ABC boss rejects tag
Doco told: ‘We’re no vigilantes’
ABC managing director David Anderson has rejected accusations that the public broadcaster engages in “vigilante journalism”, and has denied the organisation – which celebrated its 90th anniversary earlier this month – is driven by an anti-conservative bias.
Speaking to Sky News presenter and columnist at The Australian, Chris Kenny, as part of documentary Your ABC Exposed, which will air on Tuesday, Mr Anderson praised his reporters’ work, and said editorial fairness was at the heart of the publicly funded media giant.
Kenny, who spoke to Mr Anderson outside a media event in Sydney last month, offered examples of sustained attacks on Coalition MPs as evidence of the ABC’s tendency to push an anticonservative agenda.
Kenny cited reporter Andrew Probyn’s description of former prime minister Tony Abbott in a news report as the “most destructive politician of his generation”; political journalist Laura Tingle accusing former prime minister Scott Morrison of “ideological bastardry” in a social media tweet; and the
Four Corners story by reporter Louise Milligan focusing on then ministers Christian Porter and Alan Tudge.
“I would disagree with the characterisation that it is vigilante journalism, I don’t think it is,” Mr Anderson said in the new documentary.
“I think what we do is we hold people to account and in doing so, people will sometimes try to string together stories that it is vigilante journalism, when I don’t believe that it is.”
The documentary also includes a series of interviews with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, former Communications Minister Richard Alston, shadow communications spokeswoman and former ABC employee Sarah Henderson, former ABC board member and columnist at The Australian Janet Albrechtsen, former ABC presenter Quentin Dempster and former Coalition MP Andrew Laming, who won $79,000 in damages against the ABC after Milligan tweeted false claims about him.
Your ABC Exposed premieres on Sky News Australia on Tuesday at 8pm AEST. It can be viewed on Foxtel, Sky News Regional and will be streamed on Flash.