ABC news boss Gaven Morris flags a crackdown on social media use at the broadcaster

Outgoing ABC news boss Gaven Morris said management at the broadcaster will enforce tougher guidelines on how staff use social media.

ABC director of news, analysis and investigations Gaven Morris. Picture: Emily Kulich / Melbourne Press Club.

Outgoing ABC news boss Gaven Morris has flagged a “much more rigorous approach” to the use of social media by staff at the public broadcaster, after admitting that dealing with the issue during his tenure as an executive had “been like wrestling an octopus”.

Mr Morris’s comments follow defamation proceedings earlier this year involving Four Corners journalist Louise Milligan, who was indemnified by her employer despite using her private Twitter account to accuse federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming of “upskirting” a woman.

Speaking at a Melbourne Press Club luncheon on Wednesday, Mr Morris – who this week departs the national broadcaster after six years as head of the news and current affairs division – said from now on, if ABC journalists failed to abide by the organisation’s social media guidelines and code of conduct, they could not expect their employer to bail them out of any potential legal matters that might arise.

“If you want to be on Twitter, be on Twitter. But you’re there as an individual and if you step out of line and you step out of the code of conduct, it’s on you,” he said.

“I think that’s what you’ll see in relation to social media at the ABC, I suggest, from hereon in.”

The Laming defamation case is likely to cost taxpayers in excess of $200,000 after ABC managing director David Anderson made the decision to pay for Milligan’s legal expenses in May, following the defamatory tweets.

The ABC has this year twice updated its social media policy for staff and the indemnification of Milligan’s legal costs has come under scrutiny at two Senate estimates hearings in the past two months.

Mr Morris said it had taken time for the ABC to set out clear social media guidelines. “For years we were telling them (young journalists) to all be on social media to promote their content, to get out there and build a profile and to build a personal brand, and now we are saying to them the exact opposite,” he said.

“As I have said to all our staff at the ABC, I do not need you to be on Twitter. We have ABC accounts on Twitter to talk about all our content.”

He also admitted the ABC remained “too Sydney-­focused”, and the public broadcaster’s plan to move hundreds of its staff to Parramatta in western Sydney by 2025 “is not particularly popular at (inner-city) Ultimo.

“I think what we’ve got to look at is how can we get out of Ultimo, how can we get back into more states and territories and I just don’t mean in news – I mean in all sorts of things.”

In October, ABC chair Ita Buttrose conceded the media giant had become “too east coast- centric”, blaming a “tyranny of distance” for lack of programming in locations beyond the eastern seaboard.

Asked on Wednesday why the ABC was reluctant to admit it was wrong when it made errors in stories, Mr Morris said: “A genuine factual stuff-up, we should be absolutely upfront about that.”

He defended the public broadcaster over bias. “The ABC very squarely down the middle reports both sides of any issue in any story almost all the time (and) gives people a fair right of reply”.