Trust - and " The News " !

A century ago most households got "the News "from one of two sources.   They either had a daily  newspaper delivered each morning, or they listened to their local radio station.  That was an era where most areas was served by two commercial radio stations and an ABC relay station, and every radio station in Australia crossed to the ABC for the twelve noon and the seven o'çlock news.

The ABC news was an "institution ".  That familiar news theme drew listners and that was a time when Australia was very "British " and tended to follow the way of life of the United Kingdom. Strangely, despite Britain being famous for Magna Carta and the principle of free speech, it was determined that the only form of radio heard in the British Isles would be the BBC.   They fought tooth and nail to ban any form of commercial opposition.

Australians were mesmerised by the radio battles that broke out in England after the end of the second world war.  "Pop "music was all the rage and the BBC played that sparingly.  Pirate radio began operating and played the type of music the young of Britain wanted to hear and this took the form of stations on yachts off the coast or on anti aircraft platforms in the north sea.  At one stage the Royal Navy was ordered to shut them down.

Eventually the British government threw in the towel and Britain now has a choice of commercial radio and the BBC.  Australia never had that problem because commercial radio got started well before the government thought of and installed the ABC.

In 1956 the television era commenced here and since then the radio spectrum has advanced with the creation of FM.   It was a whole new ball game.  The three main television channels competed ferociously for viewers and quickly set up their own news rooms.   Radio sought those elusive "ratings " and both media forms began interrupting programmes with "breaking news " to snare attention.  Some of this was of very dubious content.

Today, the news format has widened further.   We have Facebook and Twitter and a host of other media devices enabling the public to present their own version of the news.  Some of this is pure racial rants and other content is of a political nature.  The ABC comes under criticism for bias and it seems clear that a left wing culture exists and that this has influenced the selection of those who formulate its news broadcasts.

Interestingly, the Australian Institute recently held a poll to determine the level of trust Australians conferred on the ABC news service.   Seventy six percent of the 1443 people surveyed think the ABC should be protected from political interference.  Just over half said they trusted the ABC news more than any other news outlet - and this breakdown was on the basis of forty-six percent of coalition voters,  fifty-five percent of Labor voters and seventy percent for the Greens.

There seems little doubt that when content involves a selection panel the balance with a left wing view predominates, but is also seems that the public is inclined to make their own judgement on the issues involved.  It seems that the recent American presidential election race adopted a format where "fake news " was a feature deliberately introduced to sway voters minds.  Some people think that is finding its way into news broadcasts here.

The outcome seems to be that most people trust the ABC news broadcasts for content and want funding and control unchanged.  Perhaps the plethora of news outlets presently serving the subject gives sufficient variety of opinion for a wary public to make up their own minds as to what they believe !