Aunties been on the sauce again…
QandA’s going? I like that show! Getting the politicians and experts in a live, audience participation setting has all kinds of benefits for the National ‘conversation’.
I mean Matt Kean dismantling Jane Hume, (was it?), earlier this year on energy transition was valuable to see.
Those kind of match ups, where its slightly out of the control of the host/producers, are rare.
One of the reasons people are saying Dutton lost is because he refused to talk to the so called ‘unfriendly media’ leaving him at a disadvantage in his preparedness for the election just gone.
So QandA seems to me to be good for lots of things. The only thing i dislike is the grandstanding and clearly recited talking points, but thats where you need a talented host to deny and redirect the discussion.
Headline should be, “Government forces ABC to cut spending, QandA first on the chipping block”
But why have the Government cut ABC funding?
Seems like it clears the airwaves for right wing propagandists to fill.
But why have the Government cut ABC funding?
The current Labor government hasn’t, it actually proposed a funding increase late last year as well as plans to increase the funding terms to 5 years (to reduce the frequency of cuts). The cuts referred to in the piece by The Guardian are cuts to particular areas as the ABC shuffles its limited budget around, not new government cuts.
Seems like it clears the airwaves for right wing propagandists to fill.
Yes, that was the point of all those Coalition cuts. Reduce competition, reduce media scrutiny, reduce the level of accurate information available to the public.
I do wonder how many people are still watching that show now, though. Politics is so divisive today, people really do no not like listening to anyone other than “their side”. Politicians also seem less willing to engage with the mainstream media and outside of their own curated interviews. There is nothing stopping them from running the show without politicians, but they’ve always made up at least 2/5 guests on a standard panel so it would be a big shift. Back in the day, the live Twitter watchalong where they’d broadcast your tweets was also a big selling point of the show (one that The Chaser enjoyed spoofing) but social media is also becoming increasingly fragmented and this kind of thing no longer works like it used to (I believe they dropped it years ago anyway).
I’ve wondered how many people must be watching it, i think its on their programming later at night now.
Politics being divisive is a reason politics opportunities like QandA should be available. It forces the members of the Partys together to discuss the topics on the same platform.
For example, i think it was on the latest episode of Rest is Politics - Leading, where Johnathan Haidt talked about Newt Gingrich forcing a policy of Congress meeting only Tuesday-Thursday to ensure the representatives wouldn’t feel a need to move to Washington DC, and instead fly in then fly home again. Newt Gingrich’s theory, he claims, was the Republicans got too cosy with the establishment once they got to Washington DC.
Thank you but we’ll take that as a comment.
