Justin Stevens expected to be named incoming ABC news boss

The ABC is set to announce its new director of news, as 7.30 executive producer Justin Stevens emerges as a late favourite for the role.

Justin Stevens, right, with Leigh Sales and John Lyons. Picture: Britta Campion / The Australian

With a federal election campaign looming, the ABC is set to announce its new director of news this week, as 7.30 executive producer Justin Stevens emerges as a late favourite for the role.

Sources close to the recruitment process for the high-profile job have told The Australian that Stevens may have risen above the pack as the top pick to take the public broadcaster’s news hot seat, ahead of a strong internal field including the ABC’s head of newsgathering Gavin Fang, distribution boss Stuart Watt and current affairs chief John Lyons.

If Stevens wins the role, the appointment will have the domino effect of leaving 7.30 looking for a new host and executive producer simultaneously. Just last month, Leigh Sales made the shock announcement – after 12 years in the host’s chair – that she would be departing from 7.30 following the election.

Departed ABC news director Gaven Morris. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

The impetus for the ABC’s sudden race to fill the job is to have a news boss in place for the calling of the next federal election, with an announcement expected as early as this weekend after the handing down of the pre-election budget.

The job as head of news for the ABC is one of the toughest and most unrelenting in Australian journalism.

It also has a huge budget. The role’s previous occupant, Gaven Morris, previously told The Australian that the ABC news division’s total spend is $200m a year, or one-fifth of the ABC’s entire annual budget. The job itself is the ABC’s second-highest remunerated. In 2020/21, Morris was paid a total of $676,010 – behind only managing director David Anderson.

ABC managing director David Anderson. Picture: Nikki Short

But money is only one aspect. With a critical election looming, the successful candidate will face an initiation of fire from the day they enter the job.

Stevens has risen from the position of 7.30’s so-called ‘interview producer’ in 2008 to its supervising producer in 2013, before rising to become executive producer of the ABC’s flagship nightly current affairs show in 2018.

The announcement will come nearly six months to the day since Morris announced he was leaving both the role and the ABC. There has been plenty of discussion inside the ABC since, about the length of time it has taken to fill such a crucial position.

If the ABC doesn’t announce Morris’s successor this week, it risks entering a heavily-contested election campaign without a news chief, a role that’s a crucial conduit for relations between Canberra and the public broadcaster.

The ABC has had several run-ins with the Morrison Government over the last three years, with the government known to have registered multiple written complaints about stories.