News to Williams: threat to the ABC comes from within

When Kim Williams becomes chair, he will appreciate that it is the staff collective that is unhelpfully destructive of the ABC – not a few News Corp commentators.

News had barely broken that Kim Williams had been appointed as the next ABC chair when former Victorian premier Steve Bracks appeared on ABC Radio National Breakfast with Patricia Karvelas to discuss the matter.

Presenting as a friend of Williams, Bracks spoke positively and accurately of his achievements, including in the media. When Karvelas said she was receiving lots of text messages declaring Williams “was some kind of News Corporation stooge”, Bracks responded: “Oh, no, no, no, not at all.”

The reference was to when Williams was head of News Corp (then News Limited) between 2011 and 2013. Bracks added: “I would say the opposite, in fact. I think he challenged News Limited enormously and left because of those challenges.” This is unlikely to persuade the large number of left-wing conspiracy theorists who seem to monopolise the Radio National chat line. But Bracks is correct.

Chris Mitchell was The Australian’s editor-in-chief when Williams was News Limited CEO. Asked by Nine’s Calum Jaspan about Williams’ appointment to the ABC, Mitchell responded: “Put it this way, he may be more at home there (at the ABC) than he was at News Corp”, and said Williams’ “politics probably sit pretty well with the Albanese government”.

It is a well-known fact that ABC journalists tend to go soft when they interview their employer in the manifestation of managing director and editor-in-chief (currently David Anderson) or ABC chair (currently Ita Buttrose). So it came as no surprise on Thursday when Karvelas gave a long and soft interview to Williams.

It was, for the most part, a somewhat vague exchange. Williams delivered a version of values-oriented management-speak almost devoid of names and places. However, he did address one specific organisation other than the ABC. Karvelas asked whether the relentless attacks by News Corp on the ABC are “fair”, Williams replied “I think some of those attacks are unusually ferocious” driven by an agenda that is “fundamentally unhelpfully destructive”.

The following day, the AFR Weekend reported Williams as saying he would like the ABC to define itself in a dignified way. But he also declared: “Clearly there’s a kind of viral creature in much of News Corp’s commentary which borders at times on the fancifully mad.” Not very dignified, to be sure.

It would be foolish to predict what kind of an ABC chair Williams will be. For starters, the ABC is very much a staff collective. Moreover, it’s a conservative-free zone without one politically conservative presenter, producer or editor for any of its television, radio and online outlets. ABC management bangs on about the need for diversity – but never mentions political diversity.

And then there is the fact that Williams, as he acknowledged to Karvelas, will be the chair of the ABC board. That’s all. Chairs and their boards have oversight of their organisation, but they do not, and should not, attempt to run them. That’s the task of management.

Bracks told Karvelas the ABC “is going well … there’s (not) any doubt about that”. It isn’t and there is. It is commonly known ABC ratings are in serious decline. The public broadcaster has lost much of its traditional audience and has not replaced it.

The ABC Media Watch program is wont to sneer at Sky News. But presenter Paul Barry and his large staff never wonder in public from where Sky obtained its audience – which is prepared to pay a subscription fee. Many Sky News viewers have voted with their feet in deserting the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster. This is hardly an indication of fanciful madness.

The additional problem for ABC management is that, even in a conservative-free zone, it’s impossible to pacify the left. To activist leftist journalists with their own agenda, the ABC can never be left enough.

In recent times ABC management has been told by some of its own high-profile staff that it is racist and discriminates against people of colour. The ABC is broadly meeting its so-called diversity targets (which do not cover political diversity) but that does not satisfy the comrades.

The Antoinette Lattouf case illustrates the point. Having taken a stance on the Israel-Gaza war, she was appointed to do a five-day stint as a presenter on ABC Radio Sydney.

This in spite of her Instagram post of October accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, despite denying that the cry of “gas the Jews” was heard in Sydney streets on October 9, 2023 before Israel’s retaliatory invasion of Gaza commenced, and despite signing a letter opposing what was termed “bothsiderism” reporting of the conflict.

The ABC maintains that Lattouf breached its social media policy by posting an article by Israel critic Ken Roth alleging the Jewish state is using starvation as a weapon of war. Delivering the Andrew Olle Lecture last year, Buttrose said “being a journalist means that you give up your right to be an activist”. Yet Lattouf was appointed to the position.

In view of the fact Lattouf had only two days remaining on her contract, it would have made sense to let her employment expire. Now, however, this activist journalist presents as a victim and has rallied left-wing criticism of the ABC. This led to an extraordinary protest meeting of ABC staff last Monday, which carried a no-confidence motion in Anderson by 125 votes to three.

According to leaks to The Australian and Nine papers, senior ABC journalist John Lyons led the attack. He is the author of two books critical of Israel and is currently reporting on the conflict from Israel. Writing in The Australian on Thursday, Janet Albrechtsen (a former ABC board member) asked: “In what other serious organisation do staff get to pass a no-confidence motion in the chief executive?” The answer seems to be – only at the ABC soviet.

ABC management and the ABC board have no option but to back Anderson. When Williams becomes chair, he will soon appreciate that it is the ABC staff collective that is unhelpfully destructive of the ABC – not a few News Corp commentators.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.