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ABC wins seven Walkley Awards for Excellence
ABC - November 24, 2023
ABC journalists and teams have won seven top honours at the 2023 Walkley Awards for Excellence in Australian Journalism, including two prizes for work on international reporting flagship Foreign Correspondent.
Global Affairs Editor John Lyons won for Commentary, Analysis, Opinion and Critique, Communities Reporter Jeremy Story Carter for Short Feature Writing and National Sport Reporter David Mark for Sports Journalism.
ABC managing director David Anderson defends broadcaster's Israel-Gaza war coverage
ABC - November 17, 2023
The ABC's managing director has defended the national broadcaster's coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying its reporting has been impartial.
In a speech to the volunteer organisation Friends of the ABC on Friday evening, David Anderson said he disagreed with recent accusations of bias.
Statement on Patricia Karvelas
Justin Stevens - ABC - November 2, 2023
ABC journalist and presenter Patricia Karvelas is a fine, principled journalist and a courageous and generous human being. We’re proud she works for the ABC and grateful for her hard work and huge contribution to the national public broadcaster and audiences.
It is disturbing, saddening and angering that Patricia should find herself the target of online trolling and abuse, much of it sexualised, homophobic and racist, just for speaking publicly about her life.
The ABC's emergency team on Black Summer, broadcasting during crises and the bushfire season ahead
Gianfranco Di Giovanni, Ramona Curmi and Ria Jack - ABC - September 25, 2023
Receiving a midnight phone call is a worry to most people, but for Pat Hession, it usually means one thing: somewhere across the vast Australian landscape, a community is being put at risk in a natural disaster.
"Either things are bad, or someone's pocket-dialled me by mistake," he says.
ABC Backstory Jeremy Fernandez on becoming the main anchor of ABC NSW 7pm News, his path into journalism and diversity in media
Natasha Johnson - ABC - September 11, 2023
He's one of the ABC's most prolific and versatile presenters, hosting everything from rolling news coverage, to roles in state and federal election coverages, and live broadcasts of New Year's Eve and the Sydney Mardi Gras.
But a younger Jeremy Fernandez never imagined a role on TV was a possibility — in fact, he was actually told by well-meaning career advisers not to even think about pursuing an on-air role.
A, B or C: Scoring Ita Buttrose’s five-year tenure as chair of the ABC
Karl Quinn - SMH - August 25, 2023
A week is a long time in politics, they say, but a weekend might be even longer in the life of the chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
On Friday August 18, Ita Buttrose went on Virginia Trioli’s morning show on ABC Radio Melbourne, ostensibly to talk about the passing of British broadcasting legend Michael Parkinson, with whom she had been friends.
Stan Grant quits ABC, confirms new role
Nell Geraets and Karl Quinn - SMH - August 22, 2023
Journalist Stan Grant has quit the ABC to become Asia Pacific director of the Constructive Institute, to be based at Monash University in Melbourne.
Grant, a Wiradjuri man and three-time Walkley Award winner, said the institute – whose headquarters are at Aarhus University in Denmark – was designed to “improve the quality of public discourse, to acknowledge that we don’t do conflict well, and to make media part of the solution rather than the problem”.
ABC chair Ita Buttrose will not seek reappointment in 2024
Jake Evans - ABC News - August 22, 2023
ABC chair Ita Buttrose will not seek reappointment to the role when her term ends in March 2024, the communications minister has confirmed.
The 81-year-old has served as ABC chair since 2019.
ABC News Online draws ‘vast majority’ of complaints over 3 years: ombudsman
John Buckley - Crikey - August 15, 2023
The “vast majority” of audience complaints made to the ABC over the past three years were related to its online news division, according to the ABC ombudsman’s first half-yearly report.
The report which was released on Tuesday morning found that over three years until the end of 2022, total complaints received averaged 23,767, some 85% of which related to general matters of personal taste and preference, and the remaining 15% related to content stacked up against the ABC’s editorial standards.
‘Toxic’: ABC shuts down most of its accounts on Elon Musk’s X
The New Daily - August 9, 2023
The ABC is shutting down most of its social media accounts on Elon Musk’s X (formerly known as Twitter) while raising concerns about “toxic” interactions and increasing costs.
The ABC said it would only retain the accounts with the best value which were ABC News, ABC Sport, ABC Chinese and ABC Australia.
The ‘gateway horror’ ABC kids show that toppled Bluey at the Logies
Thomas Mitchell - SMH - August 4, 2023
It’s almost cliche for an award winner to take to the stage after hearing their name called out and say something like, “I never imagined this in my wildest dreams”.
But for Nicholas Verso, creator of ABC kids’ program Crazy Fun Park, which won this year’s Logie for Most Outstanding Children’s program, he didn’t need to overplay his humility. Like everyone else, Verso assumed that the enormously popular Bluey would be a shoo-in.
ABC board appointments ‘months away’ as decision over Buttrose looms
Calum Jaspan - SMH - July 9, 2023
Appointments for two vacant ABC director seats are months away, with a decision on chair Ita Buttrose’s position soon to be on the Labor government’s agenda in its first opportunity in 10 years to stamp its influence on the national broadcaster.
Buttrose was appointed by Scott Morrison in 2019 and is yet to publicly indicate whether she will seek a second term. Two of the nine directors’ seats on the ABC board are vacant after Joseph Gersh, appointed by the Turnbull government in 2018, was not reappointed this year and the departure of Fiona Balfour in February less than two years into her term.
Rachel Okine and Susie Jones join ABC content division
Sean Slatter - IF Magazine - July 7, 2023
Netflix executive Susie Jones has followed the streamer’s former head of physical production Chris Oliver-Taylor over to the ABC, with the broadcaster also welcoming Stan senior commissioning editor Rachel Okine.
Jones and Okine will take on the roles of head of factual and head of scripted, respectively, reporting to head of screen content Jennifer Collins.
Insiders host David Speers takes on expanded role of national political lead at ABC
Amanda Meade - The Guardian - July 5, 2023
Insiders host David Speers will have an expanded role in the ABC’s political coverage, taking on the new role of national political lead and reporting across the week, the ABC has announced.
The role comes ahead of the first broadcast on Sunday of Insiders from a recently upgraded Canberra studio.
The ABC at its worst is vastly better than its competitors. Time to defend it without apology
Guy Rundle - Crikey - June 2, 2023
Remember the IPA? It’s still kinda going, even though it’s lost its direct line to government, and its megaphone, The Australian, is a ruin, gutted by cuts. Now Tim Wilson et al are in some weird crypto unit at RMIT (public) university, and bearded Senator James Paterson looks like the aromatherapist your divorced mother married.
But in its glory days, the IPA had dreams, and chief among them was the privatisation of the ABC. But it saw it as a fond hope, a pole star. The affection for Aunty was so widespread across the political and social spectrum that budging it seemed impossible.
Easy as ABC? 90 Years of the Australian Broadcasting Commission
Joseph Gersh - Australian Fabians - May 21, 2023
At a dinner to mark the 90th Anniversary of the establishment of the ABC on August 5th 2022, the Prime Minister, the Hon Anthony Albanese reaffirmed the commitment of the Labor party to ABC’s editorial independence. He recommitted his Government to funding the ABC for five years, effectively taking it out of the electoral cycle, reiterating Labor’s commitment to ending the previous government’s three-year indexation pause.
As part of the Australian government’s soft power initiatives to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo Pacific, the PM also committed to providing additional funds for ABC broadcasting in the region.
ABC announces job losses amid biggest restructure since 2017
Amanda Meade - The Guardian - May 11, 2023
A major ABC restructure will see the abolition of the separate regional and radio division and lead to redundancies of management and staff.
The managing director of the ABC, David Anderson, has moved to assure staff the biggest restructure since 2017 does not mean the importance of the regional bureaux or radio is being downgraded.
ABC’s Insiders moving to Canberra after 21 years in Melbourne
Amanda Meade - The Guardian - May 4, 2023
ABC’s Insiders program will be filmed in Canberra’s Northbourne studio from July after 21 years of production out of the ABC’s Southbank studio in Melbourne.
Viewers won’t notice the change of location but the program will make significant savings on its travel budget as the vast majority of guests on the Sunday morning show are flown in and put up overnight.
ABC announces departure of Sally Riley as head of Drama, Entertainment and Indigenous
Media Week - May 2, 2023
ABC has announced Sally Riley, head of Drama, Entertainment and Indigenous, will leave after 13 years with the public broadcaster.
Riley joined the ABC in 2010 as the inaugural head of the Indigenous Department at ABC Television and has played a key role in developing and bringing to audiences programs that are entertaining, thought-provoking and reflective of Australia’s national identity.
ABC will re-air Fox News investigation ‘in light of’ Dominion case
John Buckley - Crikey - April 21, 2023
The ABC will re-air its Four Corners investigation into Fox News and its coverage of former US president Donald Trump on the heels of Fox’s settlement with Dominion, despite adverse findings on the program from Australia’s media regulator late last year.
The two-part story “Fox and the Big Lie” will go to air for the second time on Monday April 24, the ABC said on Friday, less than one week after Fox News abruptly agreed to pay US$787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems as part of a defamation settlement agreement, thwarting a weeks-long blockbuster trial that threatened to put high-profile executives on the stand.
ABC to continue using Twitter despite ‘government-funded media’ label
John Buckley - Crikey - April 17, 2023
The ABC will continue posting to its official ABC News account on Twitter despite carrying a “government-funded media” label, as broadcasters in the United States plot exits from the social media platform in protest.
The designation first appeared on the ABC’s official news account on Monday, warning the account’s 2.1 million followers that any account carrying the label “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content”.
Australian news publishers palm off payment for Twitter Blue verification
John Buckley - Crikey - April 4, 2023
The ABC is among the first Australian news publishers to rule out paying for Twitter, as news executives mull whether a public signal of intent could see them suffer the same fate as The New York Times.
On Monday, Twitter removed the “verified” badge from The New York Times’ main Twitter account, reportedly at the order of CEO Elon Musk, as the company winds down its legacy verification program that traditionally gave verified checkmarks to the accounts of celebrities, journalists and notable organisations.
ABC taps commercial exec to review radio as audience slumps
Zoe Samios - SMH - March 27, 2023
ABC’s local radio network could shorten the length of interviews, change presenters and refresh music lineups in an attempt by the national broadcaster to modernise programs for younger audiences.
The ABC has hired Dr Cherie Romaro, the first female music director at Radio 2SM and more recently general manager at 2CH, to provide external advice on how to improve local and regional stations such as ABC Sydney and ABC Melbourne, which have endured a dramatic fall in audiences since the national bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Play School launches new podcast amid children’s audio boom
Kerrie O'Brien - SMH - March 18, 2023
Big Ted, Humpty and Jemima made the leap into audio land this week, with the launch of the Play School: Ears On podcast.
Pitched at two to four-year-olds, the pod is a spin-off of the much-loved 57-year-old TV show, replete with many of its characters and presenters. Each six-minute episode features a mystery sound and takes children on an adventure to work out what it is, modelling active listening, asking for help and spending time with friends.
Inside the ABC business model: ‘There has been self-censorship’
Mike Seccombe - The Saturday Paper - March 11, 2023
A 40-minute strike might not seem the most resolute industrial action, particularly when it is called off at the last minute, but the non-strike by more than a thousand staff at the ABC this week was much more significant than it first appeared.
At the most basic level, it was important because it was the first time in 17 years that staff at the national broadcaster had determined to strike.
Politicised attacks are damaging the ABC’s editorial independence
Victoria Fielding - Independent Australia - January 28, 2023
A recent academic study by Cambridge researcher Ayala Panievsky, published in the prestigious International Journal of Press/Politics, suggests that accusations of left-wing bias lead journalists to self-censor and bias their coverage Rightward. These findings raise alarm bells about the impact of Rupert Murdoch and Liberal Party attacks on the ABC.
The Murdoch media has a long history of waging war against ABC journalists. As well as resenting the ABC as a key competitor, Murdoch outlets have a strategic political and cultural motive for criticising the broadcaster, accusing it of being biased to the Left and behaving as a progressive activist.
Speaking to the World
Rowan Callick - Inside Story - January 23, 2023
Radio Australia was conceived at the beginning of the second world war out of Canberra’s desire to counter Japanese propaganda in the Pacific. More than seventy years later its rebirth is being driven by a similarly urgent need to counter propaganda, this time from China.
Set up within the towering framework of the ABC, Radio Australia was, and remains, an institution with a lively multilingual culture of its own. Sometimes it has thrived and sometimes, especially in recent decades, it has struggled as political priorities and media fashions waxed and waned within the ABC and the wider world.