The Drum beaten by ABC management

Don't get me wrong. It still published Chris Berg and a couple of other high profile conservative writers but they were in the minority. There is absolutely nothing wrong with publishing articles from those who have confused Marxism with street performance.

But as a lens through viewing wider Australia, it had a very small, inner suburban focus. The Drum completely missed the fact that Hanson and a raft of anti-immigration and anti-free trade senators were going to be elected in 2016.

I did a rough count going back to 2012 and around 30 contributors have advocated for same sex marriage but those against it only were allowed four articles. The same was true of left wing views on education, climate change and asylum seekers. These are all political views I generally support but only people bereft of intellectual integrity could cheer this type of censorship by exclusion.

As one commentator on The Guardian said:

"By branching, bizarrely, into opinion the ABC website became a kind of quasi-blog. It had everything, including cutesy videos, and endless Twitter snapshots, memes, and other rubbish, which mostly reflected the author's, own perspective. Returning the focus squarely to news (and analysis of the news) is a sensible move if the ABC website is, again, to become a serious news provider that is even on par with something like The Guardian."

People will wail and cry. They'll gnash their teeth and scream that the closing of The Drum website was Rupert Murdoch's fault or Tony Abbott's fault or Quadrant's fault or the fault of the Institute of Public Affairs. But it's not you know. The Drum was parochial and since 2012, failed to reflect diversity of opinion. It reflected in-house bias.

Of course, some writers in The Australian do the same. That's why it's called News Corporation. No public funding there – at least not that we know about.