ABC chair Kim Williams and Anthony Albanese (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas) Under chair Kim Williams, the ABC looks to be charging back into the centre of news content creation — “content” being defined as a never-ending supply of articles and commentary about the ABC and its internal machinations. And not before time. For all the self-interested chatter about gambling advertisements and oligarch-owned television, the rejuvenation of “our” ABC should be recognised as the big media policy challenge of the moment.
The broadcaster’s pivot to “stability” in 2019, with the appointment of ABC-lifer David Anderson as managing director and Scott Morrison’s captain’s pick of Ita Buttrose as board chair, has been a disaster: increasingly bland, uncontroversial, lightweight and in a permanent defensive crouch, with only the occasional flash of traditional brilliance to remind us of how important the organisation can be. Yes, Kim Williams, yes! Let’s see some blood on the carpet for a better ABC! Read More The core asset of the ABC is “trust”, yet that’s precisely where it’s been sliding. The 2024 Reuters Digital News Report shows a 10 percentage point slide under the Anderson-Buttrose team, from 74% to 64% in just five years.
The result is a depleted, diminished and inward-looking broadcaster — even according to Kim Williams himself, with the chair speaking in a Q&A this month with Kerrie O’Brien at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. The loss of trust is partl.