Over the last few months, I've attempted to engage in a number of debates on the ABC's "The Drum" opinion site. The experience has been rather educational, but not in a good way.Many of my comments have been "moderated", though the right word would be censored. The main offender would be articles by Tim Dunlop, who seems rather defensive about criticism. In fact it took quite a few articles before my first comment was published, even after complaints to a variety of feedback mechanisms within the ABC.
The predominant comments "preferred" by his "moderators" would appear to be fawning praise, usually inclusive of personal attacks on any Labor critics. His latest article http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2899052.html is a masterpiece of abject stupidity. He fully supports an attack on a free press, in this case because they have the temerity to question his favourite political party, but in the midst of his "deep reasoning on media ownership" decides to point out how "evil" the Murdoch press is because they keep calling the Carbon Tax ... a Carbon Tax. He prefers thinking about it as a "speeding fine".
I suspect that the censorship of comments are just a measure of how weak his arguments really are.
I'll be publishing a number of Drum and Drummer posts that track some of the more ridiculous ABC "opinion" pieces. I expect Mr Dunlop to get quite a lot of airplay.
