Despite her good intentions, Michelle Guthrie was never the right fit for the ABC
Although Michelle Guthrie wasn’t perfect, the real mistake was hiring her in the first place, argues Peter Manning in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Michelle Guthrie has been badly treated – not by being sacked, but by being hired in the first place. As a former head of ABC TV News and Current Affairs, I met Guthrie several times at functions in the ABC, and once at a social dinner party. We discussed the state of ABC News and other editorial matters. She was well aware she was on a steep learning curve.
Dubbed early in the gossip mill as Rupert Murdoch’s and Malcolm Turnbull’s candidate for the job, I found her intentions good and her background at Google a major plus for leading the ABC in a digital era.
If there were worries, they were two: her lack of political smarts in the complicated and potentially volcanic relationship with the federal government; and her lack of experience in journalism, radio or television production, and the myriad other forms of content creation that ABC employees specialise in.
Like so many, Manning judges the abc ceo on internal perspectives. Objectively the abc is failing the viewer. Many of us simply don’t watch. In my case sbs and Netflix are 95% of tv. I listen to a few podcasts – there would be more except that mark Scott carved away many abc radio specialties.
Guthrie’s big weakness was in management. The abc remains notorious for confusion. Layers of management with little control and a million agendas. Plus, it seems, an ill fitting megalomaniac as chair.
Correct. From the inside I can confirm there was never really any intent to ‘give her a go’. She was doomed to fail from the onset because of a lack of objectivity of long timers at ABC, an inability to collaborate/work outside of existing silos and power structures or accept diversity of opinions which aren’t consistent with theirs.
Most made their mind up about her before she entered the building. Many who hadn’t, were skeptical from the onset. Few, if any, celebrated or welcomed her.
There’s a culture at play which is unwilling to listen to commercial realities nor face any real accountability. An echo chamber where white-anters, passive-aggressives, disparate, incoherent and duplicated operations are common, along with an attitude of they know best because of their ‘passion’ and ‘dedication’ to the ABC/public broadcasting/content production. No-one else could possibly have anything of value to contribute, especially if they’ve ever worked for a commercial entity. It’s a bizarre, self-perpetuating alter-universe of arrogance veneered with faux humility, inclusion and progressiveness which is desperately caught in the past demanding relevance because they deem themselves the only people permitted to judge relevance and success.
Poor Peter, you can’t take his mutterings seriously when he claims that Brian Johns “appointed me to head up a multimedia unit in 1994”. David Hill was still MD in 1994.