Do your job or quit ABC, Turnbull tells board members

MALCOLM Turnbull has told ABC board members they must help ensure news content on the public broadcaster is accurate and impartial.

Malcolm Turnbull credits ABC chairman Jim Spigelman for commissioning audits into the ABC

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Malcolm Turnbull says ABC board members who do not want to get involved in ensuring news content on the public broadcaster is accurate and impartial should get off the board.

Revealing he receives hundreds of complaints about the ABC each week, Mr Turnbull said “the law of the land” couldn’t be clearer — the board needed to take responsibility for addressing issues of accuracy and impartiality.

“Some people have said to me, ‘The directors don’t want to get involved’, so I said to the directors, ‘Look, if you don’t want to get involved you don’t have to be on the board’,” Mr Turnbull told The Australian.

“Section 8 of the ABC Act says one of the board’s duties is to ­ensure the ABC’s news and information services are impartial and accurate, according to the standards of objective journalism.

“It couldn’t be clearer.

“My very strong view is that the ABC board must take ­responsibility.”

The ABC board is reluctant to involve itself in issues around impartiality and news content. Sources say it does not believe it is “obliged” to ensure editorial policies are upheld. It admits it has the power but says it is not obligated.

The board says the obligation to manage affairs is vested in managing director Mark Scott.

In an interview with The Australian Mr Turnbull disagreed and noted that section 10 of the act stated that the managing ­director had to “act in accordance with any policies determined, and any directions given to him or her, by the board,” so it is quite clear the board is in charge.

He said the ABC board “can appoint people, they can sack people, it can lay down the policies which the management must follow and the act expressly says to the board, ‘You have the responsibility to ensure that news and information are accurate and impartial’.”

Mr Turnbull credits ABC chairman Jim Spigelman for commissioning audits into the ABC’s coverage of asylum-seekers and the federal election, but said impartiality was the responsibility of the whole board, not just the chairman.

“It’s the duty of the board to ensure that the gathering and presentation by the corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial, according to the recognised standards of objective journalism.

“How much clearer can it be? That’s the law of the land. It doesn’t say to ensure news is ­accurate and impartial when the managing director asks them to look into it,” Mr Turnbull said.

Asked if he felt the board was doing its duty, Mr Turnbull said: “I’ll be discreet about that, but if anyone was concerned that the ABC was not being accurate and impartial, I would be raising it with the board. Write to the chairman and all the directors.”

Mr Turnbull said News Corp Australia newspapers, such as The Australian, had every right to be opinionated, but the ABC as a public broadcaster needed to remain impartial.

While declining to give his personal view, Mr Turnbull said he was aware there were concerns in the community about the ABC’s impartiality.

“I get hundreds of emails and letters every week about the ABC. I am constantly writing to people about it,’’ Mr Turnbull said.

“Of course, I know there are concerns about the impartiality of the ABC, as there are indeed about all media, but of course the difference about the ABC is as I’ve said, The Australian is entitled to be as partial, biased or opinionated as it wants to be. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it, don’t read it.

“The ABC is a national broadcaster paid for with taxpayers’ money and it has to be absolutely accurate and impartial. That’s the deal. That’s the bargain they’ve got with the public.”

The ABC board meets this Thursday. It may address the possible breach of ABC’s editorial policy on impartiality and conflict of interest by Media Watch host Paul Barry.

There have been questions about whether Barry has a bias against News Corp, and whether there is a perceived conflict of interest as he continues to promote his anti-News Corp book on ­Rupert Murdoch, Breaking News: Sex, Lies and the Murdoch Succession, while the host of Media Watch, a role in which he is meant to be an impartial arbiter.

On Thursday, he will join a discussion panel on the topic, “The Murdoch press and its influence on Australian, British and American Politics”, at the Harold Park Hotel in Glebe, Sydney.

Two nights later, he will join another talk on News Corp, questioning whether “Rupert Murdoch, the powerful international media baron” has “too much power”. The official topic under discussion at the Union Hotel in North Sydney is: “Rupert’s Right? Exercising Freedom of Speech or Unmitigated Power?”

On Media Watch last week, Barry appeared to respond to concerns he was obsessed with News Corp by highlighting that News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt had written about the ABC 132 times this year on his blog.

Before the show, he tweeted: “Obsessed??? Who has written 132 stories about the ABC this year, with 125 of them negative?”.

Mr Turnbull would not comment on Barry specifically, but printed out a copy of the ABC Act for The Australian, saying it was up to the ABC board to address ­issues relating to impartiality.

News Corp columnist Terry McCrann said Barry admitted his position on the Murdochs in an ABC radio interview with James O’Loghlin in September, when promoting his book.

“Crucially, he explained that he had started out ‘positive’ on them, but the more it went on, the ‘less I found his (Murdoch’s) behaviour defensible and I moved away from my great admiration’,’’ McCrann wrote in his column.

“That opinion is perfectly legitimate in an individual. But it is a disqualification for the role of host of Media Watch, which purports to independently and objectively assess the media in Australia, including the Murdoch papers.”

McCrann wrote that both Mr Scott and the ABC board’s failure to discharge Barry has left it in breach of the corporation’s statutory obligations.

Nine chief executive David Gyngell came to Barry’s defence, saying while it was clear Barry had a bias against News Corp, he believed the TV host could separate his personal views from the show he presented.

“Clearly, he’s got a bee in his bonnet about News, but a lot of people do. He’s got the forum to say something about it,’’ Mr Gyngell said. “He’s a smart enough and good enough independent journalist. (He can) define the barriers between writing a book on someone and having an ­agenda. I think he’s smart enough to have a differentiation.”

Asked whether Barry’s breach of the impartiality editorial policy would be examined at Thursday’s board meeting, Mr Scott said: “I’m not commenting on board matters and board agendas.

“I’m not commenting on my discussions with the chairman. We discuss matters regularly but I don’t provide public commentary on that. My comment on Paul Barry is I stand by the ABC spokesman on Paul Barry.”

The ABC spokesman said: “Media Watch and its host Paul Barry have the full support of the ABC.”

The ABC’s conflict of interest requirements say external activities of individuals undertaking work for the ABC must not undermine the independence and integrity of the ABC’s editorial content.