ABC, battered by criticism, tracks Voice coverage down to the second
The ABC, battered by years of criticism about its political balance by the right and increasingly the left, has ordered staff to log everyone they get to speak on the Indigenous Voice to parliament down to 15-second increments.
The internal Voice Tracker requires staff to fill out up to 10 questions about anyone who comments for an ABC story on the upcoming referendum, including their state, position and whether they are Indigenous.
As well as finding and reporting stories, ABC staff are required to fill out an extensive questionnaire about who they have featured in reports on the Voice. Christopher Pearce
It covers all forms of ABC news content, except for Facebook, YouTube and talkback, and could be used by the broadcaster in an attempt to show its coverage of the referendum is balanced and features diverse sources of commentary – or identify and resolve issues as they arise. Even people who have declined to appear have to be entered into the tracker and staff are encouraged to include Indigenous place names in the data they enter.
No other Australian broadcaster is known to track who reporters feature in their stories in the same minute detail. But no other outlet is regularly ordered to appear before the Senate and subject to questions from parliamentarians scrutinising how it spends its $1 billion annual budget.
Catharine Lumby, a media academic at Sydney University and a former ABC employee, said the broadcaster appeared to be adding a “bureaucratic form” to the daily tasks required of reporters.
“It concerns me that the politicisation of the ABC is drawing resources away from its main objective [reporting]. “We know that well over 80 per cent of Australians trust and love the ABC,” said Professor Lumby, adding the
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