Evidence-based

If I hear one more conservative commentator or right wing social media hack complain that the ABC – and particularly QandA – is biased in favour of the left, I will not scream, or swear, or set fire to anything. I will calmly invite them to share some evidence of bias with me, because I haven’t seen it. I doubt it exists.

What I have seen is a reasonably well balanced series of programmes which aim to promote a discussion of issues and policy, rather than the usual patchy reportage about the characters involved and their manoeuvring for ever-increasing power and wealth.

But no – the accusations of bias continue from the usual suspects. After the episode on March 31 focusing on Human Rights, Andrew Bolt wrote:

Last night’s episode of Q&A was one of the most outrageously and offensively biased of an ABC show that has been uniformly biased.

It was also an insight into the broad Left’s loathing of free speech and the West, and into the racism that informs its anti-racist posturing.

Apparently some conservative politicians and commentators prefer not to appear on QandA because the audience applauds more loudly for Labor politicians and guests from the left. QandA has even been labelled ‘hostile’ by some on the right. The Australian’s Media Editor Sharri Markson was ready to take on the ABC from Day 1: 

Monday's ‪#‎QandA panellist, Sharri Markson is up for the battle between News Corp Australia & ABC - “I enjoy a good media war”

Still others claim that the panels are unbalanced, favouring the left and constantly criticising the government. At least that’s easy to quantify. A quick analysis of the guests on QandA this year show that of those 109 guests whose political leaning is immediately recognisable, there are slightly more guests paddling the right side of the QandA canoe. It’s not enough of a difference to suggest a conservative bias; to the contrary, it suggests very little bias. (A complete list of guests on this year’s QandA episodes is attached to the bottom of this post.)

The rumour on social media last night was that Sharri Markson had been scheduled to appear on the show, but had cancelled, leaving her more moderate News Corporation colleague Sarrah le Marquand to fill the spare seat. Ms Markson is a consistent critic of the ABC; Ms le Marquand somewhat more balanced.

The key here is that if its critics feel that the QandA is biased, they have no-one to blame but themselves. I don’t know if the marquee level conservative commentators – Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Chris Kenny, Sharri Markson et al – have been invited to appear on Qanda, but if they have, they haven’t taken the opportunity. If they haven’t been invited, they should be putting themselves forward for the job. If they don’t make an effort to redress what they see as an imbalance, they have no credibility when they complain about it.

And then there’s the Government itself. They have been able to field an appropriate MP for most shows, but with obvious omissions: Joe Hockey’s only appearance was in May, after the Budget. Rather than being a member of a panel, he had to show to himself. High profile ministers Julie Bishop, Mathias Cormann, Scott Morrison and Andrew Robb, plus the near invisible Health Minister Peter Dutton have successfully avoided the QandA experience this year.

And neither has the Prime Minister, despite a standing invitation. It’s now 1908 days since Tony Abbott has been on QandA. Why?

Like it or not, it is Our ABC, and it’s up to all of us to ensure that it’s what we want it to be and that’s going to take more than partisan whinging.