The future of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia’s ‘chilling’ mediascape

Two decades after Pierre Bourdieu published On Television and Journalism chronicling the decline of French public broadcasting and serious news, Australia’s national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), is in the throes of a similar decline. Besieged by a combination of funding cuts, allegations of political interference, pressure from the commercial media sector, nepotism and legislative frameworks at both federal and state levels that have sent a chill through Australian journalism, the ABC is facing challenging times. Through long-form interviews with journalists and senior bureau figures from the ABC Brisbane Bureau, this study seeks to gauge the extent to which the landscape for conducting public interest journalism in Australia has changed since 2018 and what the future of the ABC may look like.