News boss Kate Torney quits ABC ‘comfort zone’

Kate Torney surprised ABC staff by confirming she will become chief executive of the State Library­ Victoria.

Five years of jumping on gren­ades and realising the top job would not be hers led the ABC’s director of news, Kate Torney, to leave the public broadcaster.

Torney surprised staff by confirming she will become chief executive of the State Library­ Victoria as it undergoes its own digital transformation.

Her move comes after she real­ised she was unlikely to be considered to replace outgoing managing director Mark Scott, despite leading the news and current affairs division through a tumultuous period of regeneration and change.

Torney, who rose quickly through the news and current affairs­ department after starting in 1995, to become the first female­ director of news, will return­ to her home state of Victoria to oversee the continuing digital transformation of the venerable city institution, which recently received $55 million in the state’s budget for redevelopment, from September.

“Some time ago I felt that the next step for me was going to be outside the public broadcaster,” she said.

“For six years I have been leading change at ABC news and encouraging people to step out of their comfort zones, and ABC staff have responded extraordin­arily, and so I really felt it was time for me to do that as well.’’

Torney jumped into the role of director of news in 2009 after she helped launch the Sunday morning political forum Insiders .

Her stint has been regarded highly, despite having to oversee the rocky inception of ABC News 24, the closure of state edit­ions of 7.30, the dismantling of the Australia Network and hundreds of job losses after last year’s federal budget cuts and the dismantling of news “silos” across TV, radio and digital.

Mr Scott said Ms Torney “has been a passionate and ­inspiring leader of the news division in a time of remarkable change”.

“What she has achieved with the news team over the past six years is extraordinary,” he said. “The process of gathering and distributing news has been transformed.”

ABC head of newsgathering Craig McMurtrie will act in her role until it is filled permanently.