ABC defends Greens coverage
Greens leader Bob Brown says that the ABC all but ignored the party during the election.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
The ABC has defended coverage of the Greens during the Federal Election campaign, following claims by leader Bob Brown that the broadcaster all but ignored the party in favour of the two big parties.
”We got 14 per cent of the vote, but zero per cent of the coverage every night out of Canberra,” he said.
”I’m very happy to debate with the ABC the absence of the Greens in the federal election campaign news packages for the last month. No 7.30 Report. Nothing on its flagship Insiders program. One on its morning program. It was all Gillard and Abbott.”
But an ABC spokeswoman said yesterday external monitoring suggested that across all outlets, the Greens received just under 10 per cent “share of voice” compared with the other parties.
”For example, there are relatively few major stand-alone interview slots on programs like Insiders and The 7.30 Report, but many more opportunities for regular comment on radio programs and in daily news.
”Overall, the ABC is satisfied that the share received by the Greens was appropriate.”
If only they had shuffled the Greens that rather fab ad produced for Gruen Nation they might not have been so peeved…?
Source: smh.com.au
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- Tagged with Insiders, The 7.30 Report
10 Responses
@Tony h and dan.
You two took the words right out of my mouth. Wonder if all those people who lodged a protest vote, will vote green next time, after their power/fuel bills etc goes up.
A typical Greens, or Bob Brown response to an appropriate share of news coverage, on a network in which most of it’s reporters lean towards the left anyway.
@RoD
Elections aren’t just about who forms government. That’s only one of the parts we are voting on. The other half is the senate vote that takes place on the same day. Not as important as the lower house – but nonetheless, still an essential part of our vote on the day.
@Jeremy
Elections are actually about who forms government. They will be two-horse races until the Greens can double or triple their primary vote.
The Greens’ vote fell by a lot from the 2004 election to 2007. They were not the ‘third party’ in any real sense in this campaign. Despite that the Greens seem to be on qanda every other week. News 24 covered their party launch ‘live’ even though Bob showed up about 25 minutes late and they had to keep padding… I reckon they got a fair coverage.
Based on the outcome, we should have had Katter, Windsor and Oakeshott on Insiders and the 7:30 Report before the election (they did crack it for Lateline the Monday before the election though).
The amount of coverage for the Greens on the ABC seemed reasonable. A little more wouldn’t have gone astray though – as they point out, a 14% share of votes isn’t anything to be sneezed at.
For those who believe politics is only about who forms government, that seems a little shallow. The commercial networks enjoy taking the two-horse-race approach – but I tune into the ABC to get the wider picture of the parties involved. Not just ‘who is winning today: Julia or Tony’.
I’d keep quiet if I was him. Once people start closely studying his policies, the party’s over.
This should just be ignored. Brown was not going to be elected Prime Minister, and the Greens weren’t going to form government. They get more attention than they warrant.
That’s the whole point of the news, to inform the public who it’s potential leaders are.
So he’s complaining that the people who have a chance to be PM get all the media coverage? That makes a lot of sense.
The Greens should be happy about the coverage they got! It meant that nobody knew what their policies were. Now that they are in the public eye, they won’t get all the protest votes, that they got this time. They are the same as the Democrats and the same thing will happen to them.