Appointing a new managing director offers the opportunity to reset the organisation’s editorial culture by facing down the relentless attacks on its journalists from right-wing political interests.
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Without independent evidence, the ABC is right not to adopt for itself terms such as ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’, but equally it is right to report others making such allegations.
The departure of journalist Emma Alberici from the national broadcaster is the latest example of the ABC being unable or unwilling to push back against hostile governments.
However, the problem of combining the managing director and editor-in-chief roles remains, and these must be separated to preserve editorial independence.
One of the reasons the managing director failed was that she did not understand the journalism she was overseeing, and that weakness filtered down the ranks.
