Allan Ashbolt
Born
Allan Campbell Ashbolt

24 November 1921
Melbourne, Australia
Died9 June 2005(2005-06-09) (aged 83)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
EducationCaulfield Grammar School
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • producer
  • broadcaster

Allan Campbell Ashbolt (24 November 1921 – 9 June 2005) was an Australian journalist, producer, and broadcaster.

Early life

He was born in Melbourne and attended Caulfield Grammar School. He served with the Australian Imperial Force in World War II.[1] Following the war, Ashbolt began acting and helped establish the Mercury Theatre with Peter Finch amongst others. He appeared in government documentary films. Ashbolt was a film librarian at the NSW Film Council in the mid-fifties, before he was hired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) as a producer.[2]

Career

In 1959, he was appointed as the ABC's first North America correspondent. In 1963, he served as a correspondent and executive producer of Four Corners,[3] which has become Australia's longest-running investigative journalism/current affairs television program. He was known for his belief that the ABC should promote free speech and controversial political content.

As Ken Inglis acknowledged in his sympathetic history This is the ABC, the leftist takeover of the public broadcaster began in the late 1960s when self-proclaimed Marxist Allan Ashbolt began stacking the organisation with young leftists. This coterie was affectionately labelled “Ashbolt’s kindergarten”. [https://thesydneyinstitute.com.au/blog/allan-ashbolts-ghost-still-haunts-conservative-free-abc/]

Ashbolt held senior positions at the ABC, until retiring after a 25-year career with the network. He also wrote for the New Statesman, a British political magazine. He died in Sydney in June 2005.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Allan Ashbolt war service details". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
  2. ↑ Horner, Jack (2004). Seeking Racial Justice: An Insider's Memoir of the Movement for Aboriginal Advancement, 1938-1978. Aboriginal Studies Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-85575-468-6.
  3. ↑ "RSL Story", abc.net.au. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  4. ↑ "Journalist Alan Ashbolt dies at 83". www.abc.net.au. 9 June 2005. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  • Bowman, David (15 June 2005). "The lion of the ABC". Australian Policy Online. Archived from the original on 13 June 2011.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) Retrieved 28 April 2017.


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