Here in Sydney, I’d probably expect a police officer’s funeral to largely be covered as a standard news story from the TV networks. I certainly wouldn’t expect rolling coverage of the funeral, unless it’s for someone who had a particularly high profile and/or died from particularly exceptional circumstances of course.
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A long-standing reason the ABC exists is to cater for aspects of television broadcasting not adequately served by the commercial sector. While the death of a police officer is tragic, the coverage done by the commercial sector was comprehensive enough. The ABC has fiscal limitations and cannot cover every story. If the choice is between covering a story already being covered by the commercial sector and dedicating resources to another issue which is going without commercial coverage, I’d much rather the ABC dedicate resources smartly.
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I never said that the ABC should have had rolling coverage of the event, I just noted that they didn’t. Their coverage of the funeral was almost non-existent yet they did cover several other events during the afternoon all of which were also covered by commercial media. While the funeral was on, there was shown about 5 seconds of coverage during a mention in the hourly news on ABC News Channel. Given that the event featured high ranking members of the Queensland government at a major public event, why was there no live cross to a reporter on the scene as there was with the other events during the afternoon? What they did dedicate resources to were multiple crosses to coverage of Prince Harry with reporter (no doubt covered well by commercial media), to a reporter in SA, to a media event with the SA premiere (judging from the microphones in view also well covered by other media) and a number other widely covered media events.
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Ah okay, I getcha.
I would’ve complained about coverage being excessive, had the ABC (at least in Queensland) carried it live.
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While the issue is very tragic, the commercial’s coverage was OTT if anything.
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The commercial networks had rolling coverage of the police officer’s funeral? Am I the only one that thinks this is inappropriate…?
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I think it’s bizarre bordering on crass. I can understand it being recorded for excerpts, but a live broadcast appears extraordinary. Terribly sad situation, but I presume the family agreed to it?
This morning in Melbourne ABC radio broadcast the state funeral of Anthony Foster (not sure if there was any television coverage), now that made some sense, or even Lou Richards the other week.
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Very much agree.
As a close media watcher, I wasn’t surprised at the coverage today, nor did it seem out of place, but can understand that from a distance and in a different media environment it might have seemed unusual. It appeared to me like a natural progression to the reaction to the killing that had developed (at least through the filter of media coverage) especially in the south east corner of the state. The reaction was exacerbated by a number of factors including the incident occurring on the anniversary of the death on duty of another officer on the Gold Coast in 2011 and various other unique features of the murder. Not wanting to speak for the media, but the coverage seemed like a response to their being part of the community, reflecting its feelings and offering respect and support to those immediately effected and the police service as a whole. But, of course, I’m just guessing.
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And don’t forget that while the Brisbane stations can go local, ABC News channel cannot. There wouldn’t be any relevance outside of Queensland (no offence meant to the victim’s family).
[quote=“matlock, post:24, topic:610, full:true”]Well 70% of Australians do have great faith in the quality of reporting at the ABC or SBS, which are the highest two results for news organisations in the nation. So “we” in that sentence is a bit meaningless.
[/quote]
Speaking of trust, if you happen to be referring to the latest Essential Report on trust in the media, the total level of trust in ABC TV news - yes, the total, which includes “a lot” and “some” trust - is 59%. How can you say “Well 70% of Australians do have great faith in the quality of reporting at the ABC or SBS”?
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The old one (roughly 2012, the last I had on memory) was 68%.
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Seeing as we’re taking about trust, I guess you want us to trust you, even though your figure is 11 percentage points off, you put the number there without saying where it comes from, and you describe the combined figure for “some” and “a lot of” trust in ABC News as “70% of people do have great faith in the quality of reporting at the ABC.” And then you talk about the way I wrote “we” as being “meaningless”. 
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When it comes to trust, however, ABC and SBS TV news rank highest, with 67% of voters saying they have a lot or some trust in the broadcasters, including 20% saying they have a lot of trust in the national broadcasters for political news.
He’s pretty bang on with the figures. Construe anyway you want…
2013 report
I posted the source for the latest survey from March THIS YEAR, which is the point that I’m making. And you say I’m doing the construing! 
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He was referring to his recollection which was correct.
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What do you mean “I failed to post”? I did post it. He didn’t even put a reference for his 70%. In any case, even if his 70% was correct, it’s still a lie because “some” and “a lot of” trust do not add up to “great faith”.
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They are certainly the most trusted source if we are to go from that data, above all commercials and newspapers. What’s the point we’re trying to make here?
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That the statement by matlock that “70% of Australians do have great faith in the quality of reporting at the ABC or SBS” is false, based on the latest polling.
Why even attempt to play dumb here when jens has set out the facts so clearly? Weird.
Several points:
- Only 17% of Australians, based on that poll could be termed as having “great faith” in the quality of reporting at the ABC (“alot of trust”).
- Even combining that with those that have some trust, the figure is less than 60%.
- Importantly, those that place trust in ABC News has declined by the greatest percentage of any other source since the same poll just three years ago, down a whopping 10%.
- Yes, the ratings for trust in the ABC are still reasonably high - the trend is sharply downwards however.
- That the poll indicates people trust the source, yet ABC rates so poorly in comparison to its commercial rivals, indicates that a lot of this is based on prior reputation and what people “think” should be the correct answer. In other words, you can’t ask people that don’t use something, whether they still trust the brand. Nonsense polling!
- The Crikey write up you cite indicates that the next most trusted source of political news is word of mouth. Yes, second hand reports from acquaintances. So, how about we junk this nonsense, and urban legends based on it, that “70% of the Australians have great faith in ABC News”?
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…ok
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