Commercial and public media both have their place. Cutting the ABC is a bad bad bad move

Okay, the Government has announced they're cutting 10% of the ABC workforce.  Of course as you can imagine, Twitter is bursting with comments that it's the best thing ever, that the ABC is a waste of time and other mindless comments.  The other side of the fence is that the cuts shouldn't happen and that Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull are idiots who don't know the first thing about running the country.

So where do I sit on the matter?  Given I'm writing a blog and given I studied journalism and media and politics I think it's pretty obvious what my position is.

I'm opposed.

So why am I opposed to the ABC cuts?  It's simple really.  I am sick to death of centralisation of the media.  For the purposes of this blog I'm going to compare the Australian media with the New Zealand media.

In New Zealand there are two major organisations - Mediaworks which controls TV3, TV4 and Radioworks.  Then there is TVNZ which has close ties to NZME (APN and TRN).  Radio New Zealand is the only truly public broadcaster and it is often out of date in its broadcasts.  It's trying to move into the digital era but because of budget freezes and increased costs it just can't deliver quality content.

Then there are the private media organisations.  Now I don't like to repeat myself in blogs but you may recall a while ago I wrote about how Mediaworks was planning a Paul Henry Show for breakfast time which would syndicate on both TV3 and RadioLive.  This means the axing of the Hilary Barry and Marcus Lush now.  Ratings aside, do you have any idea what this will do for discourse?  It will mean fewer views are represented, that fewer journalists will have positions.  You may think who cares?  Why do we need multiple journalists at the same event or reporting the same story.  The reason is that no two people will have the same outlook on something and no two people will ask the same questions. 

Then you have to look at what cutting the workforce and shows like Four Corners will do.  Four Corners is a program which reports in depth stories.  So what happens if we don't have coverage in depth?  Well the bottom line is, it means we have less information.  Take a show like Australian Story where Australians are celebrated.  What are we supposed to do if we can't learn about locals who've made an impact?  And what about Nightline?  What about people who work long hours and can't get to a TV until late at night and don't want to use their data streaming shows online?

In a nutshell what it means is a less informed society.  How can citizens make informed decisions if we don't know what's going on?  The fact of the matter is, journalism is being undervalued, and given Prime Minister Tony Abbott's career history as a journalist I'm actually shocked he doesn't care about the field.

Closing the Adelaide production studio is a bad move because if you aren't on the ground you can't get the story.  Some would say citizen journalism plays an important role, and to a degree, but journalists are specifically trained.  So what flow on effects will there be?  Well no doubt with fewer media positions that will see funding to journalism courses cut.

So the bottom line is, in and of itself the ABC cuts will have a devastating effect on the media landscape and related fields.  It will mean a less informed society and more tabloid journalism.  It will mean greater bias and that's not a good thing.  The good thing about the ABC is they offer alternative views to the commercial media, and isn't that beneficial to the public? 

It would be a very sad day if the Australian media and news quality went the way of the NZ media, low quality, unprofessional and sloppy.  With more media cuts that's all I can see happening.