The Editorial Values of the ABC

I am delighted to be able to join with you this evening to discuss a very important issue: the editorial values of the ABC.

And I very deliberately wanted to speak about this issue here, at The Sydney Institute.

It isn’t just in the hope that by being my gracious hosts tonight, Gerard and Anne Henderson might be hospitable to me and sheathe their rapier-like criticism of the ABC for an evening. They are known for calling it at they see it and I appreciate that. So I am ready for an evening of rigorous, intense and well-mannered discussion.

Critics should force the ABC to ask hard questions of itself. I welcome the openness in criticism and debate. After all, it’s your ABC, and you are all entitled to have a view.

You will appreciate as I do, that some Managing Directors of the ABC leave the same way as they arrive - fired with enthusiasm!

However, I am heartened by the helpful and positive discussion I have had with staff since my arrival in July, the strong encouragement and support of the Board and the bipartisan way my appointment was welcomed in Canberra.

In my first major, public address on the ABC, I wanted to come and speak on the organisation’s editorial values.

I would hope in the years ahead, there will be time and opportunity to discuss many other pressing issues at the ABC, that go quite beyond the particular focus of tonight’s discussion. Because the ABC is entering a period of major transition, as we define what it means to be a public broadcaster in the digital age. We are broadcasting much more than we ever have before: on radio, on television. We are dramatically increasing our online services.

We face challenges of dealing with user-generated content and the digital world is voracious in its demands for new material. We face big operational decisions as the largest and most geographically diverse media organisation in the country. It is a billion dollar annual operation, with more than a billion dollars invested in capital and assets.

The precise shape of the organisation in the years ahead, however will be influenced by numerous variables impossible to predict at this point: speed of technological innovation, funding and revenue streams, competition, government policies on spectrum allocation and digital rollout. In my first months, it has been quite fascinating to wade into these issues.

Discussions of such matters are for another time. My initial focus, has been on issues that we can control. And in that light, tonight I want to square up to one of the most controversial issues for the ABC – the nature of how it broadcasts its content – its editorial role.

There are three main areas I would like to cover this evening. Firstly, to consider the critics of the ABC and what they are saying. Then to look at how the ABC operates editorially and changes we are making to key policies. Finally, I want to discuss the process by which we can have confidence that the ABC can meet the expectations we set for it.

In my early weeks as Managing Director, I have called on some of the ABC’s harshest public critics. And almost to a man and woman, they have been at pains to point out to me how much they love the ABC. The important role it plays in rural Australia, its impact in the region, the diversity of local and international programs on television, the breadth of radio content across five networks. Then comes the but – and as my father-in-law has often warned me – ignore everything before the ‘but’.

Because after the ‘but’, comes the critique – particularly of the ABC’s editorial perspective. A sense that the organisation has issues with balance and fairness – particularly through its news and current affairs content, although some critics would suggest, across its entire content.

I am committed to addressing this issue because I think the organisation has been at times, too defensive in the face of such criticism.

And I think it has been to the detriment of the organisation at times, because in many ways – as even most of its fair-minded critics acknowledge – what the ABC achieves is remarkable.

As Managing Director, and as Editor-in-Chief at the ABC, I see we need to address the criticism carefully and comprehensively.

To ignore it or reflexively dismiss it only serves to limit ourselves, and is at odds with the ethos of open debate and discourse that is central to our reason for being.

So, who are these critics?

From the inside, as the barrage of criticism lands year-in, year-out, it is easy to get defensive in the face of those who are doing the complaining. Let me tell you the arguments I have heard inside the ABC in my first 100 days about the Corporation’s critics.

Firstly, you might hear about those elected representatives from all sides who complain that questions are too tough or slanted; who do not like probing and rigorous cross-examination. Politicians who complain when they are not invited on for interview and then upset when they are. Politicians who seek to make their professional mark by leaving a mark on the ABC and its Executive – especially through Senate Estimates hearings.

Then you might hear about the columnists from a particular stable who enjoy sport with the national broadcaster in a move that has a little salience with their readership and a lot with their master – a longtime critic of publicly-funded media around the world. Where similar lines of criticism can be read in The Times of London and The Australian; the London Sun and Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph.

You might also hear about some of the hardliners – who – when listening to arguments that do not accord with their personal views – take offence and cry bias. Internally, it is too easy to think that if there is enough noise, from enough sides, then we must be averaging out alright.

And then perhaps there are those who sound off against the institution but appear never to be reluctant to sound off before an open microphone and receive an endorsed appearance cheque. Where criticism can be triggered by a scarcity of invitations – and whose criticism can often sound like an audition for a local version of ‘Grumpy Old Men’.

From the inside, it is easy for the ABC to think it has heard all these criticisms before – over 40 years – from governments of all colours and interest groups and commentators over and over again.

And herein lies a danger. Instead of facing up to these criticisms, it is easy to take comfort in the market research that suggests, conclusively, that the ABC is remarkably popular with its owners – the public. A recent Newspoll indicated 90% of the public believed the ABC provides a valuable or very valuable service. They are numbers every other organisation in the country would covet. And there is comfort in the recent research by Young and Rubicam that said the only brand more popular in Australia than the ABC is Vegemite.

Internally it is easier to dwell on surveys like the Fin Review’s power edition, which said that Radio National was “just a romp in” in terms of cultural power.

The man who described Radio National as a "romp in" was Mark Burrows – investment banker, Chairman of Lazard Australia and Deputy Chairman of Fairfax. Whenever I attended Fairfax Board meetings, I never saw Mark wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt or weaving baskets. So it is easy for the ABC to tell itself that the critics aren’t right on who is listening to Radio National. The voice of Fran Kelly accompanies the Prime Minister on his daily dawn power walks.

Heather Ridout, of the Australian Industry Group, said that at Radio National, "They're asking questions; they're really testing issues; they're trying to lead agendas." And, as The Australian reminded us recently, when it comes to national reach and influence, nothing beats Radio National breakfast.

Within the ABC, it is easy to say people like us, the ratings are reasonable and the critics are the ones who really don’t get it. At times it does appear that criticism of the ABC takes the form of set-piece theatre – everyone knowing their lines and going through well-known rituals.

But finally, such an approach is unwise and not in the interests of the ABC.

A certain predictability in the arguments and a defensiveness in response misses the real point – is there substance in the criticism? Does the ABC have a problem with editorial values?

It is an important question. It is very clear to me that this pattern of critique and reflexive defence needs to be challenged. It is like a ritual dance with only two steps – and it is unproductive and unedifying for all concerned.

What I am outlining tonight represents the ABC taking the lead to break this ritual. It is a challenge to both ourselves and our critics to learn some new steps and think afresh about how we deliver balance, diversity, impartiality.

First, some context.

The ABC is, by far, the largest media organisation in the country. At times when other companies are aggregating, we are getting more local. Tomorrow morning, there will be 65 live microphones broadcasting under the banner of the ABC – different announcers delivering national and local content to practically every place in the country where people live.

We run two television networks in Australia – and another into 41 countries across Asia-Pacific.

We have countless websites: dominating regional traffic through our local radio ‘backyard’ sites; we have the leading websites for children and a news site set to be relaunched with more video and audio content than any other news site in Australia.

And in news and current affairs – we are stepping up and delivering more – just at the time our competitors are vacating the field. Channel 9 cancels Business Sunday, but the ABC recruits Ali Moore and starts Lateline Business. Between 7pm and midnight during the week, the ABC produces two hours of news and current affairs a night – and that’s not including Four Corners and Foreign Correspondent, nor factoring in 8 state and territory based news bulletins.

More than a million Australians a day are watching the 7pm ABC News and 7.30 Report on television, around a million listen to PM each week and two million to AM, and well over 500,000 pages of ABC News Online are read by Australians every day. NewsRadio has been a wonderful addition to the media diet for thinking Australians over the last decade and is the first choice of quality taxi drivers around the nation.

We deliver two hours of radio current affairs daily on local radio; run a range of regional news and have more journalists in more places than anyone else in the country. And more Australian reporters reporting from overseas than anyone else, by far.

When one critic of the ABC told me recently that none of our broadcasting competitors had concentrated on a particular issue we had covered in a program, I had to ask – who else is broadcasting news and current affairs seriously in serious volume, these days?

Just because you call a program A Current Affair doesn’t mean it is a current affairs program.

And commercial pressures on journalism are felt more every day, everywhere in media companies. I have been there, as the CFO comes calling when the revenues are soft and the editorial budgets need to be cut again. It isn’t fun.

At the ABC we do a lot, as we should. We are given a lot of public money to do it. And I am pleased to say that last year’s KPMG report, commissioned by the government, said that the ABC is an effective steward of this taxpayer money, finding the organisation efficient and effective in its management. This may not always have been said about the ABC, but there have clearly been significant management improvements in recent years.

Given this, it is only reasonable, that as the public broadcaster using public money, the ABC set high standards for itself; higher standards than anyone else in the Australian media.

Many of the guidelines that govern the way we broadcast are covered in a set of Editorial Policies at the ABC. These policies were last published in 2002, and updated incrementally in July 2004, February 2005 and June 2005.

Now they have been written anew, and stand as the most significant public statement of values made by an ABC Board in over twenty one years.

Back in August 1985 the ABC Board published a pamphlet described by the Chairman, Ken Myer as the Board's "philosophical statement". Its title was The role of a national broadcaster in contemporary Australia.

These editorial policies too are just such a statement. A document that has emerged from lengthy and detailed discussion between staff including journalists and senior policy officers, and the Board - and which has the approval of the Board and the endorsement of the senior management team.

A document that will shape and guide ABC content so that it is even more differentiated from other media providers.

These policies are the best means through which the ABC can, in years ahead, live up both to the trust that is placed in it, and the requirements of the ABC Act.

The Australian public invests its trust in all ABC content, regardless of its source within the ABC. The new policies reflect this reality.

The policies will "ensure that ABC audiences can see and hear a broad range of viewpoints on matters of importance".

Our policies create a series of expectations on our announcers, producers and program makers. It outlines how we will work and how we will fulfil those commitments set out within the ABC Act.

Today I have commenced a program to brief staff on the changes and to move towards implementation in March next year.

The new Editorial Policies are contained in a document that runs to some 50 pages, but let me outline for you a few highlights.

It says upfront that as a creator, broadcaster and publisher of news and current affairs content, there is a requirement for impartiality at the content of program level. Each news and current affairs story and program must be impartial.

Now for opinion programs or programs of topical and factual content, individual items of content can take a particular perspective, but the ABC must be able to demonstrate that it has provided audiences with a range of different perspectives on the subject under consideration on each platform, be it radio, television or online. On contentious matters, we need to hear the full range of voices. The ABC has to be the place for the contest of all ideas.

Across the range of ABC content, audiences must not be able to reasonably conclude that the ABC has taken an editorial stand on matters of contention and public debate.

The policies sets out four main types of content the ABC produces: news and current affairs, factual and topical, opinion and performance – each with different requirements. And meeting these minimum requirements will be mandatory for all staff involved in the production of content.

We have taken another look at fairness and what it means to be impartial. Impartiality is a long held expectation of our news coverage. Our news stories and news analysis are to be presented without favour, even though, without ‘fear or favour’ might sometimes upset some people in the community. Being a responsible public broadcaster is not synonymous with universal public popularity.

The Editorial Policies now require the ABC to be impartial as a broadcaster and generator of content. As we assess the output of each of our platforms - for example, ABC TV, Radio National, local stations such as 702 ABC Sydney or 774 ABC Melbourne - there is now the expectation that there is platform impartiality. That there is a demonstrated plurality of opinion and perspective.

This will have particular impact on our documentary production and acquisitions as well as content that is clearly designated opinion. We want passion and conviction. But passion and conviction that comes from the widest range of perspectives on the things that matter for all Australians.

The new category of Opinion will be content presented from a partisan point of view about a matter of public contention. This content will be signposted as opinion and the impartiality test will be - over a period of time - has the ABC presented a plurality of views?

And in doing their work, the ABC will expect staff to operate in a way reflecting key values of honesty, fairness, independence and respect. The policy goes into great detail on a range of matters: from the use of hidden cameras (rarely) to the practice of chequebook journalism (never). From reporting news while respecting privacy and not intruding into grief, to outlining how the ABC complaints process will work. All in all – a massive rod for our own backs. A weapon our critics can beat us with. More grounds for more questions in Senate Estimates. A very high bar. But a very important one for an ABC which takes its reputation for fairness, accuracy, balance and objectivity seriously.

We are planning to introduce these new editorial policies in the new year. Before then, we have the significant job of training our staff in how they operate. We need to be assured that we have the appropriate mechanisms internally to ensure that they are understood, they are working and they are adhered to.

After the training is done, we are looking to have three mechanisms for quality assurance around the implementation of our editorial policies.

• The first and most important, is the regular program and performance review, operated through line management in the organisation. As part of the regular reviews we do of programs, executives will be looking, not just at how we have created and communicated relevant and compelling content – but whether we have done so in a way that complies with the editorial policies.
• And secondly, of course, we have our established mechanism for dealing with external complaints, a team of people from outside our content areas who examine complaints from the public. There is an internal appeal mechanism in this process and, of course, an external complaints process through the Independent Complaints Review Panel, whose Convenor is the Honourable Michael Foster QC.
• Today, I have announced the creation of another mechanism to provide confidence and assurance that the organisation is meeting its obligations to the highest standards in the Australian media.

In recent years, we have seen the rise of divisions in organisations specifically addressing issues of financial audit and risk. Firms know that breaches of financial policies and internal disciplines can have a grave impact on an organisation’s health and reputation.

The audit and risk function is designed to provide assurance and assistance, but giving an independent assessment of performance and advice on vexed issues when they emerge prior to critical decisions being made. Good audit and risk management is a key to healthy organisations and I believe that the establishment of such a function to monitor editorial health at the ABC is an important step.

The Director of Editorial Policies will report to me in my role as Editor-in-Chief of the ABC. This Executive will have the ability to undertake independent audits on ABC programs and the coverage of issues covered by the ABC across its different divisions of News and Current Affairs, TV, Radio and New Media and Digital Services.

The person in this position will be able to provide independent advice on how effectively we are implementing our editorial policies and whether they need further iteration or review. The Director of Editorial Policies will undertake research and be able to commission research, to provide better insight into whether we are meeting our own expectations. And when staff are dealing with a difficult decision in light of interpreting editorial policies or I am concerned about a matter prior to broadcast or publication, the Director of Editorial Policies will be able to provide independent advice.

Now, I suspect there will be some who may roll their eyes and suggest this is yet another layer of bureaucracy. Others will fear it is an anchor on courageous and independent journalism. On the first, let me say, it is no more bureaucratic for the ABC to have an editorial audit and risk function than it is for Woolworths or Westpac to have a financial audit and risk function – providing independent assurance that we are getting it right. Trust and verify.

It is a long established principle of good management and need not be bureaucratic. I have reflected at length whether focusing on risk minimisation and policy compliance will have the effect of putting our journalists and content makers in unsustainable straitjackets. Our journalists need to be able to undertake courageous journalism. Our radio broadcasters need to be lively and engaging and provocative at times to win and keep an audience. And so too with television and online.

We want editorial policies that would allow Chris Masters to expose corruption in The Sunshine State through Four Corners; Lateline to address issues of abuse in Aboriginal communities. And I think it would be a shame if one of our journalists could not ask a supremely confident new leader on a memorable political day whether there was blood on his hands.

Our policies promote the spirit of enquiry, not dampen it. And given the astonishing growth industry of media management within politics – possibly the greatest job creation program since the Great Depression 70 years ago – this kind of questioning will become more necessary, not less. As I have explained to our newsrooms – I want them to practice great journalism. To find the big stories and to hold those who seek to lead us: in government, in business, in trade unions, to account for the promises they have made and the truths they espouse.

But to achieve great journalism, you need to practice good journalism. Journalism that is fair, accurate, balanced and objective. Journalism that lets the facts speak rather than the private opinions of a reporter. Journalism that is rounded and complete rather than half-baked and half-told. If there is a deference in these policies, it is a deference to the primacy of ideas, deference to the intelligence of an audience, deference to the right of audience members to make up their own minds.

There's no willingness here to get into postmodern antics about objectivity being dead or passé, impartiality impossible. The ABC has to say no to any such thoughts and it's a no that begins with an ethical rejection, and ends with a legal one - Section 8 of the ABC Act – which says we must be independent, accurate and impartial. And unlike some of the commercial media, we have to serve all of the public, not just those who would come to the ABC for comfort or confirmation.

We're not here to hold anyone's hand, but to confront, challenge and explore a broad range of views. There is no reason why the ABC cannot practice outstanding journalism, utilising the best we have in television, radio and new media, under these new editorial policies. As a rule, I am resisting the temptation to second-guess 75 years of ABC corporate history. I have refused to be drawn in numerous interviews as to whether I think there has been or is bias at the ABC. I suspect the truth is that we are by no means as bad as our critics might suggest and not as blameless as our defenders might wish. My focus, however, is on the future and ensuring our performance is better in the future.

I want us to be hard-nosed in assessing the bias question ourselves because there are few more serious allegations that can be made against serious journalists. The ABC cannot afford to be biased, or be seen to be biased. It can take no editorial position in its news.

And while there is opportunity for opinion on the ABC under the new editorial policies, there needs to be a plurality of opinion. The last thing any of us would want is an ABC that is stripped of strong opinions. On the contrary the prominence given to Opinion content in the new Editorial Policies is to facilitate strong opinions, but in a way that guarantees a range of viewpoints are heard on any particular contentious issue.

It is fair to say there is something of a disjunction between the critics' and the public view of bias and the ABC. Of those 170,000 contacts the ABC receives from the public every year, just half of one percent (.5%) are complaints about political bias. And, as I said earlier, 90% of the Australian public believes it provides a valuable service. When it comes to complaints out of Canberra, it is important to remember that this government has been the strongest critic of the ABC – since the last government. Ken Inglis' recent volume Whose ABC?, an ABC history from 1983-2006, reminds us that governments of all persuasions have felt the ABC is set against them, while Oppositions complain the ABC does not give them a decent go.

In recent weeks, senior figures of both the Government and the Opposition have assured me that it is their side that gets the harder time from us. In the area of political debate, more so than most, the scrutiny is intense, the views are passionately held, the stakes are extremely high, so these views are understandable. But let me say this. The ABC covers political and policy debates in more detail than any other media outlet. We provide more airtime to more politicians than any other broadcaster.

We take this seriously, as we should, and our goal of providing balanced coverage of political debates is reinforced and strengthened in these new Editorial Policies. I think there is some truth about serious-minded broadcasters and print journalists – that they want to play the role of the leader of the opposition. To challenge, to question, to contest. It is a style of journalism widely practised, but I do not think it is, of itself, biased or inherently disrespectful. It is rigorous. And the best politicians know that to be subject to a cross-examination, by a Kerry O’Brien or a Tony Jones, by a Virginia Trioli or a Jon Faine and hold their own – increases their political reputation and support. That’s why the best politicians keep going on.

I think the success of the ABC’s Insiders program has shown the value, however, of ensuring a range of political perspectives on the issue of the day.

Every Sunday morning, no matter how you view the world, someone on Barrie Cassidy’s couch is making good sense – and I think that makes for good television and good journalism. Lateline has always encouraged a good range of voices to be heard on issues, using the flexibility in its format to good effect.

But under our new editorial policies, we will be looking for further diversity of voices – ensuring the ABC is the town square where debate can flourish and different voices heard. I have encouraged the Director of Television to work with the Media Watch team to review their format and content next year to ensure there is more opportunity for debate and discussion around contentious and important issues. It is a popular program, has a loyal following and I hope, a long future at the ABC.

And next year, Jeff McMullen will host a new televised discussion program for us, A Difference of Opinion, that will ensure that on contentious issues of the day, there is opportunity for the full range of opinions and perspectives to be heard. Over time, I hope we are getting more sophisticated with how we view the matter of bias. Discussing some heated exchanges over stem-cell research, the Prime Minister said recently on AM: "What happens in these debates is that you do tend to look at them through the prism of your own prejudices and you tend to see a strong expression of the opposite view as being ill-tempered and that moderate views are those that accord with your own. I mean, that's the nature of these debates." Where there actually is bias in an individual story, it is often easy to detect. But at times, there are matters of tone – how a story is framed, issues to do with language and inflection that can convey a message beyond words.

It was the criteria used by ACMA – the Australian Communications and Media Authority – to bring a finding of against an ABC program in July. In the story, the right people were spoken to, all views were expressed, but ACMA found "the cumulative impact of the instances of subjective and emotive language over the course of the program was the principal reason that the program was not impartial". I can understand how they reached that finding. We have asked our journalists and executive producers to be attuned to these issues of tone.

Our editorial policies will state the overriding objective of the ABC is to report the facts clearly, accurately and impartially, to enable audiences to make their own judgments and form their own conclusions. I am also concerned that we are not unnecessarily narrow in our news selection, reporting on interests of great interest to the newsroom, but of less interest to our broader community. By definition, journalists are interested in news and they work surrounded by people who share their passion for a story.

This is a challenge for newsrooms everywhere, but particularly those populated by intelligent, thoughtful and serious-minded journalists, like our newsrooms. I hope this is something that will be picked up in our reviews, both by line managers and by the Director of Editorial Policies. Are we confident we have our content mix right, not just on a day, but on a program over time? It is important to remember that most of our radio current affairs is broadcast in the context of local radio – where we have been highly successful drawing in large audiences, much younger than our competitors, with a wide and varied diet of talk radio.

And the role of the ABC is to lead and inform debate, not just to hold up a mirror and reflect an audience back to itself or to turn programs into market research driven mush. I think the challenge to our news and current affairs producers is to surprise the audience.

Tell us the news, but tell us things that we didn’t know, that surprise and engage us. To serve a community far wider than the community of journalism. Don’t be predictable. Create content that gets people talking – as Lateline has this year on indigenous issues. Of course, with 65 live microphones, with so many hours of television broadcasting – producing so much more content than anyone else – there will be times where we do broadcast content that has errors, that is incomplete, that conveys opinion as fact. And what I have outlined today is a process whereby we can monitor and review and measure – and improve our performance as a consequence.

Overall, by setting higher standards, I appreciate we are in effect setting ourselves up for moments of inevitable, human failure and times where our policies do not work. There is not a publishing or broadcasting organisation in the world that delivers flawless execution under the crippling time pressures that we operate under daily.

Are we going to make mistakes? Of course we will. We'll never put our critics out of business, but through these policies, we can reduce their opportunities. In many ways, we're putting up umbrellas before it rains.

But I trust our critics will recognise the integrity of the standards we seek to attain and the rigour with which we will attempt to implement them. Let me say in conclusion that much of the work done on the development of these editorial policies was underway before I commenced at the ABC in July. And in particular, I want to thank the Executives at the ABC and the Board members, especially John Gallagher QC, who heads the Editorial Policies committee of the Board.

All who worked on these policies: our policy staff, our program makers, our Executive and our Board - saw in their rewriting, a unique opportunity to strengthen the ABC, and seized it. We have a proud tradition. We are a much loved and admired organisation in the community. And we believe that our best days are ahead of us – that we can be a great public broadcaster in a digital age. These changes I have outlined today are an important step in the ABC fulfilling its commitment in a 21st century context – setting the highest standards for ourselves with a plan to deliver them for our owners, the Australian people.

Thank you.