ABC racism review is a taxpayer-funded melodrama with zero stars

A report that found ‘systemic’ racism at the ABC prioritises hurt feelings over facts. The untested allegations will ensure journalism there takes a back seat to activist demands.

ABC managing director David Anderson. Picture: AAP

The ABC has provided us with many an internally produced series over the years, but none so long-running as the drama ‘Managing Director in Name Only’. David Anderson is one of many who have played the lead character, and he masterfully plays the unhappy lot of a CEO who has lost control of his organisation.

Or rather, I should say he plays a CEO who never had control in the first place. That is the only way I can rationalise the latest goings-on in the broadcaster – by pretending this is merely the most recent episode of the biggest and most expensive mockumentary ever produced.

This follows the release last week of the ‘Listen Loudly, Act Strongly’ report by Indigenous lawyer Terri Janke, which found racism was “systemic” at the ABC. The findings and optics could not have been better for race activists, particularly when an ill at ease Anderson appeared before ABC journalist and senior cultural adviser Miriam Corowa to conduct not just one but two acknowledgments of country.

I think we can all agree it’s time to put the ABC out of its (and our) misery

DEFUND THIS CRAP ALREADY

pic.twitter.com/TByA6MSNBm

— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) October 1, 2024

“It’s really significant that we take the opportunity to step into this new space … that’s been created today,” she informed the managing director. It was all smiles and polite exchanges, but a ritual humiliation for him nonetheless.

On face value, the findings are damning. Of the 120 current and former ABC staff who spoke to the authors, only one said they had not experienced racism in the organisation. Most of the respondents were either Indigenous or “culturally and linguistically diverse”.

Indigenous lawyer Terri Janke.

The group also included “advocates” and “allies”. Do not forget they too are victims. As the report notes, “Vicarious trauma training should be provided to ensure that individuals who are indirectly exposed to trauma through another person’s first-hand experience are properly supported”.

Read on, and you will discover none of these accounts was tested. The authors acknowledge they did not “verify or investigate individual accounts, experiences or allegations”.

What the report deems to be racism is questionable. For example, “Women of colour being described as being ‘bossy’ in managerial positions”. Even “voice coaching” is racist, apparently. “I have had sessions that say you don’t sound professional,” complained one participant. “Is it broadcast voice or do you sound white and posh? The ABC has crushed anything unique about me.”

Former ABC journalist Stan Grant.

This report is no mere compilation of grievances. What it proposes is redefining journalism to suit activist demands, as evidenced by the observation, “Many participants described racism manifesting in the systems and policies of the ABC”. In what respect?

You guessed it. “I don’t think editorial guidelines should be something that is pushed on us as … actual policy,” said one. “I think impartiality is often a way of limiting Indigenous people’s capacity to cover Indigenous affairs,” added another.

And nothing celebrates good journalism like advocating for censorship. Imagine, for instance. an accurate and impartial story on rampant child sexual abuse within a remote Indigenous community. But instead of hard facts, the authors of this review want to prioritise hurt feelings, lamenting the ABC’s limited criteria for removing content.

“This could be problematic if the ABC only reports on negative statistics for example on a certain community – factually correct, but causes distress,” they observe. Problematic for whom – the perpetrators?

For those who screech when poor old Hamas or Hezbollah is maligned, you will love this report. The authors suggest the ABC revise its guidance document on reporting terrorism and mass killings to incorporate the “importance of those with lived experience from relevant communities being able to contextualise events”.

This is sophistry. “Lived experience” is code for “my truth”. As for recommending the ABC should “contextualise” these reports, that is an inroad for whataboutism. Informed and objective journalism is rightfully disdainful of such concepts.

But as with many of our public institutions, the ABC’s traditional remit has been subordinated to furthering a far-left ideology, and that is obvious with this report. The authors recommend the organisation develop a “comprehensive anti-racism policy”. This will require acknowledging “the advantages white privilege carries in order to avoid reinforcing existing hierarchies”.

In this proposed avant-garde model of anti-racism, performance appraisals and work agreements will require supervisors to “promote diversity, cultural safety and psychosocial obligations”. All ABC staff will be “educated” to enable them to recognise that “diversity and inclusion” are “organisational imperatives”.

You will recall the catalyst for this review was the stepping down of Indigenous presenter and Q+A host Stan Grant. He publicly cited “relentless” racial abuse on social media as one of the reasons, claiming ABC management had failed to give him “public support”.

I do not doubt Grant copped racial abuse. It was incumbent on his employer to protect him from that, and clearly the organisation was remiss. That said, the social media backlash had more to do with Grant’s self-indulgent soliloquies and oversized ego than it did with racism. His declaration he felt “a sense of betrayal” over the ABC’s “reverential” and “obsequious” coverage following the death of Queen Elizabeth II said more about him than it did the national broadcaster.

His theatrics intensified, and Anderson no doubt believed he had no choice but to commission an external review. That was a mistake. His response, in addition to reinforcing protective measures for staff, should have been to deal with specific allegations of internal racism and take disciplinary action accordingly.

Instead he invited the diversity, equity and inclusion practitioners to dictate the organisation’s future. And that future is one where anti-racism is all encompassing. Calling in the critical race theory consultants is like checking into the Hotel California. This is forever.

You have to wallow in anti-racism. You have to accept its tenets unquestioningly. You must abide by its pronouncements, no matter how ridiculous. You must believe all accusations of racism, even when you are the subject of allegations.

Having announced in August that he will step down in early 2025 as managing director only one year into his second five-year term, Anderson could be forgiven for thinking the next few months amount to eternity. What is that you say, David Anderson? Last thing you remember, you were running for the door?