Scrolling through the ABC Ombudsman’s Report for the 2024-2025 financial year, as one does, I saw on Page 6 that they’ve noted a surprise ‘new entrant’ in the top 10 most complained-about ABC programs: Religion & Ethics. I was immediately intrigued, because we’ve been known to have a bit of a whinge about Religion & Ethics ourselves: to be precise, about this feature article, published on their portal in April last year (and still there):
Was this the article that prompted the 183 complaints that bumped Religion & Ethics up into the Top 10? Eagerly I clicked on the links that led me to the Ombo’s investigation report.
And – No. It wasn’t Cosker-Rowland’s pro-kid transing propaganda piece that had caused the uproar; on the contrary, it was this one, published some six weeks afterwards:
Which the Ombo found not to have breached the ABC’s editorial standards for impartiality, mostly because Religion & Ethics had also published Cosker-Rowland’s piece.
The Ombo also found that Llewellyn’s article didn’t breach accuracy requirements either – apparently, some of the complainants had queried what the article said about the impact of puberty blockers on bone density.
It’s good to know the Ombo’s Office wasn’t just overwhelmed by the number of complaints here. Elsewhere in its 2024-2025 report, the Ombo acknowledges the role of ‘growing and organised expression of audience bias’ in generating complaints (Page 3) – and yes, the gender-identitarian lobby, we know, is well-heeled and well-funded, and can drum up attacks with ease against any dissenters anywhere, including in the media. Though – as journalist Julie Szego has pointed out – it’s in their interests to leave Sky News and The Australian alone, and so they concentrate their efforts on the non-Murdoch media, especially the ABC, with the aim of ‘keeping the progressive media on message’. Though 183 complaints about a piece on a portal that usually attracts no more than a handful of philosophically-minded introverts? That’s gotta be a prize case of overkill, even in their terms.
The Ombo also commented (Page 5 of the annual report);
Which sounds very like what Linton Besser said on Media Watch on 17 November last year, exhorting ABC journos to ‘find the courage’ to report gender-identity issues accurately, impartially, and adequately, despite ‘how clamorous the blowback can be’ if they do so.
I feel something of a fit of religious fervour coming on myself at the prospect of ABC journos putting up a spirited challenge to the clamorous blowback of the gender-identitarian lobby. All together now, 1 2 3:
Onward, ABC journos!/Marching as to war …