Some truths are so self-evident that they are hardly worth debating. Yet one of these — that a certain bias shapes news and current affairs coverage at the ABC — still provokes outrage at the Ultimo/Southbank staff cafeterias. The bias, to be sure, is not deliberate; it’s not as though Aunty’s journalists sit around in dark corners and plan how they will slant their program in favour of their friends and causes. But there is little doubt that, notwithstanding their denials, most reporters and producers at the public broadcaster naturally dress a little to the Left.

Of course, there is a lot to like about the ABC. Its websites and the service provided by regional radio and News Radio are outstanding. Many journalists there — especially those who have no time for the union’s “Vietcong-style industrial tactics” — are intelligent, extremely well-informed individuals who are almost always on the pace with breaking news. At a time when political and current affairs programs are being dumbed down on commercial television, it is heartening to know that at least one network takes ideas and public affairs seriously. On balance, the taxpayer is better off with the ABC than without it.

The ABC’s Middle East coverage is biased, as independently found:

1) By omission, commission and sheer inaccuracy, it has misrepresented key facts in stories, giving them a completely different character that misleads viewers;

2) It has deployed biased and loaded language that has been prejudicial to fair reportage;

3) It has engaged in all the acts of commission and omission entailed by a “politically correct” agenda; and

4) It has falsely equated democratic institutions and procedures with those of non-democratic regimes.

It is a shame that the ABC refuses to play fair with the facts in his analysis.

In recent programs, they belittle Israel’s plight by comparing its conduct unfavorably with Britain’s response to IRA terrorism. The two are in no way similar. Ireland has never denied Britain’s right to exist or claimed sovereignty over London; whereas most Palestinians deny Israel’s right to exist and demand sovereignty over Jerusalem, including Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount.

And peace has come to Ireland without the mass eviction of people of British ancestry from Northern Ireland; whereas the Palestinians want all Jews expelled from the West Bank and seek to turn Israel itself into a majority-Arab country.
Kristof also lauds Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as a “reasonable partner.” But in 2000 Abbas stood with Yasser Arafat in rejecting Israel’s offer of a Palestinian state born in peace. And earlier this year, Abbas rejected ever recognizing Israel as a predominantly Jewish state and said he opposes terrorism today only for tactical reasons.

They ignore the fact that while the Palestinians have directed hundreds of bombings and thousands of other attacks specifically and deliberately at Israeli civilians, Israel has never deliberately carried out an attack for the purpose of harming an innocent Palestinian civilian.

The BBC (Aunty’s overseas cousin) would also have to be listed as one of the most bias media outlets renowned for getting it wrong more then right.