Insiders is a disgrace

Nothing sums up the failure of Australia's media more than the imbalance of panellists on Insiders.

Billed as Australia's leading political program, Insiders is a platform for right-wing propagandists, centre-right voices, and occasionally an objective journalist whose contribution can be described as genuinely centrist.

Although roughly half of Australians support Labor forming government, left-wing media figures are not booked to appear on the ABC’s premier political show. It’s as if they don’t exist. According to Insiders, right-wing and centrist views constitute the full range of political beliefs in Australia.

How bad is it?

Well, fiercely pro-LNP guests — powerful political editors of some of Australia's largest newspapers — are supposedly balanced out by centrist voices who share many of their beliefs and are equally allergic to praising Labor for anything at all. Insiders features no openly left-wing journalists on the program. This results in panels that give legitimacy to LNP spin and provide cover for the LNP’s bad behaviour, while framing all discussions as ‘How the LNP can win and how Labor can lose’. In the wash of right-wing and centrist voices, any praise for Labor’s successes is wholly missing from supposedly balanced discussions.

To illustrate the point: Name the last pro-Labor journalist who appeared on Insiders.

Take your time.

...

You can't.

There aren't any.

In stark contrast, fierce LNP foot soldiers Phil Coorey and James Campbell appear regularly, each featuring seven times in the past year. In that period, the longest gap with neither Coorey or Campbell appearing on the program has been 42 days. Between them, the program's most biased guests appear almost every month. Exactly how this onslaught of one-sided partisanship reflects the ABC's commitment to balanced reporting is unclear.

To put it simply, instead of avoiding the most extreme LNP propagandists in our already monopolised, already right-wing media, Insiders exacerbates the media's bias by providing a regular platform for hyper-partisan right-wing views without any left-wing counterpoints or basic fact checking to correct their Liberal Party talking points.

So what's going wrong?

Central to the problem is the fact that Insiders refuses to platform new media outlets in any meaningful way. This excludes younger journalists and people of colour almost completely from 'Australia's leading political program'. Instead, middle-aged, middle-class, white journalists who went to private schools fill the panel each week. Which begs the question: Whose 'Australia' is ABC talking about in the program's tagline?

It's important to acknowledge that Australia has no left-wing traditional media outlets of any notable size. No daily newspapers, no TV channels, no radio stations. This is a severe problem for our democracy. But for brevity's sake, let's concentrate on Insiders excluding new media outlets that could improve the balance of its panels, outlets such as The Monthly, Crikey, Michael West Media and The Klaxon.

These credible news sources — which produce some of the most important investigative journalism and political commentary in Australia — are given zero appearances on Insiders. This is despite many of their journalists being Walkley award winners. Further, each outlet has built a large audience, continues to grow while legacy media declines, and many have employed respected editors and writers who left long careers at traditional mastheads to report in the freer environment of media that is not owned and editorially-controlled by malignant right-wing billionaires.

Popularity can't be the reason for their omission from Insiders. Audiences are flocking to independent news sources. In a recent quarter, Michael West Media enjoyed a 67 per cent jump in online readership, Crikey experienced a 49 per cent increase, and The New Daily grew by 24 per cent. As print readership continues to decline, the ABC needs to accept that the media has changed. Voices from new media — and especially from the new media's left — must be welcomed onto Insiders’ panels to provide better balance than the dismal current standards.

Until then, Insiders is clearly failing to create balanced discussions. The public deserves better. The ABC must be a champion of diversity and reflect the public who fund it. The fact that the ABC is broadcasting closed-shop panels of Murdoch and Costello mouthpieces is a damning example of the public broadcaster's profound loss of direction.

Which leads to the question, exactly who is Insiders platforming?

Prepare to be very unsurprised.

Four major media outlets — News Corp, Nine, ABC and The Guardian — made up over 90 per cent of Insiders guests in the past 12 months, despite only making up 57% of the Canberra press gallery. News Corp and Nine are openly pro-LNP outlets, while The Guardian remains impartial to a fault, and ABC journalists are forbidden from expressing overt political views. The right-wing and centrist positions of these four outlets demonstrates the lack of left-wing voices on Insiders, a program that is supposed to provide balanced discussions to the Australian public.

Worryingly, the long-term trend has seen an increase in these four outlets dominating Insiders guest appearances. Independent new media outlets have seen no real increase in representation, despite capturing significant market share over the past five years.

Roughly fifty per cent of the population support Labor forming government. Where are those voices on Insiders, when opposing views fill the panel each week? Quite simply, they are not there. They are silenced. Ignored. Censored.

The name 'Insiders' has come to mean 'Insiders of the largest media companies'. These people already enjoy the biggest audiences. Voices from popular new media outlets, voices from outside the nexus of media power, and left-wing voices in general, are excluded from appearing on Insiders. This must change so the program properly reflects the political beliefs of Australian voters.

Again: name the last pro-Labor journalist who appeared on Insiders.

You can't.

And that's the problem.

Thanks to Oscar Trimboli for providing Insiders data that assisted in the creation of this article. Follow Oscar on Twitter for comprehensive Insiders data analysis. @oscartrimboli and #insidersbythenumbers