ABC boss David Anderson has apologised to Q+A host Stan Grant, who announced his departure from the broadcaster on Friday after a sustained campaign of abuse mounted against him over his commentary during the ABC’s coverage of the coronation of King Charles III.
In an email to staff late Sunday afternoon, Anderson maintained that Grant has “always had” the “full support” of leadership at the ABC, even as executives remained silent on the racist abuse levelled at him.
“Stan Grant has stated that he has not felt publicly supported. For this, I apologise to Stan. The ABC endeavours to support its staff in the unfortunate moments when there is external abuse directed at them,” Anderson wrote.
For some corners of the organisation, the ABC’s failure to offer Grant full-throated support until Sunday struck at the heart of his reasons for leaving. Sources in the Melbourne and Sydney newsrooms told Crikey that Grant’s departure had lowered morale, particularly among those staff who hail from culturally diverse backgrounds. Staff are expected to gather in the foyer of the ABC’s Ultimo office around 2:30pm on Monday afternoon in a show of solidarity with Grant, sources say.
Grant announced his departure in his weekly column on the ABC’s website on Friday. He said that since appearing on the coronation panel he had seen “people in the media lie and distort” his words, and had faced surging racial abuse on social media, directed at both him and his wife.
“I am writing this because no one at the ABC — whose producers invited me onto their coronation coverage as a guest — has uttered one word of public support,” he wrote. “Not one ABC executive has publicly refuted the lies written or spoken about me. I don’t hold any individual responsible; this is an institutional failure.”
Grant went on to give an honorary mention to ABC director of news Justin Stevens, who the Q+A host said has been a source of “support and comfort”. He said Stevens was trying to change the broadcaster despite its “legacy of racism”: “But he knows I am disappointed. I am dispirited.”
The sustained conservative media campaign included more than 150 mentions of the ABC’s coronation coverage in the pages of The Australian and on Sky News over the past fortnight. Early last week The Australian reported news of an ombudsman investigation into the coronation coverage after the ABC had received complaints claiming it was in breach of editorial guidelines.
The reports forced the broadcaster to demur and concede that it was taking the complaints seriously, even if reports of an “informal review” conducted by Stevens and Anderson were overplayed.
In his email to staff, Anderson said the ABC was “never above scrutiny or criticism”, but that “anti-ABC reporting” from some media outlets had grown “sustained and vitriolic”.
The ABC’s coverage of the coronation was led by a panel hosted by Jeremy Fernandez and Julia Baird, along with Grant. Indigenous writer and lawyer Teela Reid was another guest, alongside monarchist and Liberal Party backbencher Julian Leeser, and Craig Foster, co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement.
The panel discussed the role of the monarchy in modern Australia and the consequences of colonialism for Indigenous Australians and was broadcast for some 45 minutes before the ABC took the BBC’s live feed.
Shortly after Grant announced he’d step back from his role as host of Q+A, Stevens released a statement urging critics to direct their complaints at him, not Grant.
“Over many months, but particularly in recent days, Stan Grant has been subject to grotesque racist abuse, including threats to his safety. This has become particularly virulent since he appeared as part of the ABC’s coronation coverage,” Stevens said on Friday.
Stevens said Grant was only one of a range of panellists on the broadcaster’s May 6 coronation panel, and that he was “not the instigator” of the coverage, but instead was asked to participate “as a Wiradjuri man to discuss his own family’s” lived experience.
“It is part of the ABC’s role to facilitate such important conversations, however confronting and uncomfortable, and to reflect the diversity of perspectives.”
Anderson has since accepted a recommendation from the ABC’s Bonner committee to launch a review of how the ABC responds to racism directed at staff, and what more it can do to offer institutional support. The Bonner committee, the broadcaster’s peak body for issues relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and content, said it would push for the review to be led by an independent expert alongside the committee and all other staff representation groups.
The committee chair, ABC Voice correspondent Dan Bourchier, said in a statement on Sunday that Grant had been a “major shaping force” both in the broader media and for him personally. Grant had “been an ally, mentor, mate and supporter” who helped him to navigate challenging times of his own in Australian media, and welcomed Anderson’s decision to take up the Bonner committee’s request to launch a review: “We see this as an important next step in addressing the treatment some of our colleagues are facing.”
Until then, Monday evening’s Q+A program will be Grant’s last before he walks away. The ABC is understood to be in the final stages of confirming his interim replacement.
Constant attack from the NLP, other media and conservatives accompanied by funding cuts has had an effect on the ABC that has become obvious in this latest episode. It has covered itself so often to deflect and protect from such attacks it has become inhibited. As a confirmed republican, I was very interested in the opinions being expressed in the segment now under such vitriolic attack. I don’t agree with all participants- but they are entitled to their views. Tolerating views other than their own is a level of tolerance conservatives, including politicians and the conservative media, are unable to comprehend. Although not agreeing with all views expressed by Stan Grant, I continue to admire his integrity and strength and am horrified at the abuse he has been facing. It is a sad indictment of our society – and particularly of the media who appear to be more interested in click bait than their own integrity!
i too agree there are some dubious changemakers ensconced and a hang over from Paul whatshisname Minister of technology and the arts ( give me a break) his neo lib aversion to the impliict freedom of artists -is all too spelt out by his facebook affiliation to stance on anti graffiti artists ; and sweeping views about lefty types and women
i know Trioli was villified as a wonan too as is sarah from 7:30 by ollies who claim shes biased when they dont like her questions – tough high profile job he should consider the implications of a return to right wing media congomerates
Does this mean the Murdochs have won, at least in Australia?
Before his book ‘The Queen is Dead’, and the furor over his perfectly legitmate reflections before this troglodyte charade called The Coronation, I thought of him as an overbearing interviewer and took great umbrage at some of his ill-formed remarks about China. I now stand 100% behind him. He is a brave man, and I am grateful to him for the depth and profundity of his remarks about the atrocious conditions forced upon our First Nations people since the British invasion.
Human nature is complex. Stan Grant can be both a boorish mansplainer on certain subjects but also victim of racist abuse from the Murdoch propaganda machine. He does not deserve criticism for speaking the truth about the effects of colonialism on his kin. And the ABC has to sharpen up on this. The executive selectively support their journalists while abandoning others to the wolf pack of Murdoch commentators (e.g. Albericci)
I take a different stance.
I think Stan Grant is a very poor interviewer and is too opinionated to be good host or anchor for a tv program. But in programs where he has been interviewed or has been a commentator I have found his views interesting and have often agreed with him.
I think that the “grotesque racist abuse” he has been subjected to is appalling.
Sorry – that posted before I meant it to.
Though I did watch the coronation of King Charles, I did not watch any of the tv programs leading up to the coronation ceremony, including this one. Nor have I watched any of the “sustained conservative media campaign included more than 150 mentions of the ABC’s coronation coverage in the pages of The Australian and on Sky News over the past fortnight.”
The ABC has been under sustained attack from some other media outlets for years. It was also under constant financial attack from the A>T>M LNP governments.
In the run up to the referendum on the Voice, attacks on Indigenous Australians are likely to increase.
What an ugly country we have become.
What do you mean ‘ugly country we have become’.
Always was when it comes to racism (like almost any other country though !),
if anything, when it comes to the legislation, it’s getting better.
The problem is the anonymity of social medias.
Have become? It is a country founded on invasion, and attempted genocide and when it became a nation, its foundations were subservience to at that time the greatest mass murdering Empire, a subservience transferred to a country with a similar track record post-WW2, a nation whose Foreign Relations was built on The White Australia Policy, a nation of lamb and spud and pie and beer swilling chauvinists thoroughly determined to never face its history of attempted genocide of its First Nations people. It is also a country which during and after the Howard era has been governed by third-rate non-entities whose sole purpose was to maintain the conservative status quo in the case of the Coalition parties, and US, Israel kow towing nonentities like Gillard, and Albaneese, governments which prefer to spend their income on US manufactured weapons, instead of Renewable infrastructure, education and its health and Aged Care facilities. Sure, we now eat avocados and drink lattes, we have allowed Asian migration, but we still treat asylum seekers as criminals. But according to a so-called ‘Thinking’ acquaintance, we have the best form of Democracy in the world simply because voting is compulsory. Yes, it is the land of blind platitudes and cricket and footy….
100%
if you look at the conga line – all very poor recently – even Tony Jones gave far more tome to neo lib men and or the tyoe of women panellists are really not very exciting save for the firebrand from iran Ita said was too inflamatory – give me a break -too right wing affiliated but slso very hands on – Stan shut down this rat bag Russian sympathiser but i liked him much more despite his commercial light weight background from years ago – he was very light weight but he should of been sharing the chair with Sarah from 730 – Crikey Jon Faine would be amazing – bring him in occasionally or Geoffery watson – maybe a working class woman and later academic – shake up the panel – The Drum a revolving door of too often than not beo liberal lobby class opportunistic blinkered lighteights
‘Rat bag Russian’ sympathizer. Here we go. Check your real Ukrainian history, and maybe accept that Zelensky is a clown.
A clown that has kept the murdering, marauding tyrannical, rapists thieves of Russia at bay for a year.
A clown I’d much rather have on my side than the would-be Tsar, who rules by lies and fear, Putin.
Like I say, before throwing these propaganda-fed platitudes into the atmosphere, please take the time to properly research Ukrainian and Russian history, Both are relevant here. You are probably not aware that Zelenzky was elected on a platform of stopping the bombardment of the Donbas, re-allowing the majority of Ethnic Russians there to speak their language, and ceasing the anti-Russian hostilities. There is footage of him declaring – before his election, of course, his love for Russia. In fact, until he became the Pres, he spoke Russian, not Ukrainian. Then look at the history of Crimea, maybe quaint yourself with the simple fact that when coal was discovered in Donetcsk in the 1840’s a British Entrepreneur established the coal mines and had to recruit Russians to work the mines – hence the predominantly Russian part of what Khrushev in 1954 incarnated as ‘Ukraine’, remembering that it had absolutely no autonomy, that it was part of the Soviet entity, that it was a name change on a purely cartographic basis, the same way when Ayres Rock was renamed Uluru…Anyway, the real history is out there, available and, more than anything, please try to imagine that just maybe the stuff we are hand fed about Putin is basically as valid as the WMDs, the Gulf of Tonkin, and all the other US lies which have fuelled their wars.
There’s history, and then there’s history……………..
Take a look at Stalins treatment of the Crimean Tatars if you want an example of the Russian mindset.
St. Petersburg has such a bad reputation for underworld thugs that it is used as a descriptor……….
Putin grew up and perfected his art there.
He is a trained KGB killer through and through.
It might be a bit late to ask any of the hundreds of investigative journalists who have incurred his wrath, or the dozens of previous “friends” who have all decide to jump out of high windows for no apparent reason.
Stalin’s treatment of Crimean Tartars has absolutely zero to do with Putin. Putin has never said he wants to restore a ‘Russian’ Empire’. Crimea became part of Russia circa 1785 and what makes me laugh is the way The Charge of the Light Brigade has become legendary when all it was was an attempt by the British and the French to take over Crimea.
For the record, according to the ex-marine, ex-weapons inspector, Scott Ritter – who knows a lot more about this history than you seem to – talks about how Tme magazine boasted about installing Yeltsin after the fall of the Soviets, so that the US could begin its mission to ‘control Russia and turn it into another haven for Mc Donalds and Coca Cola. Yeltsin did NOT go from the KGB to becoming the boss, he worked as the assistant to the Mayor of St Petersburg at the time and was notorious among the US business industries which were in the process of making Russia, via Yeltsin’s drunken weakness, their economic slave, as THE only Russian they couldn’t corrupt.
It’s interesting that people like you have fallen hook line and sinker for this anti-Russian propaganda since its source is the very country that has lied to you about every war it has been involved in, and if you know your stuff, you’ll know there have been plenty. In other words, you have become the slave of a Military Complex which has over 800 military bases throughout the world and how many do Russia and China have – you know, the new Satans, part of the Axis of Evil, yes, Thucy man, exactly NONE.
That should read : Putin did NOT go from the KGB to becoming the boss, not Yeltsin…
Stan is an overbearing interviewer aka a bloviator.
As for the racism it is no doubt there.
ABC is in a death spiral.
Well that’s part of the problem, I suppose. Being so self-effacing, quiet, modest, decorous and polite when under attack. It would be better for the ABC to demur, very forcefully.
You’d think someone who claims to be a journalist would look up the meaning of a word he was using for the first time before doing so. I’ve heard the word “demur” mispronounced as “demure” a few times recently but never seen it written that way.
In this case what’s really puzzling is that the word “demur” is almost as wrong in that place as “demure”. I have no idea what Mr Buckley thinks either of them means, or what he was trying to say.
Agree. ‘Demur’ instead of ‘demure’ would still be baffling.
Probably intended to write “refute” but remembered the common conflation/confusing with “reject” or even “rebut” and didn’t have a clue which was which so then chose a word that sounded OK and about as accurate as others found in a cheap thesaurus – ie not at all.
Semantics, semantics!
Meaning, meaning!
i can think of a smart word too hanker rhymes with….,workin on vapid vampires
No, “demur” there does make sense if what John is saying is that the reports from The Australian of an ombudsman investigation forced the ABC to demur, as in raise objections to the conservative press’s coverage, while also conceding “that it was taking the complaints seriously.” That said, it’s true the sentence is a bit ambiguous in its meaning.
“Demur” would make sense, but he wrote “demure”.
Yes, but it’s obviously a typo.
Same “typo” to which attention was drawn last week.
So, some people can’t spell. Get over it.
It would be more accurate to write “..most people can’t spell.” and the number who can grows smaller by the minute as the grave yawns.
Hence SpellCheck and, for really useless sub-literate scribblers in the bunker, even grammar checks (the wiggly blue line) showing when a word is incorrectly used.
Which they seem to ignore no matter how often they are corrected by literate posters.
Just decoration apparently.
.
I didn’t watch any of the coronation. Anywhere except the news programs because I couldn’t get to the remote quick enough.
I have been a member of the QandA audience a few times and used to watch it regularly. That is, until I could no longer stand listening to Stan Grant.
With this latest stunt he is just setting himself up for a stint in politics. Guaranteed.
I’ve found Grant to be portentous at times, but I think mine could be an Australian cynicism. There is little doubt he likes to think things through from a philosophical and spiritual perspective, uncommon to us. But it’s probably about time. I don’t think it’s a stunt.
The question is – did you watch Stan Grant’s response on QandA last night ?
I found it one of the most moving, eloquent, compassionate and forgiving speeches I’ve ever heard or heard of. And absolutely got at the heart of the matter.
ABC has become hardly better than the right-wing parasites that infect most of the media. Most of which is only fit for the backyard dunny.
One group which will not want him as the representative is his own mob – which rightly loathes him and not just since his melanin monetising schtik was wheeled out
Australia is, as viewed from a Kiwi’s perspective, an institutional racist.
Most of the people I work with view their aboriginal countrymen as less thans, believing the Tasmanian experiment needed to be completed on the mainland.
When inquiring how they come to this abhorrent determination of extermination, asking “who has disturbed you to this point?”
Everyone says to a man “ I have no direct experience but ‘everyone knows’ they, to a man are worthless”.
Now… if your Mr/Mrs Joe/Jane Average holds such intrinsic irrationality, and they have grown up with it, being tutored in it at school historically, it will take many Stan Grants (bless him and his peers) to overcome this ignorance.
I concur with you 100%. Spot on, bro.
Just as a matter of interest, does NZ not have the same or similar attitudes, and are you Maori ?
BIll, you are just showing your jaundiced ignorance. New Zealand DOES NOT have similar attitudes. Go check its history.
I was born in 1955 and I clearly remember learning Po Kari Kari Ana, learning to maser the poi and the boys were taught the Haka, however not long beforehand my friends fathers were whipped for talking Māori at school..
NZ are intentionally managing integration after seeing the social degradation that occurs on all sides.
Australia is in the throes of not wanting to see the oncoming inevitable consequences of their 200 years of murder, pillage and consensual vilification of the oldest remaining undisturbed bloodline on earth and care not what they have to offer.
BTW I’m a pakeha of Irish decent that grew up in a Māori community.
Respect, bro, love your stuff.
That’s an interesting observation, and one that for the most part doesn’t mesh with mine. Perhaps it’s a generational thing – you say further down that you were born in ’55. I’ve never heard anyone under 70 say anything equivalent to “they should have extended the Tas policy to the mainland”. And to be fair, my parents’ generation seemed to be deeply suspicious of most races, not just Aboriginals. The Irish, Italians and Greeks in particular seemed to cop it.
I grew up on the NSW South Coast which has a fairly large Aboriginal population – that probably led to a bit more direction racial tension than is usual, but also a lot more actual experience with Aboriginal people and culture. As for being tutored in racism at school – that seems… unlikely if you’re talking about schooling in the past 40 years. In primary school in the 80s we were taught about many of the atrocities of the colonialists, were taught about Aboriginal history and culture, had interactions with the local Aboriginal community. It’s very similar now at my children’s primary school.
FWIW my wife (and hence, children) have Aboriginal heritage.