Michelle Guthrie’s controversial tenure as ABC managing director has been summarily ended by the board this morning, with the former Google and Murdoch executive sacked because “it was not in the best interests of the ABC for Ms Guthrie to continue to lead the organisation,” according to an ABC board statement. Guthrie began in May 2016 and was barely half-way through her five-year term. Guthrie is the first MD to fail to complete her term since Jonathan Shier resigned in 2001. ABC veteran David Anderson will act as interim managing director while a search is undertaken for a replacement.
Guthrie, who had limited experience in broadcasting and none in journalism, was criticised for being out of her depth in the top job at the national broadcaster, an impression not helped by claims she spent much of her time between Singapore, where her family is based, and Sydney. Her decisions around the allocation of resourcing also drew fire, with the August launch of ABC Life, a commercial media-style lifestyle news project, seeming to confirm a campaign being run by commercial rivals and the Liberal Party that the ABC was unfairly competing with for-profit media companies. Guthrie was also criticised for focusing on managerialist bunk rather than delivering better content.
Guthrie’s tenure was marked by a dramatic ramp-up in Liberal Party attacks on the ABC, with a stream of vexatious complaints directed by the government at journalists, a funding cut of over $80 million in the 2018 budget and the Liberals adopting a policy to privatise the ABC. Guthrie attempted to push back against the government campaign, but seemed to lack support from Justin Milne, board chairman (Milne’s predecessor, Jim Spigelman, had appointed Guthrie) and friend of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The government has asked another former Murdoch executive Peter Tonagh to lead an efficiency review of the ABC, which has just employed Melbourne-based accounts and administrations firm KordaMentha to help. A member of the ABC board is Peter Lewis, the former chief financial officer of Seven West Media, who conducted another efficiency review of the ABC back in 2014.
In Guthrie’s frequent absences, many staff had the impression chief financial and strategy officer Louise Higgins, who has a long history in media in finance roles, exercised greater authority and leadership than her MD.
The ABC Chair says the CEO must spend more time in Canberra. Why? Head Office is in Sydney. Isn’t the ABC independent of the government of the day. Now confirmed as not! Significant opportunity for Labor to give the ABC back the ‘stolen’ $85M, plus a bit more; ensure services across Australia, especially rural Australia are top notch; and let’s get “Hands off our ABC’ really active before the next election.
Agree wholeheartedly.
The ABC is the one asset we peasants believe belongs to us. Shorten should push its re-invigoration as a primary election promise. Guaranteed to be one policy Morrison won’t steal off him.
At the risk of repeating myself endlessly – Shorten did make clear the ALP position on the ABC in a statement to the HoR on 31 May. You can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/BillShorten/videos/1752353858134501/?notif_id=1527743815511385¬if_t=live_video
I knew about this only because I watch The Guardian’s live updates when parliament is sitting and read about it there. It was not visible on any other media outlet, including, of course, the ABC itself. It’s one reason why I have deplored Guthrie’s reign of terror.
A fortnight later at the Libs conference a young Lib proposed that the ABC be privatised and the motion was carried. Shorten made a new round of assurances, which got minimum coverage on some media outlets.
The amount of times I’ve seen people say “Shorten/Labor should do X” when they ARE doing X is astounding.
This is why the media bias against Shorten really hurts. It’s not even just the personal attacks but the lack of airtime they give anything positive he does.
More Coalition inspired chaos & dysfunction. I’d personally have no problem with an incoming Labor government spilling the contracts of the entire ABC board, & establishing a much more “arms-length” approach to selecting a new board.
‘… a stream of vexatious complaints directed by the government at journalists, a funding cut of over $80 million in the 2018 budget and the Liberals adopting a policy to privatise the ABC.’
I understand it is IPA policy to privatise the ABC but the Liberal Party has never formalised it as part of their platform – or did I miss something?
There was that motion from a young Lib to the Libs annual conference back in mid-June that supported privatisation and was passed by the conference.
Maybe the Corporate AFL pty ltd could come out fighting for the ABC considering all the free publicity/coverage it gets from our national broadcaster ..
Thanks for the reminder. It’s so out of character for anyone to take a Young Lib seriously…even the Party.
It was Harry Stutchberry, son of Michael, editor in chief (I think) of the AFR.
“Guthrie attempted to push back against the government campaign”
Actually a common criticism was that she pushed back too little too late.
This is someone who, after the Coalition slashed the ABC’s budget, said she didn’t see it as part of her job to lobby for more money and didn’t really go into bat in public against most of the Coalition’s claims of bias, attacks against ABC presenters and so on.
My reading of it is that the multiple re-structures/re-organizations taken in just 2 years, the revolving door of senior staff, the silly management fads like the Larry Cards, and the time away from the office all ended up persuading the Board that Guthrie wasn’t up to the job and needed to go (in other words, an actual legit reason for sacking her based on competence independent of politics. I know! I’m as surprised as anyone).
I don’t know what to make of it. Many complaints about Guthrie from staff and government alike. But it feels like there’s been some government push on this and that gives me a feeling that her successor might be worse?
Guaranteed. It will probably be Lachlan!