack of outside competition factors they can just keep drolling out the same “it’s still fine” excuse

        • That’s a bit like making gradual improvements to our Ford Prefect by hoping to eventually turn it into a Ferrari with endless visits to the local spare parts dealer. Takes a hell of a lot longer & costs at least 10 times the purchase price for the real thing.
          We need to plan & build for at least the near future, when thanks to Turnbull we’re already playing catch up 5 years behind our present requirements then to be followed by endless tail chasing in order to keep the rest of the planet in sight as it disappears over the horizon.

    • “Today, probably only 20% of subscribers need more than 20mbps sustained at any time of the day.”
      Let’s ignore the fact that 65% of NBN subscribers are currently on 25Mbps or higher.

      • Yep. Agree. We can ignore that, because very few of those subscribers today will be aware or derive any benefit from that need ‘over’ 25mbps … today.
        2x streaming services, VOIP, 2x internet browsing, background updates all fit easily into a reliable 25 Mbps channel…
        In the future – more than likely they will expect and need more capacity. Let’s build the national framework for that, but save time and money by not connecting every granny flat and milk bar at 1gbps.
        Today if they need more, they fall into that premium 20% that can use the extra bandwidth for P2P, streaming or business activities, and can upgrade using available technologies to meet that specialist requirement.

        In 10 years, they can downgrade their plan, or increase their usage.. the customer’s choice.

        Sadly the government and advocacy groups are pulling at extremes – neither addresses current or future requirements. Sigh.

        • Yet Mike the current rollout out is only required to deliver a 25Mbps which is what is required now still at least another 4 years late. But also is only $8B cheaper than delivering 1Gbps to granny flats and milk bars.

          • Yes.
            Read my original post.
            I’m saying we/they should have purchased the kand and built the best freeways *possible* – with NO exit ramps than suburban stations… Then, when it’s all in place with premium services using what they need, add individual home driveways with the best technology available at time into the future – when they *need* it at lower cost per Mbps.
            Everyone wins, when they needed the service, at the best available price.
            I’m not suggesting FTTN or FTTP as a one shot solution, just two of the *possible* options to reach the subscriber with the best solution when they need it at the most competitive price… For the customer!

          • Mike
            “FTTP is just silly expensive in the existing environment”

            So if FTTP of possible $64B to rollout is silly and expensive that already has the potential to deliver 1Gbps if required vs the current MTM at $56B only required to deliver a 25Mbps.

            But then when they need it as you are not currently supplying what they need how do you know they need an upgrade unless they ask for it.

            But that’s the catch 22 without supply there can’t be a demand. Telstra tried what you are saying with ADSL. Eg waiting for X amount of people to sign up with interest for ADSL before switching the ADSL on the exchange.

          • That extra 8Billion for FTTP could have been quickly recovered in eliminating the Node power requirements & 1B PA copper maintenance costs plus extra potential income possible from higher demand.

  19. While I’m concerned about the ABC gagging anyone, I think we do need to consider whether Nick Ross took it too far in some of his coverage.
    His articles were very well researched and convincing and I agreed with him. But journalistically they were problematic. I think he was so passionate on the NBN topic that, without even necessarily meaning to, he could no longer maintain credibility. If I recall correctly he also stifled debate in comment sections, which nobody writing an op-ed piece for the ABC should be doing.

    His views on the NBN were “correct” IMO but the journalistic integrity of the ABC is more important than that – just my two cents.

    • Im old enough (only 40 mind you) to remember when the ABC used to provide actual policy analysis and called BS when it was deserved. Now it just reports the LNP’s propaganda as fact … we have the Murdoch media for that, we dont need the ABC doing it too!

      • Interestingly the exact same thing is happening under the Tories in the UK – last nights ‘Question Time’ all of the included journalists were Murdoch employees and Cameron went and visited him at home recently too.
        Seems the phone hacking criminality is all forgiven without any real suffering for the head of the corporation that engaged in it
        And our supine politicians simply believed them when they said they weren’t doing it here. Gutless.

  20. Nice Renai. Great job stabbing Nick in the back here. I am really disappointed in you.

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