A face your own Aunty couldn't love: The transmogrification of the ABC

After decades of an ideological, Coalition-led hollowing-out of our treasured national broadcaster, the latest round of cuts leaves little substance left to prop up the crumbling facade.

The DNA of the ABC is almost unrecognisable after a decade of Coalition stewardship (Source: Youtube)

There has been recent turmoil within the ranks of the ABC as announcements came in that the executive would be subjecting our beleaguered national broadcaster to a major restructure and as many as one hundred roles would be on the chopping block across the organisation, from management to staff ranks, and everything in between. Crucial local news reporters and high-profile political leads like Andrew Probyn were amongst the victims of the controversial decision coordinated by a Chris Oliver-Taylor, a former-Netflix executive who had been brought to the ABC amongst little fanfare in March, and its increasingly visionary director of news, Justin Stevens.

Just three months prior, ABC employees held their first industrial action in 17 years to broker a pay rise with a belligerent management, reflecting the internal struggles within, and perhaps in anticipation of what was to come. Managing Director David Anderson said the cuts would be about a “range of savings measures and reinvestment initiatives”, speaking about the ‘digital transformation’ as it looked to put a human face on the decision in the wake of the drastic restructure.

The Probyn axing took many by surprise. In all the alarming cuts, decommissioning and discontinuations, his dismissal was noticed by Australians who look to the ABC exclusively for skerricks of truth in a heavily concentrated corporate media landscape that is incessantly seeking to shift the resting state of the nation. The forced exit of a household name political editor and dozens of staff raised some ears from informed Australians desperate for informed political journalism, people within the journalistic community, and at least one cross bench politician.

As the stanza played out in public, the Albanese government, shy on the idea of Murdoch royal commissions but open to the ideas of secret meetings with Lachlan Murdoch, fell eerily silent, as what almost felt like a coup was being played out. It is not yet clear if the Probyn redundancy was political. If there was any intrigue between him and the executive, he didn’t show it, telling Guardian Australia he was “pretty flabbergasted” after being told that the broadcaster no longer required a political editor. 

His replacement, former Sky News political editor David Speers, flew into the ABC under the backend of a Morrison led Coalition Government that had been the driving force sticking-and-(hardly) carroting the ABC under duress for nigh on a decade. Raised in the Murdoch incubator from birth, Speers became the moderate prestige bolted onto the bulkheads of Sky News Australia, providing an air of sophistication and measure in the daytime programming that could justify the groaning middle aged white ghouls and zombies that would bust out of the ‘after-dark’ later on.

Speers had a talent for talking, and the blessing of Rupert Murdoch himself, and it was big news in 2019 after the retirement of Barrie Cassidy, that he would be joining the ABC off the bat as his replacement on the influential ‘Insiders’ program. Four years later and he is running the joint.

And so, the ABC would sail into the digital age commanded by its emblematically problematic captain Ita Buttrose, with Speers as its political compass, its new-Netflix guy at the wheel, the enigmatic director of news charting the course, and a board full of LNP era appointments manning the decks ranging from big-agri to former executives and industry heavyweights with illustrious histories at corporate media giants.

These ex-corporate appointments, employments and promotions have arrived during the last decade of LNP inspired ABC ideation, featuring candidates that have been prepared to adhere to the LNP inspired strategic directives, and have thrived using their private muscle memory to realise them. Under siege from without and within from the broadsides of a private-government led attack, peppering the vital institution with budget cuts from the government, the beleaguered broadcaster faces accusations of woke bias and communism by the people Speers used to sit next to in the canteen at Sky, and the pressure from industry and wealth empathised by the people who sit on its board, jacking it up and stripping the parts from within.

The Kerrie O’Briens, Barrie Cassidys, Emma Albericis and Jon Faines have been replaced by David Speerses, Patricia Karvelases, Tom Switzers and Virginia Triolis. Each one on their own could be justified, but in the sum of all their parts, they join slick production management bought in from the Murdoch dominated private sector, who have gone on to helm flagship gateway programs that construct the baseline narratives informing national debate on critical issues to the population of Australia.

The transmogrification of the ABC has been underway for some time. 2K era corporate infiltration at the ABC was apparent under Howard, continuing unabated under the Rudd/Gillard spell, and by the time it returned to begin a definitive Coalition decade in the key of Abbott’s LNP, the after-market modifications were beginning to show, with corporate celebrities like Richard Stubbs and Red Symonds, accompanied by private sector heavies like Adrian Swift filing into the ABC. The previous executive headed by Justin Milne began flirting with Triple M stylings on our treasured public institution in the early 2010s, but by the time he controversially stepped down for sacking Emma Alberici because the government didn’t like her, the evaporation of the ABC had all but occurred.

Buttrose and Speers would step into the frame in 2019, and the place was starting to look unrecognisable. David Lipson did ten years on the desk at Sky next to Speers before being transferred to general population at ABC, Peter Tonagh was Rupert Murdoch’s former right hand man before nestling into a crucial ABC board position. Stan Grant works for ASPI, Alice Workman followed her colleague Patricia Karvelas from The Australian to the ABC to oversee production on QandA, and Nine employee Russell Skelton runs the ABCs fact checking department. When you behold the entire structure of the ABC at a distance, it’s hard to miss the entirety of it all, the concerted nature of it, and we scratch our head watching a subjective group of corporate preservationists ensure the status quo against the grain.

Speers and his fellow ilk at the ABC may have been moderates at their former corporate employers among the raging pundits and unhinged special guests, but they appear fairly right of centre on many issues. The questions have changed, the fabric of the journalism is different, and the augmentations to the essence of the public broadcaster are felt by a population highly in tune with the ABC. Surrounded by a subjective hostile corporate press environment, Australians expect the ABC to act as a bulwark to reflect the interests of the people, not to manufacture consent for narratives that may work against it.

With former Murdoch lifers producing Q and A, setting the daily discussion on RN Breakfast, and accessing political resources to ask vital questions on Insiders, alongside former Murdoch executives at the control panels and managerial staff from the private sector, who is left at the organisation who can ensure the charter thrives, as is expected by the population? Who ensures young journalists are trained in the tradition of Aunty in a contrast to the corporate media education everywhere else? The ABC is a treasured public resource like Medicare, seen as a net benefit to our society by most of the people who live in it, and the transformation has not gone unnoticed. The health of the national broadcaster, the ideology of its remit are subjects of discussion around Australian households, and will be issues in upcoming elections.