Friday 26 June 2015

Mark Scott fires back: 'I hope no one wants the ABC to be a state broadcaster'


Extract from The Guardian

Managing director fiercely defends ABC’s independence after furious government criticism over Zaky Mallah’s appearance on Q&A.


The ABC is not a state broadcaster designed to be the communications arm of the government, Mark Scott has said, in a passionate defence of the independence of the public broadcaster.
“I hope no one seriously wants the ABC to be a state broadcaster,” the managing director said. “We know the examples. North Korea and Russia. China and Vietnam.”
If the ABC was to align itself with successive governments and “positively reflect the government’s agenda”, the cherished 80-year-old institution would be destroyed, Scott said in a pointed speech in Melbourne on Thursday evening.
“A question was posed this week: whose side is the ABC on,” Scott said, referring to Tony Abbott’s response after the ABC allowed former terrorism suspect Zaky Mallah to ask a question on Q&A.
“The ABC is clearly Australian, it’s on the side of Australia.”
Scott’s speech was delivered several hours after the prime minister escalated his attack on ABC management’s handling of the Mallah affair by declaring that “heads should roll” because the ABC had rebroadcast the offending episode.
The government announced a snap review of its own on top of the external review to be conducted into Q&A.
Scott said there were always stories or coverage that frustrated politicians but this week had produced some irrational responses.
“In my nearly nine years at the ABC, when we’ve had governments both Labor and Liberal, there have been ABC stories that generated the wrath of the government of the day,” Scott said in the address to the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs.
Understanding the importance of the independence of the public broadcaster from political pressure and interference was a mark of the maturity of our democracy, he said.
“But even for the ABC, things seemed to have been taken to a new level when on Wednesday we scored four covers on one day in the News Limited tabloids, complete with photoshopped ABC flags being waved by jihadi protestors,” he said.
“Not all parties to the conversation have seemed vested in pursing a rational discourse.”
Scott addressed the Q&A matter head-on, conceding mistakes had been made but praising the program’s role in general. Scott said the risks of having Mallah on live TV were not adequately considered, but he praised the show’s producers for managing the complex job of pulling a live audience together each week and the panelists for being brave enough to appear.
“We will reflect on the events of this week, have the program independently reviewed and look to ensure that it pursues and delivers its potential to be public broadcasting at its best – to inform, to educate and to entertain,” he said.
Scott said the program, which started in 2008, deserved to have the longevity of a Four Corners and should survive more than 20 years.
“Like Four Corners, it’s a show that should endure when all current management and production teams are long gone, an enduring part of Australian public life.”
Earlier, the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, echoed Scott’s view of the ABC’s role, but reiterated his criticism of the Q&A affair.
“Mark Scott runs the ABC, answerable to the board,” Turnbull told the ABC’s 7.30 program.
“I don’t run the ABC, neither does Tony Abbott. It’s a public broadcaster. It is not a state broadcaster. So the responsibility is with the board, and the management, and they have to front up to this responsibility, and we’re entitled to know exactly what happened, because it was an extraordinary sequence of events.”
Turnbull declined to repeat Abbott’s comment that “heads should roll”.
“Look, I will decide what metaphors I use and the manner in which I use them,” he said.
“I said today that [allowing Mallah on Q&A] was a very, very grave error of judgment, and the management has to take responsibility for it, and that there should be consequences. I don’t want to take it any further than that. But this was a very serious error of judgment.”
Asked about Abbott’s suggestion that the ABC had betrayed Australia, Turnbull said a lot of people would say the ABC had “betrayed, if you like, its own very high standards”.
It is understood the communications department’s review will look at the context in which Mallah appeared on Q&A, including the decision-making process, any physical security protocols, the rebroadcast of the episode, and broadcasting codes.

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