The ABC has crossed the line with its bias and malevolence - particularly after peddling an untruth to mock the Prime Minister. On its flagship current affairs show, 7.30, it ran a juvenile satire of Abbott based on a falsehood: KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: Two great men with a phobia of fabric and a penchant for pectoral promenading set to meet face to face in the world's grandest car park, the G20... KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: So ... this was as close as it got. Just two dudes who finally had a meeting behind closed doors away from the cameras, almost like grownups... In fact, even Laurie Oakes, no friend of Abbott, says Abbott delivered: Gerard Henderson: As ABC spinners have conceded, 7.30 was aware of the conversation between Prime Minister Tony Abbott and President Vladimir Putin concerning the downing of MH17 over Ukraine some 40 minutes before the program went to air. But, ABC producers decided to run Ms Drysdale's attempt at Abbott ridicule for a longer time â and ahead of â the real news... This was a huge misjudgement of news and comedy by ABC producers. According to the available evidence, 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales did not support the sketch going to air... [After] he took the position as ABC managing director in 2006, Mark Scott ...virtually welshed on any editorial and appointment decisions made by ABC producers. This has led to the situation where the public broadcaster has not one conservative presenter, producer or editor in any prominent television, radio or online outlets. Moreover, Mark Scott walks away from any situation which would require supervising and instructing ABC staff as to proper editorial standards. Hence his silence on the 7.30 sketch this week which even senior figures at the ABC recognise was a disaster... And no one on the ABC Board shows any inclination to insist that the managing director and editor-in-chief should do the job for which he is well remunerated. Janet Albrechtsen: As an ABC board member committed to a vibrant and impartial national broadcaster, I had deep reservations about Scott's ability and willingness to take on this editorial role. Having watched the ABC hierarchy up close, I saw how most of those in senior positions too often wanted to be loved by staff, rather than respected... Worse than wanting to be loved, Scott and ABC honchos have grown drunk with cultural, editorial and political arrogance. That is the inescapable conclusion arising from Tuesday's 7.30 program.... Host Leigh Sales introduced the segment as "lighthearted," but even she seemed uncomfortable with the questions it raised about the ABC's distorted political and cultural antenna... From top to bottom, from Scott to ABC chairman Jim Spigelman, to members of the ABC board, to the all-powerful but little-known executive producers and highly paid program hosts, and all manner of well-paid management between, the ABC is deliberately delivering two fingers to those who fund the ABC â us... (P) rogram producers operate with impunity and immunity, directing much of the ABC at the left-leaning, inner-city tweeting community. It points to a moral vanity that the values of this tiny community matter more than the wider Australian community... It may suit Scott and Spigelman to depict criticism as another broadside in a culture war. But they miss the point at their peril. The ABC should not be right-wing any more than it should be left-wing. This is not a culture war. It is a cri de coeur about the legitimacy of the ABC as a publicly funded Â­vibrant, innovative, intellectually curious, philosophically open-minded media organisation... Trotting out favourites on ABC news programs â Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young on asylum-seekers, Tim Flannery on climate change and so on â may titillate the tastes of the trendy Left, but what about the views and values of the rest of Australia? Roger Franklin: 7.30 ... , allegedly a serious news magazine, had lots of ABC-style fun with an outrage that claimed more than three dozen Australian lives. Those of us who pay the national broadcaster's bills (and the stupendous salaries of its managing director and family circle of married-to-each-other talking heads) might see little opportunity for levity in an episode of mass murder, but that just proves why normal Australians don't figure amongst the broadcaster's stars: dim suburban creatures, they just don't recognise that market-failure niche we've heard so much about. Managing Director Mark Scott, who bills himself as the broadcaster's "editor-in-chief," knows better. If commercial broadcasters aren't clambering atop a mound of butchered Australians to laugh at a Prime Minister determined to seek justice in their name, then Scott's minions must loosen their jocularity straps and let fly with the thigh-slappers... Some people might be offended, sure, but one gathers the ABC sees their feelings as unworthy of consideration â not when there is an opportunity to ridicule a Prime Minister of the wrong party, a leader who had brazenly announced his intention to confront the leader of the nation that sponsors those who fired the missile which snuffed out 38 of his fellow citizens. The biggest joke about the ABC's bias? To discuss it, the ABC's Q&A has assembled a panel that actually demonstrates that bias: Q&A presenter Tony Jones announced next week's panel: Next week, on Q&A, with the Government's decision on ABC funding imminent, we're joined by the Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull; the Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek; former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes, Daily Telegraph opinion editor Sarrah Le Marquand; and comedian and author Ben Elton... Yes, folks, it's another 4-2 stack with not one established ABC critic on the program. Presenter Tony Jones and Jonathan Holmes have received most of their income in recent years from the ABC.... Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull believes that the ABC should be more efficient but he is not generally critical of the ABC's political culture â unlike many of his Cabinet colleagues. Sarrah Le Marquand is not a leftist but nor is she an established ABC critic. Indeed, Ms Marquand supports same sex marriage â one of ABC personnel's favourite causes. Tanya Plibersek is a leader of the ALP Parliamentary Left and a strong supporter of the ABC. Ben Elton is a British leftie. What a scandal.