The late Minister for Communications, Richard Alston, was ridiculed for his dossier of 68 complaints of bias against the ABC. But the ABC’s Murray Green took them very seriously and produced a thoroughly documented report in which only 2 claims of bias were upheld. Sen Alston rejected this and the ABC sent his dossier to the ABC’s Independent Review Panel (drawn from distinguished people outside the ABC) which accepted 15 more of his complaints but rejected his claims of systemic bias.

David Marr on Media Watch followed up Senator Alston's claim ‘to be speaking on behalf of a large constituency of concerned Australians’.

Edited quotes from the Media Watch transcript:

David Marr: But what number [of concerned Australians]? Here he was on The Insiders a couple of days later deliberately giving the same impression of riding a groundswell:

Senator Alston: We did get a number of complaints from the public during the course of the war and I didn't think it was appropriate to be saying anything until after it was over. We went through those pretty carefully.

Marr: But on the evidence of complaints reaching the ABC, there was little concern in the community about the ABC. A key concern in the audience contacts this year was ABC coverage of the Iraq war; with more than 7,000 audience contacts received there were 144 complaints related to anti-US coverage and 147 complaints about pro-US coverage.

So where were the battalions complaining to Senator Alston? Media Watch made formal requests under the Freedom of Information Act to both the Minister's office and his department asking for all such complaints and all logs and records of such complaints. We expected a mountain of paper. But all the Minister's office and his department could rake up between them were nine complaints.

What about phone calls? The Minister's receptionist, Erika, sent him this fax as Coalition forces took Baghdad:

‘Hi Richard … I have received a large number of phone calls since the war began from irate constituents about mainly ABC and SBS footage showing graphic pictures of injured and dead US soldiers and bias anti-war comments from reporters.’

How many calls? Which reporters? ABC, SBS or right across the board? We don't know because - unlike the ABC - the Minister's office kept no records of such calls. His then chief-of-staff David Quilty told Media Watch there are no briefing notes, no drafts, no working papers. Basically what was produced was one document and it was simply updated electronically in terms of drafts. That document became the final complaint.

So evidence of the ‘groundswell’ amounted to this: a number of unlogged telephone calls and nine letters. There was a tenth that actually named AM and its presenter Linda Mottram. But that letter came not from a member of the general public, but the Federal Director of the Liberal Party, Brian Loughnane.

It was not the public complaining, it was the party and the government - a government with a war to fight and a war to sell. It's very familiar territory.

Media Watch 3/11/03