Michelle Guthrie’s stint at ABC helm had a key weakness: she failed to back the journalists
Guthrie’s dismissal was a shock, but for some ABC journalists it was a welcome one, writes the University of Melbourne’s Denis Muller in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Michelle Guthrie’s departure as managing director of the ABC, while a shock, is not surprising.
In the face of sustained pressure from the government and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, she has seemed incapable of mounting a sustained and effective response.
And in this environment of hostility, ABC journalists have felt under siege.
Once again an article by Denis that talks about “journalism” and “journalists” as if this were the only thing the ABC does. It isn’t and it doesn’t. The ABC, according to the ABC Act, is a “broadcasting” organisation (that’s what the ‘B’ stands for) whose Charter says that it is to “inform and entertain”. So, is Denis saying that the ABC MD has to be a “journalist” in order to purchase, prepare and broadcast “Dr Who” or “Peppa Pig”?
What a shocker. Muller’s thesis relies on thin anecdotes and his own attempt to publish a dubious opinion item on the abc web site.
The abc certainly does need a Brian Johns – someone who understands how good content is made and what editorial standards ought to be. But that is not at all about being popular. Very few good editors are popular. Indeed it became very clear that Mark Scott sacrificed editorial standards in order to acquire the love of abc journalists.
Milne is another chair of an Australian media company whose interventions are damaging. Lachlan Murdoch dragged News into what us now a swamp of half baked ideology and catfight reporting. Corbett crushed the core values at fairfax with a series of blundering efforts that had no purpose beyond short term appearances. Milne seems to be obsessed with a grand IT project that is simply dumb.