Welcome to our newsletter. This week Michael is looking at the detention of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, and what the saga means for free speech. Sacha takes a look at the ever-diminishing deals available to news media from the platforms, in particular Google – as the government turns its mind to other ways to help journalism. In the meantime, I’m trying to make sense of why the public broadcaster’s Managing Director David Anderson has resigned, four years before the end of his current contract.
What Anderson is stating publicly as the reason for his resignation is a version of “I’m tired”.
He may well be tired of constantly defending the ABC against the attacks which have come thick and fast, particularly from News Corp. But it’s also worth noting that when Kim Williams was appointed to the ABC Chair’s position, there were very many commentators who put a time limit on how long the MD would remain in the top job. Kim Williams is high energy, driven, unafraid of tipping the apple cart, and certain that he understands what Australians expect of the ABC. He was barely one week in the job when he said on our Double Take podcast that ABC journalists who couldn’t exercise impartiality in their reporting, ought not be there, implying that there were ABC journalists who fell into this category. He’s since delivered a number of other criticisms of the broadcaster.
Williams came to the job at a time when the ABC’s problems were publicly mounting. There have been relentless attacks from News Corp on the editorial integrity of the broadcasters’ output and the policing of its social media policy, claims of bias, internal ructions over the coverage of the Hamas/Israel conflict and a plummeting number of listeners of ABC local radio and ABC Radio National. There’s also been the highly visible and controversial decision to platform lifestyle news over hard news on the ABC’s new website, presumably in order to attract the ever-elusive younger demographic.
It was Anderson who presided over all of this. Whilst Williams thinks the ABC should ignore the News Corp criticism, from the minute he stepped into the building, he has kept up the pressure to get ABC management thinking about its core mission which includes dumping the idea of sending the bulk of radio program to podcast platforms: Radio National was – and should again be – the jewel in the ABC crown, he thinks. It’s hard not to also see Anderson as a victim of Williams’ crusade to restore the ABC to its former glory (as noted by Paul Barry on ABC TV Media Watch) where the ABC is the "last broadcaster standing", Radio National is a treasure trove of informed conversation and programming, impartiality is important, and the corporation has a strong sense of its mission to intelligently inform and entertain with home grown drama.
Perhaps Anderson’s decision can be put down to personality. The mild-mannered Anderson ascended to the top office when the ABC was in crisis over the disastrous era of sacked MD Michelle Guthrie, and her Chair Justin Milne who left the role amid claims he was way too eager to please the government of the day. Anderson calmed the organisation with the steady hand of someone who knew the organisation well after 30 years of service to it. Williams is the outspoken new-boy disruptor who after a shortish stint at the ABC, had detoured to the rough and tumble of News Corp.
The relationship between the MD and the Chair is a critical one, and though they don’t need to be of the same personality type – it helps if they are.
And so now the speculation begins about who will take over. Despite ruling himself out, speculation continues that Williams will “do a David Hill” – and perform both roles or side step into the MD role, one he has coveted since he was 28 years old. For those, including me, who’d like to see the ABC return to its “former glory”, that might not be a bad move.
Monica Attard, CMT Co-Director