If ABC stands for Applying Better Control, it’s not enough

"It's your ABC," goes the slogan, which is another way of saying the national broadcaster belongs to everybody. This sense of pride and ownership the corporation is keen to ensure we all possess has a downside: we own it; we criticise it. ABC-baiting has been a national sport from the days of Sir Charles Moses, since when subsequent general managers and managing directors, chairmen and board members have developed a seismic acuity to accusations of inaccuracy, abuse of standards and bias — especially from governments of the day. The cumulative result has been the strengthening of the ABC's code of practice (last updated in July 2004) to ensure the impartiality and independence that have always been the corporation's byword.

Clearly, the ABC's new managing director, Mark Scott, who has inherited this history of sensitivities from critics and the criticised, is unconvinced of the efficacy of the present policies. In his first major public speech in his new role, given last night at the Sydney Institute, Mr Scott heralded a series of significant changes to editorial policies across the corporation that come into effect from March 1, 2007. His address, The Editorial Values of the ABC, says, in effect, that the ABC must go further in being seen to be demonstrating its impartiality and reflecting "honesty, fairness, independence and respect".

The main changes include defining four categories of content — news and current affairs; topical and factual; opinion (a new category, previously part of factual); and performance (including music, drama and satire) — and the principles by which they must all abide. The most controversial change is the creation of a director of ABC editorial policies, reporting to the managing director and providing "independent assessment of editorial performance". ABC staff, briefed on the changes in advance of Mr Scott's speech, will attend training sessions.

In one way, it is heartening that Mark Scott (who came to the ABC from Fairfax) is concentrating on the importance of clarifying and maintaining proper editorial values, especially in an institution of diverse broadcasting outlets which communicates with millions at home and around the world. He may well be right in his assessment of the corporation's editorial perspective, particularly in news and current affairs, and its reaction to criticism — or, what Mr Scott calls "critique and reflexive defence … the ritual dance with only two steps". But, for all the impressive choreography, do the new policies necessarily improve the performance, or are they a multifooted version of the same dance? Necessity is not always the mother of reinvention and, besides, what is really wrong with the existing rules?

The new policies appear to be either stronger confirmation of what has already been enshrined, or new, curiously nebulous, additions that will be hard to identify, let alone control. For example, Mr Scott referred in his speech to "issues of tone", whereby the use of language and inflexion can be just as culpable as the words themselves. Does this mean elocution will form part of the policies, or that raising an eyebrow will be forbidden? And how can impartiality properly be observed in a satirical program that depends on parody and exaggeration?

Then there is the director of editorial policies, whose own impartiality, we presume, will be assured. What is this person's role? To be a management watchdog, some sort of corporate quality controller? Or someone like the public editor of The New York Times, whose job is a conduit between readers and the paper? Is such a position essential to an organisation already top-heavy with checks-and-balances officers and not unused to self-regulation, or will it genuinely help preserve institutional independence?

The most important question is this: however worthy the policies may seem, will they be workable for the long-term good of the corporation? Bureaucratic procedures are only part of what the broadcaster stands for. The ABC's leadership is also there to ensure the organisation is maintained as independent, robust and willing to take risks, whatever the social or political climate.