The ABC is really starting to irritate me with its political bias.
There’s no doubt, that along with the Fairfax press, ABC news is left
leaning and out of touch with mainstream Australia.

I used to like tuning into AM at eight in the morning for a
half-hour review and preview of leading news stories. Now it just makes
me angry.

Today’s items included (verified on the ABC web site):

HREOC denounces Govt policy of placing children in detention centres
Labor says Govt should rethink detention centre policy
Ruddock stands by detention of children policy
Detainee claims shameful treatment at Baxter detention centre

Yesterday’s coverage included: Richard Clarke vindicates Keelty terror threat analysis and so on.

These stories are barely covered in the News Limited papers or
commercial radio. The highest-circulating newspaper in Victoria, the
Herald-Sun isn’t low-brow like the Sydney equivalent or racy like the
London tabloids. It’s a paper that has its heart on the pulse and
significantly it doesn’t give too much emphasis to these stories.

The ABC coverage stands up reasonably under individual scrutiny for
bias, as Richard Alston found last year when he registered a formal
complaint on behalf of the government.

What gives them away is the story selection and emphasis. Most
Australians have lost interest in Iraq and detention centres, but the
ABC continues to prominently report them.

A classic example of bias today was the strange story about a detainee claiming that he was abused.

Some extracts from the transcript:

ALISON CALDWELL (reporter): Detainee (named) claims he was naked for
five days, with clothing eventually provided late last week.

DETAINEE:
I see the psychologist doctor, my case officer and nurse and many
officers two times without clothes. I was very ashamed, very, very
ashamed, never happened in my lifetime, somebody took my clothes off
with force. I tried to cover my head because this is an injustice, you
know? …

KIMBERLEY LIPSCHUS (left-wing do-gooder): It’s a humiliation,
especially for a Muslim male. And there’s no difference for us for
what’s going on in Iraq with the beating and the treating of prisoners,
you know, keeping them naked to what’s going on here on our very own
doorstep.

ALISON CALDWELL: Have you ever heard about this happening before?

KIMBERLEY
LIPSCHUS: Yeah, I have. I heard when I was talking to other advocates,
I heard that an Iraqi ? I think it was an Iraqi woman ? was kept the
same way. Which is hideous, the fact that a woman was kept naked in an
isolation room for ? I don’t know what she’d supposedly done ? but it
was obviously in the name of her safety as well.

The man who alleged abuse was undergoing psychiatric treatment. That
should have rung alarm bells for the journalist. Why on earth would he
be kept naked for five days? That’s a ridiculous allegation and should
have been treated with great suspicion.

The ABC is in danger of becoming irrelevant and marginalised.