Who Needs the ABC?:
why taking it for granted is no longer an option
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Who Needs the ABC?:
why taking it for granted is no longer an option
Overview
For the past nine years, the ABC has been besieged. Its funding has been slashed. It has been assailed by complaints from ministers and prime ministers. Its board has been stacked with political appointees. It has been relentlessly attacked by commercial media outlets. And it has endured crisis after crisis.
Who Needs the ABC? charts how, in its 90th year, the best-trusted news organisation in Australia arrived at its current plight: doing the most it ever has, with less than it needs, under a barrage of constant criticism.
This book examines the profound changes that have swept through the Australian media, technology, and political landscapes in the past decade, and explores the tense relationship between the ABC and governments of both stripes over the last 40 years. It dispels any complacency about the ABC’s future by charting the very real threat now posed by the Liberal– National Party coalition, and the damage that it has done to the ABC while in office.
Who Needs the ABC? identifies the vital role that the ABC plays in Australia today: in its award-winning journalism, in its vast array of cultural programming on television, on radio, and online, and in the comprehensive service it provides to people across the country.
At a time when the truth has to vie with obfuscation and misinformation, this book offers a rejoinder to the ABC’s critics, points to solutions that will see the ABC thrive, and answers the question posed here: Who Needs the ABC? We all do.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Paperback
- 210mm x 135mm
- 256 pages
- 9781922310927
- AUD$29.99
- 29 March 2022
- WORLD
Praise
‘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.’
‘Amid a noisy, chaotic media landscape comes this clear-eyed analysis showing why a strong ABC is a priceless national asset, how it is under threat, and the need to defend and strengthen it.’
About the Authors
Professor Matthew Ricketson is an academic, author, and journalist. He is head of the Communication group at Deakin University; before that, he was inaugural professor of journalism at the University of Canberra between 2009 and 2017, and ran the journalism program at RMIT for 11 years. He has worked for a number of newspapers and media organisations, and is the author of several books. He assisted former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein QC in the Independent Media inquiry that reported to the federal government in 2012.
Patrick Mullins is a Canberra-based writer and academic who has a PhD from the University of Canberra. Tiberius with a Telephone, his first book, won the 2020 NSW Premier’s Non-Fiction Award and the 2020 National Biography Award. He is also the author of The Trials of Portnoy: how Penguin brought down Australia’s censorship system.
