ABC boss criticised for appointing ex-editorial boss Alan Sunderland to head independent review

The appointment of former ABC editorial chief Alan Sunderland to conduct an independent review into the ‘fake audio’ scandal at the broadcaster has raised red flags for some.

ABC managing director David Anderson and former editorial director Alan Sunderland. Picture: AAP

ABC managing director David Anderson’s decision to appoint the public broadcaster’s former editorial chief Alan Sunderland to conduct an independent review into the “fake audio” scandal has been met with concern, amid fears that he is still seen as an “insider” at the media organisation.

Last week, Mr Anderson announced that Mr Sunderland, who worked at the ABC for 23 years and was editorial director at the public broadcaster from 2013 to 2019, would captain the “independent” review into issues that arose out of a report on Channel 7’s Spotlight program that uncovered – among other things – that “fake audio” had been inserted into an ABC story about a wartime skirmish involving Australian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2012.

Former soldier Heston Russell on Channel 7’s Spotlight program. Picture: Channel 7

Mr Sunderland will conduct the independent review into two 7.30 episodes and one online article that were published in 2022 and were led by investigative reporter Mark Willacy.

Mr Sunderland has until the end of October to complete the review, which was commissioned “to fully understand what has occurred and make any necessary recommendations”, according to Mr Anderson.

In one of the ABC stories on the gun battle, an Australian soldier was shown firing six shots at unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. But when compared with the raw footage provided to the ABC, only one gunshot can be heard.

Former commonwealth and NSW ombudsman John McMillan, who alongside former news executive Jim Carroll headed up the ABC’s last major external review in 2021 that looked at the broadcaster’s complaints-handling processes, questioned Mr Sunderland’s appointment.

“I assumed they were going to get somebody independent of the ABC because the real issue here is how well the internal processes at the ABC were working,” Mr McMillan said. “You can get input from somebody like Alan Sunderland but it would be handy, one assumes, to have a report done by somebody else. He (Sunderland) can comment on the report.”

Mr McMillan, an emeritus professor at Australian National University, said if an organisation commissioned an independent review “you want to quell the controversy.”

“If you’ve got somebody who is open to an allegation or a complaint of being favoured, however skilfully they do their report it’s unlikely to quell the controversy,” he said. “It can be misrepresented as the ABC trying to dampen a review of what is occurring.”

Another senior media industry figure, who has had some involvement with the coverage of the Afghanistan stories at the centre of the review, said appointing a former editorial director of the ABC to oversee a review into its editorial practices was “absurd”.

“The point is that the reviewer has to be impartial above all else,” said the source, who asked not to be named. “It’s pretty hard to bring an impartial perspective to something like this if you’ve spent most of your working life inside the ABC, and you’re a staunch defender of how it operates.”

In June, Mr Sunderland wrote a column that was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald titled, “So Laura Tingle has been outed as ‘partisan’? What nonsense.”

That column followed the controversy surrounding comments she made about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, alleging that his migration policies encouraged people to abuse migrants at open home inspections. She also labelled Australia a “racist country”.

“I am writing not to defend Laura Tingle, but to celebrate her,” Mr Sunderland wrote.

“Let’s celebrate the fine work that our best ABC reporters deliver time and time again, and let’s acknowledge that Laura Tingle is foremost among them. Long may her work continue.”

In the piece Mr Sunderland did acknowledge that a rap over the knuckles was “justified” after she used “loose language at a writers’ festival”.

In October last year he penned an article titled, “It’s time to kill the myth of balance” for ABC Alumni, amid the debate over the voice referendum and the demands for the national broadcaster to give equal coverage to both sides of the argument.

“Balance for the sake of balance is and always has been an abomination, a corruption of good journalism,” Mr Sunderland wrote.

Mr Sunderland told The Australian on Sunday that he had both supported and criticised the ABC and said he would not have agreed to conduct the review if he “didn’t think I was independent”.

“I’m not silly, I know it’s open to people to say, ‘he used to work for the ABC, he used to be in ABC management, how can he possibly do an independent report’,” he said.

“I have a track record, demonstrably of not being afraid to do my job which was to point out areas where the ABC has fallen short.”

An ABC spokesman said Mr Sunderland “is an experienced media executive and award-winning journalist”.

Originally published as ABC boss criticised for appointing ex-editorial boss Alan Sunderland to head independent review