Who Needs the ABC? (Matthew Ricketson & Patrick Mullins, Scribe) 

Governments of all persuasions have had a prickly relationship with the ABC. Some more than others. Labor governments have gritted their teeth and put up with unflattering reporting; Liberal governments have virtually declared all-out war. The numbers on government funding are telling: the Hawke/Keating governments saw ABC funding increase by 7%; under the Howard government funding decreased by 5%; the Rudd/Gillard governments resulted in an overall increase of 10%; and the contemporary Liberal governments of Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison have overseen a funding decrease of 11%. While conservative politicians and their media supporters have cried loud and hard that the ABC is full of rampant left-wing bias, surveys and polls consistently find that most people believe the ABC fair and accurate. No media organisation comes under as much sustained scrutiny as the ABC, with its journalistic practices guided by the ABC Act. Added to these checks and balances is a rigorous complaints-handling system. In Who Needs the ABC? authors Matthew Ricketson and Patrick Mullins have written an impassioned defence of the national broadcaster (which is celebrating its 90th birthday this year). They demonstrate that arguments of left-wing bias are largely overplayed, that a publicly funded broadcaster does much to cool down political radicalism by remaining a trusted source of news and, finally, that the ABC remains one of the country’s biggest producers of cultural content. This book is a comprehensive guide to the ABC and all that it does, as well as a warning that our national broadcaster not be taken for granted. 

Chris Saliba is the co-owner of North Melbourne Books. He speaks to the authors of Who Needs the ABC? here.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews