ABC news boss Justin Stevens urges staff to ‘stay united’ amid crisis

The ABC will introduce listening sessions with culturally diverse staff and hold weekly town halls to help ensure the broadcaster provides a ‘safe space’ for staff with different perspectives.

ABC News chief Justin Stevens.

The ABC’s head of news Justin Stevens has made a desperate plea to staff to “stay united” amid the recent controversies plaguing the taxpayer-funded broadcaster and ensure it has a “safe space for different perspectives and ideas.”

On Thursday morning Stevens sent an email to editorial staff titled “ABC NEWS team culture” and he highlighted that “improving the culture of inclusion in ABC News is a priority.”

“During challenging times it’s important we stay united, not just for each other but for the public we serve,” he wrote in the email obtained by The Australian.

“There are those who, for their own reasons, want us to be divided, who downplay the progress we’ve made and who benefit from our internal conflicts.

“Let’s continue to pull together on this.

“Values that matter to me include respect, kindness, honesty, integrity, compassion and care for one another.”

Stevens said in a 1400-word missive the ABC will be “holding listening sessions with culturally diverse staff in News” after he said a number of employees are “finding it difficult to freely express their views and this is a means of enabling them to do so.”

“Last year I began bimonthly drop-in sessions with First Nations staff and these will also continue,” he said in the email to staff.

“From next week I will restart the all-staff weekly Town Halls to connect with all of you and take your questions.”

In 2023 the ABC introduced inclusivity training after staff aired their grievances that they were not being welcomed in their workplace and their voices were not being heard in team meetings.

His latest comments and plea comes amid the recent crisis that has engulfed the ABC over the past month following the dumping of fill-in radio host Antoinette Lattouf after she shared a Human Rights Watch post about the Israel-Gaza war that read: “The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza.”

She has taken the matter to the Fair Work Commission claiming she was unlawfully terminated after completing just three shifts filling in on ABC Sydney’s mornings program despite being scheduled to host five shows in late December.

The ABC has also received extensive criticism both internally and externally over its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

On Monday staff who are members of the media union, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance passed a motion, by 128 votes to three, for a vote of no confidence in managing director David Anderson and demanded that he take urgent action to win back the trust of employees.

He has agreed to meet with ABC staff in the coming weeks to discuss issues including the sacking of Lattouf.

ABC managing director David Anderson will meet staff over their grievances on the ­taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s sacking of fill-in radio host Antoinette Lattouf.

Stevens also told staff in his email that he has appointed former Indigenous Affairs editor Bridget Brennan, a Dja Dja Wurrung and Yorta Yorta woman, to “co-ordinate an urgent piece of work for us examining international best practice on providing support in culturally safe newsrooms and bringing ideas and recommendations to the News Executive.

“This work is timely given the conversation we are having at the moment about what further support we can provide staff in the face of this complex external environment,” Stevens said.

He said it will include focusing on issues and ideas that eventuate from “listening sessions” and provide a “special focus on supporting women, culturally diverse and First Nations staff – all of whom are disproportionately targeted on social media and elsewhere.”

Stevens, alongside the ABC’s news executive, will on Thursday meet with the MEAA’s house committee to discuss ways to support staff and “encourage a positive conversation regularly across the year together.”

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced media executive Kim Williams as the new ABC chair.

Mr Williams is the son-in-law of late Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam and he will take over from chair Ita Buttrose on March 6 when her five-year term ends.

He said on Wednesday: “I think at the core of all journalism at the ABC is the imperative of being absolutely verifiably independent, offering at all times true journalistic integrity and to the extent possible in human ­affairs, having an aspiration to freedom from bias.”