Concern growing over Murdoch infiltration of ABC

You obviously have access to the internet.

It's really easy to send a complaint to the ABC. Here's our latest effort:

Dear ABC,

We have been concerned for some time about the number of News Ltd people who turn up on the ABC (radio and TV across all outlets) and have questioned this before.

On comments at places like Crikey's "Poison Pen" others have also expressed the same concern, e.g:

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Daphon
Posted October 24, 2009 at 12:03 pm | Permalink

Re: Chris Uhlmann’s article.

What’s with this ‘cross-fertilisation’ between Murdoch media and the ABC? Many of the reporters and commentators I hear on ABC radio these days are from SkyNews and other Murdoch sources. Doesn’t the ABC have its own news staff any more?

Now this piece from Chris Uhlmann which was originally published on the ABC website in a different form is now in The Australian.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/offair/2009/10/rudd-squanders-chance-to-practise-what-he-preaches.html
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Tobias Ziegler
Posted October 24, 2009 at 12:25 pm | Permalink

Good questions, Daphon. I don’t have the answers, but Margaret Simons has been writing about this lately and has had some reaction from News Ltd’s Greg Baxter – see her blog posts here and here.
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Daphon
Posted October 24, 2009 at 12:48 pm | Permalink

Thanks for the links, Tobias. I can’t help feeling something’s going on here that fans of the ABC may not like particularly with Murdoch putting pressure on the ABC and BBC over paywalls. Time will tell."

Our questions are:
1. Given that Murdoch already controls so much of the means of discourse in Australia, why do so many of his properties get such a large presence on the ABC?

2. Why can you not, either use your own staff to provide comment, or seek out other comment/opinion on the topics you regularly use to promote "Murdoch" properties' views?

We have posted our request on our website and will post your response.

Thank you.