The ABC has been given big zero stars from the general public, for deleting the website of At the Movies. By removing the online home of well-respected critics David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz, an archive of nearly 2000 reviews by the pair have disappeared.
A story on Daily Review reported on the controversial move. It begins, “The ABC has removed eleven years of reviews by David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz from the internet, leaving audiences unable to access one of the most significant records of modern Australian film history.”
Stratton and Pomeranz hosted At the Movies on ABC TV from 2004 to 2014. Their reviews were considered highly influential, covering all major releases as well as many smaller Australian and independent films.
The reviews are still accessible online through archiving websites such as Trove and The Wayback When machine. Many people however do not know how to use these services, and all the links that go to Stratton and Pomeranz’s reviews now get taken to a page that says “ABC has removed the site.”
Fans of the show are very, very unhappy about it. Here is a selection of angry tweets published about David and Margaret’s forced removal from the internet.
This is terrible – I regularly looked up old David & Margaret reviews. Please fix @abc https://t.co/4HzdHv7hCy
— Aoife Clifford (@aoifejclifford) October 28, 2017
ABC erases eleven years of David and Margaret https://t.co/JUHAURmYY9 Why did @rupertmurdoch order that? #TheirABC
— Ming The Merciless (@MGliksmanMDPhD) October 28, 2017
Cultural vandalism.
EXCLUSIVE: ABC erases eleven years of David and Margaret https://t.co/zLBJcljYfh— John Kelly (@j2dk) October 29, 2017
This is gobsmacking. @dailyreviewAU reports that the ABC have deleted 11 years of David and Margaret’s reviews https://t.co/yYGx2Chqgs
— Luke Buckmaster (@lukebuckmaster) October 28, 2017
#ABC erases eleven years of David and Margaret. Bad juju! ? https://t.co/IJh1J8ZvYS
— Citizen Woods (@BenjaWoods) October 29, 2017
This is something that must be preserved. The Digital Dark Age will be real. https://t.co/ABRQb8GQrn
— James Farrow (@jmfarrow) October 29, 2017
Awful! ABC erases eleven years of David & Margaret https://t.co/Z9EzuYfAQV
— Julia Veitch (@JuliaVeitch) October 29, 2017
Poor direction and poorly produced decision. Zero out of five stars for the #ABC from me on this one#TheMovieShow
— Peter Lloyd (@prlloyd63) October 29, 2017
OMG! Is this for real? Sacrilege!!!!?
— Cmbyn? Anonymous ™ (@monsieurgateaux) October 29, 2017
The ABC has a unique opportunity to foster arts coverage and criticism. Yet they’ve deleted decades of it with this move. So disappointing. https://t.co/a0fIyQG59G
— Rose Powell (@rosepowell) October 29, 2017
From a web archiving perspective, this story is immensely frustrating. https://t.co/ZbeczYKZKk
— Alissa M. (@lissertations) October 29, 2017
It’s a disgrace! Surely they could have secured digital records of all those reviews. Their history bigger than just being #ABC content.
— Paul Dutton (@pauldutton1968) October 29, 2017
All those painstakingly transcribed “oh, David”s … https://t.co/BlcOcQEpDO
— Jason Whittaker (@thetowncrier) October 29, 2017
wtf ABC.https://t.co/gLD6uBBEDS
— William PJ Kulich ? (@WillPJK) October 29, 2017
