Before they take hold in the history of what unfolded at the ABC this week, some key claims need to be shot down.
1. This shows the board was wrong to sack Michelle Guthrie
It’s possible to take the view that neither Milne nor Guthrie did the their jobs properly. In fact, that’s probably the only rational conclusion when it comes to the task of protecting the ABC. We know for a fact Milne was trying to oust journalists who had displeased the Liberal Party. But what did Guthrie do to defend the ABC? In February, she pointedly refused to express confidence in Emma Alberici at a catastrophic Senate estimates hearing. Guthrie is not a hero of ABC independence just because she didn’t sack someone. A good defender of the ABC is across their brief, resolutely responds to criticisms at estimates hearings and in the public domain and lets ABC staff know that they have got their backs and will defend them for doing their jobs. Guthrie did not do that.
2. Malcolm Turnbull didn’t interfere with the ABC
Turnbull’s defence is that he never told Milne to sack anyone. That’s not the point. Turnbull appointed his friend and former business partner to the job, then rang him and hectored him about journalists and specific pieces of journalism. What did he think would result? What a contrast with John Howard, who never contacted Donald McDonald about editorial matters at all — but then, Howard wasn’t anywhere near as thin-skinned as Turnbull evidently is. Turnbull behaved like a media proprietor ringing an editor to complain about the coverage in his outlet: he doesn’t need to issue directions, he just needs to express his own views.
3. The departure of Milne fixes the problem of political interference at the ABC
The damage to the ABC’s independence predates Milne. The government has been working to cow and intimidate ABC management for years and it has succeeded. As the appalling cave-in to the government over the PM&C files shows, ABC Newscaff executives have an overly deferential and compliant attitude to both politicians and the public service. Only a clean-out of kow-towing executives and their replacement with tougher, more resilient types prepared to stand up to politicians will address the damage done to the ABC since 2013.
4. The government was complaining about the accuracy of Alberici and Probyn
The problem with the work of the two journalists singled out for termination by Milne wasn’t accuracy but the fact that they embarrassed the government. As Phil Coorey pointed out yesterday, there’s a funny pattern to the government’s complaints; they didn’t have a problem with Probyn when he was at The West Australian but suddenly got stuck into him when he joined the ABC, and didn’t say boo when Coorey reported similar stories to Probyn about which they bitterly complained, unless he mentioned them on the ABC. As for Alberici, Milne, the government and News Corp lickspittles are continuing to peddle the claim that she made major errors in her company tax piece. The ABC has repeatedly acknowledged that the errors were introduced into her piece in the editing process. Milne last night went further and claimed there were “small disciplinary matters” regarding her stories — a serious claim to make about any member of an organisation, and one that is utterly false.
5. ‘You cannot go around irritating the person who is giving you funding again and again’
Milne’s view that the ABC would not receive funding for his favoured Jetstream digitisation project unless sources of discontent on the part of the government were removed is demonstrably false. The Howard government gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the ABC and SBS to fund their conversion to digital broadcasting, which required a mammoth refit of production and internal distribution facilities as well as new transmission contracts with private sector providers. It continued to do so while openly engaged in a war with the ABC over editorial issues. Milne’s lack of understanding of his role as chairman evidently extended to a lack of understanding of the recent history of the ABC.
Just to add some reality to the beatification of John Howard based on his not engaging in the corrupting the the ABC’s independence. I’ll draw your attention to the finely tuned responses of the ADF, particularly the Navy, to the electoral “needs” of the Howard government in demonizing maritime refugees to the North. Not to mention the speed with which Australian security “experts” accepted flawed information and joined the USA, UK on a mad frolic in the Middle East.
That Howard is being held up as some sort of ethical behavior exemplar is vomit inducing nonsense.
Indeed it could be argued that Howard wrote the book on getting the APS to acquiesce to the needs of the Government of the day and that Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison have simply continued his work.
Election now please!
Absolutely! Given time they will give the scoundrel a state funeral, only to later realise, as history does, that he was a border line war criminal. I just hope they’ll dig him up then.
Wish there was an uptick so take 5*
I was wondering at the praise for Howard, not subjecting the ABC to political interference. If it’s true it must be an exception to the general pattern of his government.
Could someone please point me to an article about a single deputy director of the ABC who was prepared to stand up to Keith Murdoch when he tried to destroy the ABC’s independence in 1938 or 1939. I can’t find any reference to the book or article that pointed out who this person was. I think I first read this article on Crikey.
I hope it was Talbot Duckmanton; I just like his name more than remember much I learnt about him
I agree, Talbot Duckmanton is a name that defies description. Unfortunately, his tenure at the ABC was after Uncle Keef’s first attempt to destroy the ABC.
Duckmanton was late 1970s -early 80s.
Back in the day there was an ABC rural correspondent in Orange NSW…he had a duck..guess what he called it?
The Orange morning announcer, Dougal Hanley, has taken leave of absence to run as a gNats candidate for the seat.
ABC Rural was always, and apparently remains, a branch office of the old Country Party, even now as the pissant gNats.
I just wanted to see what it was like to type the name Talbot Duckmanton.
Sir Charles Moses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Moses
It’s worth reading Moses’ wikipedia entry, especially noting:
“While he was in hospital recovering from malaria, Moses received a personal letter from the Prime Minister of Australia, John Curtin. His Australian Labor Party had always been treated roughly by the newspapers, particularly the Murdoch press, and when it had come to power in 1941, it had instructed the ABC to ignore its agreements with the news agencies, and to gather its own news. Curtin feared that unless Moses was at the helm, the ABC would revert to sourcing all its news from the agencies. Moreover, Curtin wanted the ABC to develop a sense of national identity, and to provide the workers and service personnel with more entertainment. “
Thanks for that detail DF.
He seems to have been in the mould of John Reith of the BBC in not suffering interfering pollies at all.
Compare Mose’s background & life with the bloodless toadies we’ve seen lately.
Thank you for the link DF, it has caused me to do a lot of Wikipedia searching for key people who were prepared to stand up to Keef’s bullying.
The person I was searching for was Herbert Brookes:
“From 1932 to 1939, Brookes served on the board of the ABC, including as vice-chairman; he was offered chairmanship, but refused it due to his inability to secure a guarantee of independence from government control”.
Donald McDonald would have told Howard to sod off. He was a good chairman.
That its got to the point where we are applauding a government funding a independent public service adequately just shows how sick and corrupt the current system is.
The solution to the ABC’s current woes is obvious:
Mr Squiggle should be appointed chair, Bill the Steam Shovel should be MD and Rocket should be made head of ‘project jet steam’
Aunty jack should be appointed head of both News and Current Affairs as well as Government relations – where a few gentle nudges, (if you know what I mean), would concurrently fix the problem of political interference and funding shortfalls.
Not sure what do with the flowerpot men, but that’s a minor detail in the bigger scheme of things.
Question Time should also be replaced by a modified version of play-school and made mandatory viewing for all MP’s on the ring of the bells.
We have a tendency to over complicate things in the 24/7 news cycle and in times of crises.
Problem fixed.
Excellent suggestions! I think Bill and Ben could work the panels of shows like The Drum, Q+A, The Insiders, providing the sort of non-partisan, incisive analysis they are famous for.
And Norman Gunston to host 7.30 – he was always an incisive interviewer, utterly fearless.
Youtube has vintage footage with Guns ‘n Roses, Paul McCartney, Mohammad Ali, Warren Beatty, Mary Whitehouse, KISS et al….and he was right there at The Dismissal in 1975.
I wonder if Norman Gunston was the pattern for the personae later created by Sacha Baron-Cohen.
Given the dialogues of Bill & Ben they should be in charge of QT – their creator said that he’d based their speech on the sounds made when, as a child, he & his younger brother farted in the bath together.