The ABC’s strategy of referring to creative or journalistic staff as ‘content-makers’ disastrously diminishes and undermines their work.
The ABC’s recent decision to downgrade its arts expertise has caused widespread alarm over the consequences for arts coverage, the conflicts with the ABC’s legislated charter, and also the impacts on Australian democracy more broadly.
More troubling, however, is the full context of the broadcaster’s restructuring of all divisions into “News” or “Content”, within a strategy that refers to creative or journalistic staff as “content-makers”.
The timing is odd. Australia’s new national cultural policy has only just been legislated: it champions the value of artists as workers, as well as the intellectual property value of their work. Meanwhile, the spectre of artificial intelligence, with its instant content generation, is causing great concern over the future of art and the future of news…
ESTHER ANATOLITIS 