Your ABC: The Hunger Games.

"Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life", Oscar Wilde.

Maybe the best way to break the news is paraphrasing the IMDb:

In the dystopian present, the totalitarian nation of Australia is divided between big miners, bankers, “conservative, right-of-centre, libertarian” propagandists think-tankers and other Ubermenschen, ruled by PM Coriolanus Snow, and the rabble. This year 100 staff from ABC were selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal retribution for their journalism, the ABC will not televise the games throughout Australia.

The short version: last week ABC managing director Mark Scott announced 100 out of 300 ABC staff were selected for potential redundancy. The process was something like this: if in NSW, for instance, there are 25 senior reporters band 6-8, then 6 had to be sacked. So, if you are in the list (say, you are one of the 6) and don't want to become an actual redundancy, you better convince your boss why you are needed, while any of your colleagues left out of the list (the other 19) is not; otherwise, you must convince a Katniss Evergreen to take voluntary redundancy in your place (see here)

The list of 100 potentially redundant staff was released yesterday (after covering the Lindt hostage-taking incident, obviously, and the masterly touch in timing: before Christmas). Fairfax Media and other news outlets have been covering the news since last week, including the list release. Curiously, I haven't found any reference to this ongoing story by ABC News (12:20 PM AEDT, Thursday, 17/12/2-014): which suggests that the Minister for Communications, Master of Ceremonies, Caesar Flickerman, is conducting the show his audience wanted to (not) see.

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You have to give these people the credit they deserve: that is not merely sadism, it's creative sadism.

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So, Merry Xmas everybody and keep voting for them! Capitalism is great!