ABC LIFE MEANS ABC DEATH
Throughout coverage of the ABC’s errors during Michelle Guthrie's brief reign, one particular $8 million project is mentioned time and time again.
Throughout coverage of the ABC’s errors during Michelle Guthrie's brief reign, one particular $8 million project is mentioned time and time again.
In the Australian:
Staffers say there was also widespread anger that head of news Gavin Morris appeared to have “fallen in line with the Guthrie strategy” rather than standing up to her and “defending his turf”.
“It had become this two-tier organisation. On one side, you had journalists trying to do their jobs as more and more resources were being funnelled away on stupid projects like ABC Life …”
In the Daily Mail:
Ms Guthrie, however, was already unpopular with staff as she slashed the ABC’s bloated middle-management bureaucracy and merged television and radio reporting teams.
Under her watch, a new lifestyle website ABC Life was launched, competing with commercial media.
In the Sydney Morning Herald:
The pitfalls of the infatuation with younger audiences and digital platforms, though, were nowhere more evident than in the launch of ABC Life in August.
In Crikey:
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.
And by the Australian's columnist Mark Day:
The Guthrie approach seemed to be that if an interesting niche emerged from the commercial sector, the ABC should replicate it, thus chilling the prospects of the private start-up. We have seen this in the new ABC Life site which in my view cannot be described as anything other than a spoiler for other commercial sites in the same field.
This is not what the ABC was established to do.
Still, ABC Life retains its most devoted fan – who happens to be the boyfriend of the bloke who runs ABC Life:
Gut-bustingly proud of my fella @scottspark and his rad, multicultural team that spans Australia's regions, towns and cities.
— Benjamin Law (@mrbenjaminlaw) August 6, 2018
For years, the ABC's helped us improve our lives via TV and radio. Today they start doing it online via #ABCLife. Have a look.https://t.co/MR89869ERp pic.twitter.com/FhF0AL8h9f
UPDATE. This is completely fantastic:
ABC chairman Justin Milne told former managing director Michelle Guthrie to sack high-profile presenter Emma Alberici following a complaint from then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull …
Mr Milne’s comments were contained in an email sent to Ms Guthrie on May 8 and were later circulated to board members in the week before the former Google executive was fired. The chairman was replying to an email from Ms Guthrie that outlined a complaint from Mr Turnbull about Ms Alberici’s political coverage.
It’s a left-on-left-on-left triple-Turnbull ABC firing fandangle!
“They [the government] hate her,” Mr Milne said in the email, which was conveyed to Fairfax Media by a source close to the board.
“We are tarred with her brush. I think it’s simple. Get rid of her. We need to save the ABC – not Emma. There is no guarantee they [the Coalition] will lose the next election.”
So Milne is obviously doomed at the ABC following Fairfax’s exposure of his Alberici order, and the ABC itself should be doomed following Milne’s revelation that the broadcaster – far from being independent – runs on entirely political calculations.
Despite all the rain about, this might be a very sunny Wednesday.
UPDATE II:
ABC chairman Justin Milne is under pressure to resign after Fairfax Media revealed he told former managing director Michelle Guthrie to "get rid of" high-profile presenter Emma Alberici …
Outraged ABC staff will meet at the broadcaster's Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane offices at lunchtime to discuss their response.
UPDATE III:
Emma Alberici says Fairfax reports today that ABC Chair Justin Milne wanted her sacked are the first she'd heard of the story.
UPDATE IV. Check out the head tilt on ABC Life boss Scott Spark, whose unreadable $8 superdull slumbersite was the beginning of the end for Michelle Guthrie:
UPDATE V. Two down …
15 August 2018
— Alex Ellinghausen (@ellinghausen) September 26, 2018
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in discussion with ABC chair Justin Milne and MD Michelle Guthrie at Parliament House pic.twitter.com/HFIDAw3RaA
UPDATE VI. Communications minister Mitch Fifield:
Questions about the ABC’s board and management are matters for the ABC.
And aren’t they doing a great job of it.
UPDATE VII. Leftists can’t organise anything:
due to a scheduling oversight, the abc ultimo foyer will today host an MEAA protest against political interference and "cuddles with blue heeler pups" at the same time
— Tiger Webb (@tfswebb) September 26, 2018