ABC faces more questions as Emma Alberici's disputed article is restored

A week after it was taken down from ABC Online Emma Alberici’s contentious analysis piece on the government’s proposed tax cuts for business went back up on Thursday. Unusually, the amended article carried a prominent editor’s note at the top, rather than at the end as is common practice. “This analysis has been revised and updated by our chief economics correspondent. Passages that could be interpreted as opinion have been removed. Our editorial processes have also been reviewed. Emma Alberici is the ABC’s chief economics correspondent and is a respected and senior Australian journalist.” The revised piece added comments from the Business Council of Australia and finance minister Mathias Cormann, loud critics of the original.

The editor’s note was the result of fierce negotiation between the ABC’s chief counsel and lawyers retained by the former Lateline presenter herself who fought hard to maintain her reputation against an onslaught of criticism from Malcolm Turnbull and his Coalition ministers, sections of the media and the business lobby. The prime minister used question time to label it “one of the most confused and poorly researched articles I’ve seen on this topic on the ABC’s website”.

Crucially, the editor’s note did not concede there were any factual errors in the analysis piece. Weekly Beast understands the ABC’s editorial policy managers found no significant issues of accuracy but did find issues with tone and opinion. ABC journalists are permitted to analyse but not to give an opinion on an issue they cover. An accompanying news story was quickly amended after two minor accuracy issues were identified – CSR doesn’t have a sugar division and GPT is a property trust so should not have been identified as a company that paid tax. The analysis piece was taken down against Alberici’s wishes.

The ABC has strongly denied any political interference and Gaven Morris, director of news, says an editorial review started early on the day of publication, Wednesday, before they received any complaints. But it took two full working days and several crisis meetings of news management for the article to be pulled down late on Thursday, indicating the ABC was scrambling in the wake of huge pressure externally and internally. Sources say Morris didn’t contact Alberici directly until late on the day of publication.

While the battle between Alberici, the ABC, the government and Labor over the piece was played out in the headlines, internally at Aunty the ructions have been no less severe. Some news managers had originally congratulated Alberici over the piece and many journalists are disappointed that Morris did what they describe as a “pre-emptive buckle”.

ABC bosses will appear before the Senate estimates committee next week. Among the the questions they may have to answer is if Alberici was promoted to chief economics correspondent and given more responsibility after Lateline was axed last year why did management not back her when she was under attack? And why was the series approved for publication by ABC business editor Ian Verrender and the ABC’s own lawyers and website editors if it didn’t meet editorial standards?

A spokeswoman declined to confirm Alberici had retained a lawyer. “The ABC does not comment on internal staff matters,” she said. “Complaints handling unit Audience & Consumer Affairs is investigating the formal complaints lodged over the original analysis piece and will report its findings in due course.”

Trash for questions

Rival media companies do love to take the stick to each other but the Australian and the Herald Sun may have overstepped the mark with a rival this week. On Wednesday Fairfax Media reported its half-year profit had slumped by more than half and it was closing or selling off 28 of its New Zealand newspapers.

The Oz and the Hun reported that Fairfax’s CEO Greg Hywood had told analysts “we’re throwing out a lot of trash from our publishing businesses”, a reference to offloading the NZ newspapers.

Only Hywood said no such thing. What he actually said, and the reporter we believe genuinely misheard, was “we’re throwing out a lot of cash from our publishing businesses”. After the reporter was contacted by Fairfax, the Australian scrubbed its version of the story from the web with no explanation for readers. The Herald Sun, however, went to print with its version.

‘Brutal gallery girls’

New Zealand journalism hit an important milestone recently: all the political bureaus of the main media organisations will be led by women for the first time. But the wind was taken out the sails of some of the women involved when a curious article appeared on an industry site Newsroom, written by co-editor Mark Jennings, arguing the nature of the coverage would change under all-female hands.

“Will this change now that we have a ‘kinder’ prime minister in Ardern, possibly a less-combative National party leader in Amy Adams and mainly female political reporters?” Jennings asked.

“There is a sense among senior media people that it will and that media organisations are already – consciously or unconsciously – moving to reflect Ardern’s softer, less aggressive style of politics.”

Chris Bramwell, the deputy political editor of the RNZ Press Gallery, had the best response: “Just heading up to Question Time to do my Who’s Wearing What Today cutting analysis #brutalgallerygirls.”

Fifty shades of grade

While on assignment in the US veteran science broadcaster Robyn Williams heard about Malcolm Turnbull’s #bonkban and became concerned the new rules applied to that other great public institution, the ABC. “I have been advised by my lawyers to request clarification about carnal interaction in the ABC, prompted by initiatives in federal parliament,” Williams wrote in a memo to colleagues. “A ban is imminent. You will know that such sexual congress was, in the 1970s, 80s and (ephemerally) in the 90s, compulsory in the ABC, especially in RN: categorised under ‘other associated duties’. This lapsed as overtime claims exceeded budgets.

“Now the practice is being proscribed rather than prescribed could you advise whether it is permissible to restrict on-duty sex only within one’s grading and/or department or can it be allowed even between lower staff and management – as long as the move is initiated by the manager? A universal ban may be difficult to enforce, although I am encouraged by the efficiencies of, in some countries, a ‘moral police force’. I would urge you to pay urgent attention to this matter and ask Michelle Guthrie to pronounce a policy. In the interim do provide a form so we can apply when necessary … as events unfold.”

Going up

While the Williams memo was clearly a piss take, another ABC memo from the chief financial officer, Louise Higgins, was a little harder to decipher.

Higgins had news for ABC Ultimo workers that she described as “thrilling”. The “aging fleet of lifts” is to be upgraded – and it will only take three years. “This project, along with many others such as the Ultimo Foyer Upgrade, Renewing Adelaide, and the Melbourne Accommodation Project, are an essential part of the ABC’s 2018 Investing in Audiences Strategy and our ongoing commitment to building a great place to work,” Higgins said.