What does the C stand for in ABC?

ABC, the spoiled brat of the Australian Public Service, react to criticism like a 4 year old told he can't have an ice cream. Earlier this week we posted on the pathetic attempt by the ABC to check facts on a comment Tony Abbot made concerning India's record on Nuclear issues. The ABC made a mountain out of a mole hill, taking diplomatic speak out of context, relied on questionable sources and showed a distinct lack of worldliness in its flawed assessment.

We posted a comment under the name ABCNEWSWATCH to the Fact check site.This was a condensed version of the post linked to above.  Looking at it this afternoon, it seems the kindergarten kids at Fact Check didn't like it and it's been removed.

Screen shot below, the red ring marking the former location of the comment, note the comment above refers to it. 

1. We found out one thing. What does the C stand for in ABC? 
2. Censorship
3. Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other such entities.

ABC and the case of the missing ass

It's been a quiet month here with many more important things on. This post by Tim Blair taking the ABC's fact checking unit to task caught our attention...

DONKEY DOLLARS

One of Julia Gillard’s final acts as Prime Minister was to give an extra $10 million to the ABC, a local community-based broadcasting outfit struggling to get by on a mere $1.2 billion every year.

That additional cash helped the ABC to fund an elite fact-checking unit ahead of last year’s election. Sadly, the ABC’s fact-checkers have since made little public impact. Their biggest success may have been crowding another truth-seeking bunch, the privately-funded PolitiFact Australia, out of the market.

But over the Anzac Day weekend the ABC’s fact-checkers finally hit their stride. 

A quick search through the NLA's trove archive revealed the following. This was the earliest report we could locate that mentioned Simpson and his donkeyS:
Kalgoorlie Miner Tuesday 20 July 1915

GALLIPOLI OPERATIONS. STRETCHER-BEARERS THEIR MAGNIFICENT WORK

Some, of us were sitting yarning that evening, whilst the sun set over the sea turning the craters of Imbros into the dull grey of an elephant's hide set against a back ground of the most delicate rose— - when someone passing said: 'I suppose you've heard that the man with the donkeys is dead?" It came as a real shock. Every body knew the man with the donkeys, and everybody knew that ifa man deserved honour in this war, it was he.He was a stretcher-bearer. Few people knew his name. , To most he was 'Scotty' or 'Murphy'—those who called him the one called his donkey the other. He was really Private Simpson, of the 3rd Field Ambulance.

Fact checkers a waste of time and money

ABC's fact checkers give themselves a back slap about the work they've done since starting claiming over a 100 reports: Here are a few facts that put their tremendous efforts into perspective:

Time claimed to be working: 1 year#
First report published: 14 August 2013
Last Fact check report published: 17 December 2013
Actual days fact checking to 17/12/2013: 88* = 0.24% of 1 year

Number of stories (from the fact check website to 17/12/2013): Total: 94
Number claimed: "over 100 stories"

Staffing: 10
Estimated Cost: 10 Journalists at an average cost of about $150,000 each, plus admin costs and overheads @20% of salaries: Estimated Total annual cost of unit: $1.8M. Estimated cost for 125 days***= ($1.8M x 125/365) =$661,438.36

Number of stories per member of staff during period of operation: 94/10=9.4
Stories per staff member per working day = 94/10/88=0.11
Cost per story: $661,438.36/94=$7031.58

How accurate: Not Very... eg: ABC Fact Check unit's Palmer report riddled with errors

#From ABC Fact checkers own headline: The year that was: Fact, fiction and everything in between
*Working days (M-F) 14 August-17 December: 88 (less NSW Labour day-7 October)
**Wrong 23, Correct 26, inbetween 45. Excludes report about itself published ABC web site 26/12/2013
*** Total Days 14 August to 17 December