I agree with Taslerxt - The show was rubbish at the end - The show that Helen Wellings ran was quality - Somewhere along the line the ABC degraded from being a trustworthy site for news and views to being a present predominantly left outfit that pumps out fake news and views - The only relatively unbiased source of news I can now find is The Australian (provided you ignore all articles from Universities - I also fear that Choice is catching a tinge of the ABC coloring
I don’t think @talexr was saying the show was rubbish but they did say Yes bring it back but tone the amusement stuff down as “the underlying message often got lost”.
I hear a lot of the stuff that the ABC is left wing, green or it is right wing biased depending on who is hearing and/or reading the information the ABC provides. The problem is that a lot of commentators on the “bias” aspect are very biased themselves it appears to me. Either Right Wing who bemoan a Left Wing taint or Left Wing who bemoan a Right Wing bias or those who deny science and thus have a anti-Green or anti-science outlook.
If you think CHOICE has a lean one way or another then raising your concerns with the Management or the Board citing the particular issues that have disturbed you is probably much more likely to get proper responses to your concerns than to just label CHOICE as having a tinge of the ABC colouring. Exactly what does that mean and in reference to what? Do you mean CHOICE pumps out what Trump calls “fake news”? If so which, and can you show some proof of those assertions? Of course not everyone every time agrees with all CHOICE programs but that is what makes up a Society, the many differing opinions is what enables us to debate the truth of a matter but good debate requires the use of evidence to back up the claims otherwise the debate declines into a we said they said back and forth that is pointless in the end.
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It’s good to know others miss The Checkout too. The core content was always relevant and topical. Whether the presentation was effective and connected to a wider audience has certainly caused much comment.
There are challenges in any programming. These may include finding the formula that best connects with the next generation of likely Choice consumers. I doubt most of is talk to our peers in the same way our parents spoke with theirs. Each generation has developed differently. Perhaps The Checkout should be superseded by ‘Choice the Friendly Giant Social Media Guru’ and “There may be a better way” ?
Isn’t all news biased in some way?
There is always a choice to approve of the content or disapprove. My approach is to always be cautious of all media content. Facts can be omitted, missing or not yet known, or presented out of context or…
The closest any news may come to fact is the weather report. Although even that is a statistical apparition from history, or speculative expectations for the future. A bit like a Choice product review, although Choice provides a more useful and reliable result.
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There is no historical ‘apparition’ content except actual historical data used to generate a weather forecast. The models are in a way speculative, but based on models that are accurate enough so a huge number of people check it every day to see if they need coats, brollies, or tanning oil. Sometimes people get upset when the forecast is wrong, but most time when it is wrong in a particular place, that same forecast was right on 100 or 200 km North or South.
Simplistically they initialise the model with historical data and let it run over a past time and then into the future. Since they know the past they can tweek some levers. Every morning each met service compares the model outputs from the top global models for their own area and pick the one that has tracked the most accurately into the present, and use that information to base/initialise their own forecast. They run the models at least twice and sometimes 4 times per day, weather service dependent.
No offence to Choice reports, but as examples business in tourist locations often use the weather forecast to roster staff. Not many if the forecast is bad, maybe an extra or two if it is really nice.
Lets not get into the relationship between weather forecasts and aviation.
Want to light your barbie or do a burn off? I guess there is no relationship between the weather forecasts and fire bans, so not so reliable and not very useful? so go for it?
The BOM’s accuracy went up a few years ago when they migrated from the Australian developed models to one based on co-development with the UK Metoffice using the Metoffice’s model as the base. The Metoffice model is arguably the state of the art, challenged only by the ECMWF model.
I will leave it now.
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If you look the Australian’s owner News Corp Australia in Wikipedia, you will find the following:
"News Corp Australia has nearly three-quarters of daily metropolitan newspaper circulation and so maintains great influence in Australia. Internal News Corp Australia documents reveal a brazen offer during the 2001 Federal election campaign to promote the policies of a major party in its best-selling newspapers nationwide for almost A$500,000. Other documents include a marginal seats guide written by a senior business manager for internal use. It evidences a corporate strategy to target marginal seats at the 2004 election. Some of the documents appeared on Media Watch.
Murdoch wanted a way to influence politics in his native land. He saw a way to do that through the News Limited publication the Australian.The national daily was used to support Murdoch’s political interests over time such as John McEwen with the National Party of Australia and Gough Whitlam with the Australian Labor Party."
The Murdoch press was also involved in the International phone hacking scandal in the UK. From that article:
On 1 May 2012, a parliamentary select committee report concluded that Murdoch “exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications” and stated that he was “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”
So it is clear that the Murdoch press (which includes the Australian newspaper) is as biased as they come.
Wikipedia’s article on the ABC talks about a range of criticisms from various people. Some people claim the ABC is left leaning, some claim it is right leaning. All the claims are subjective opinions without any systemic evidence of bias. I haven’t been able to find any empirical evidence that shows any actual bias in the ABC.
When it comes to degraded trustworthiness, I believe that much degradation was caused by funding cuts. I suggest you look at ABC management say budget cuts have made the organisation ‘unsustainable’ & The ABC didn’t receive a reprieve in the budget. It’s still facing staggering cuts to see how staggering the ABC’s funding cuts were. Despite this, the ABC is still the only source that double verifies facts before broadcasting.
As a direct consequence of these continued cuts many programs were axed, and others were modified to also be delivered from their multimedia platform. Perhaps The Checkout was one of the programs that were subject to this reformating to the new paradigm? Maybe this is why so many people feel that it went downhill (not David Hill) in the last season?
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Yes we want it back. Can someone send all these comments to the ABC? Australia needs a regular consumer protection TV program.
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The Checkout consisted of a series of very carefully crafted video exposés, with a follow up and viewer feedback segment, and, given the use of humour was never quite overdone, engendered a wide appeal among all kinds of consumers. Comparable to The Investigators in scope if not style, a themed format such as this will always be a challenge to a young team interested in making the subject matter entertaining. A team prepared to put the extra yards in to make a show rather than sit on a panel as they do in Gruen.
Here is another vote for another production like it, some years have passed now, and as these kinds of shows never make it to commercial television, the only hope is the ABC. 
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Whether it was The Checkout, The Chaser, or Planet America the ABC has always found the talent to produce programs the commercials would not. Gruen sits in a special place, similar to Media Watch were the ABC is being self critical of the broader media and marketing industry.
Gruen has found its own following. Interestingly it has had some great support from the advertising agencies whose workspace is being explored. IE the how would you sell segment “The Pitch”. Love them or loath them, IMO Australia has some great talent in the media marketing space.
I get the feeling Gruen may also have run its natural course. There’s always room for more consumer education. Especially if it can be delivered in other than dour and unappealing government speak. It’s easy to be cynical when looking at what is and is not promoted by governments in the media. Not often delivered using broadcast and similar media. Road safety related content is one exception.
Not since Utopia has a program come close to telling it how it might be. Hopefully someone at the ABC or SBS sees the opportunities.
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