Here's how The Australian describe its latest effort...
NATIONAL broadcaster is again caught short by a major story.
Judged by the ABC's charter, which requires "innovative and comprehensive broadcasting", this was another epic failure.
Australians grew up expecting the national broadcaster to deliver reliable and timely news and current affairs. Now they must wonder about its priorities, with the managing director and many staff seemingly spending more time on Twitter than they do broadcasting. Clearly Mr Scott should spend more time on content and developing the news-focused, can-do attitude that seems to flourish in the commercial media. The ABC likes to deride commercial media but, yet again, its rivals showed better judgment and greater flexibility.
Er... I think you'll find that editorial was primarily critical of the delay to switch to coverage on the main ABC channel, not ABC 24. I was flicking between ABC 24 and the commercials at the time and it looked to me like ABC 24 was just as quick to break the news as they were.
ReplyDeleteApparently ABC News 24 coverage was 20 minutes behind commercial News services. So not quite as quick.
ReplyDeleteFrom today's Australian..."Given News Limited's corporate investment in the successful Sky News channel (which went to the bin Laden story 20 minutes before the ABC's 24-hour news channel) it would perhaps be in The Australian's commercial interests to leave the ABC to its lumbering ways. But we are fiercely concerned about the stewardship of taxpayers' money and the ABC's ability to perform its proper duty in the national interest."