Following years of budget cuts, ABC International – the global arm of Australia’s public broadcaster – has experienced significant growth since 2020. With increased government funding following a change in government, ABC International’s presence in the Pacific has increased dramatically, expanding their broadcasting footprint and establishing close relationships with local public-media organizations. This expansion has included tripling content production and doubling their numbers of transmission centres in the region.

Read more: To counter anti-democratic propaganda, step up funding for ABC International

As the geopolitical landscape in the Pacific shifts – with heavy investment from China into international media organisations, along with USAGM’s loss of funding – how is ABC International planning on combatting state sponsored dis-information, along with filling the growing void of trusted and independent news?

PMA’s Head of Content & Engagement, Harry Lock, spoke with Claire Gorman, the head of ABC International for the latest episode of PMA’s Media Uncovered podcast. 

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

For example, in the Solomon Islands, we work with the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation. We provide, where possible, when we’re establishing our transmission services in locations, to add value for them as well. Sometimes we’re able to bring in equipment that can fix a problem that they’ve got with their operations. Sometimes they’re a bit challenged in terms of their technical expertise and capacity, so we provide some capacity support and some training when we’re establishing our services there. We’ve got the MOUs [Memorandum of Understanding] that set broad frameworks for cooperation with a lot of media organisations across the Pacific region, so the public broadcasters, but also some other providers as well. And we have those broad frameworks for cooperation and collaboration, so they’re sort of strongly founded on people-to-people links.

But also, we have transactional relationships with those media organisations and public broadcasters. We’re there providing our FM transmission services for ABC Radio Australia and either running some of our content from ABC Australia or an international TV channel, or we’ll also broadcast out on multi-service operators. So cable, OTT, and subscription platforms across the region, too.

HL: Are you wanting to go further? Can you go further on your current budget and current position? 

CG: On our current budget and current position, we can’t do much more other than just continue to follow through with what we’re already providing. We’ve tripled the amount of content that we create for target audiences across the Pacific. We’ve got digital output on an ABC Pacific website, which we then have accompanying social channels that sit under that brand as well. We’re providing content specifically for Pacific audiences. And then we’ve got ABC Australia, the TV channel.

There’s actually a lot more that we want to do. In the Pacific region, we could be launching new social channels, particularly considering the insecurity of relying solely on Meta as one of the primary social channels, although that is a de facto internet for a lot of markets across the Pacific.

We could be launching a TikTok account for the Pacific. We could be doing a lot more bespoke Pacific content that would go out on ABC Australia, our TV channel. We could be doing a lot more co-production work with partners across the Pacific. So there’s absolutely more that we could do in that region.

We’re also very conscious of our remit. Our footprint does go across South, North, and Southeast Asia as well. There is a lot more that we could do to engage audiences, particularly in the ASEAN states. There’s certainly a really great need for us to be engaging more with audiences in Indonesia and tackling some of those issues of freedom of information, independent journalism that’s missing in markets like Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. There’s a lot more that we could do in the Indo part of the Indo-Pacific as well.

HL: In an essay for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, you wrote that “a global contest of ideas is underway, and democracy as an ideal is at stake.” So, you think that this is a major challenge to the democratic system that democratic states believe in and want to help promote in other states abroad? 

CG: Yeah, I think there is a global contest of ideas underway. Part of my rationale for writing that essay was trying to frame what the situation is for our government and for our stakeholders, particularly with the withdrawal of funding from USAGM, and the change in approach internationally under the Trump government.

There is data out there which is looking at these changes in attitudes of people towards independent media and how they see democracy and adherence to human rights. There are movements towards a more, I would call regressive, way of thinking about diversity and inclusion, gender equality, and women’s participation in public life.

I think a lot of this stuff is really existential for those of us who live in advanced democracies. Certainly, in Australia, we classify as an advanced democracy, and we need to protect our way of life. We can see that – and the data says this – countries who have greater equality across class, across gender, and a greater adherence to human rights are economically better off. So, development outcomes are actually achieved at a greater rate than they are in those more illiberal states.

But we do know also that, in particular, China has a very different model of development. It is possible for the Chinese to put forward a very strong argument for those who are still in a less developed state and still have very significant problems with infrastructure provision and provision of healthcare, and it has had a great success rate insofar as bringing a lot of people out of poverty. What it hasn’t got a great success rate of is providing people freedom of expression and the rule of law, particularly when it comes to things like upholding human rights.

HL: You mentioned earlier around the defunding of USAGM and all its subsidiaries, and the fact that then does open up space, both in terms of space online where they’re no longer putting out content, but also space in schedules, people who relied on a bulletin or a program to fill a certain slot. But you are already operating at what sounds like capacity. So, what can you do to fill that gap and make sure that the defunding of USAGM doesn’t lead to the greater influence of those more state-aligned media organisations?

CG: I think our only recourse here is to be really forthright with our governments and to explain to them what the situation is and explain to them that the only way for us to kind of deal with this issue is by being provided with more funding to expand our activities and fill that space. 

I think it is one of the things that we – the ABC International, work with NHK, and we work with the BBC World Service, we work and talk with France Médias Monde, Deutsche Welle, SwissInfo, and CBC/Radio-Canada as well, we work with other international broadcasters – can coordinate and share information, and that’s really important.

But ultimately, we’re reliant on our own governments to see what we can do in that international space given the changing geostrategic environment that is resulting out of what the US is doing in relation to USAGM, but also in relation to its other international and trade positions. 

The difficulty with us is that we’re all independent broadcasters. There is a little bit of tension that we have to manage very carefully about ensuring we retain our independence from the government and that we’re not actually operating as a tool of Australia’s policy stance. Although that’s part of our proposition to the government that we can be a soft power instrument.

It would be really good for our respective governments to be talking about this amongst themselves in their bilateral discussions and, where relevant, within multilateral fora as well, and really understanding the role that media can play in shoring up democracy, respect for human rights, freedom of speech, and the attractiveness of our ways of life.