Murdoch deal with Abbott [View all]

I've been listening to talk from some journos in the past couple of weeks, who say that when Murdoch was in Australia for his mother's funeral, he struck a deal with Abbott.

Murdoch will back Abbott in the next election, and in return, Abbott will privatise the ABC when he gets elected. It will be sold off to the highest bidder - of course, the corporation can enter the bidding itself, but it would have no chance against the wealth of Murdoch. Murdoch's main interest is in Radio Australia, which he tried to get hold of some years back because of its influence in Asia.

It's certainly feasible, given that there is currently no competition in the MSM - Fairfax has turned sharply right, and of course, the commercial radio and TV networks sing from the same songbook. The most worrying thing is that - despite all the cries of people like Gerard Henderson and Andrew Bolt of left-wing bias -the ABC itself is becoming more right-wing. Labor politicians are given little coverage by Aunty, especially on its News 24 program, which is little more than a Coalition mouthpiece. Currently Leigh Sales seems to be the only interviewer who will give Libs a difficult time; Chris Uhlman makes his Liberal bias very obvious. Do the powers at the ABC realise they're signing their own death warrant?

Such an alliance would also rule out any prospect Malcolm Turnbull would have of unseating Abbott before this year's election. Murdoch would definitely make sure any move from Turnbull would be dead in the water.

The only place to find anything like a left-leaning viewpoint is social media, via Twitter and its links to left-wing news media and blogs. But is this enough to defeat an Abbott-Murdoch alliance?