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Michael Ebeid: “It looks to me like they’re all responsible”

Former SBS boss weighs in on ABC management saga, suggesting the Board should all consider stepping down.

Former SBS managing director Michael Ebeid has weighed in on the management saga at ABC, suggesting the entire board should consider resigning and accusing Justin Milne & Michelle Guthrie of not understanding public broadcasting.

Ebeid, who had 7 years leading SBS before departing in October, has told Fairfax Media “The entire board needs to look carefully at the role that they played. It looks to me like they’re all responsible. They should probably individually consider whether they should also step down.”

The former managing director also said he “never” experienced the political pressure the Coalition government exerted on the ABC during his time at SBS. While it was necessary to be “cautious” about the government’s reaction to stories, that did not mean self-censorship.

“You just need to be ready and willing to defend it and fight for the position of the independent public broadcaster, as opposed to self-censoring in case the government doesn’t like it. I would never have self-censored,” he told Fairfax.

“I don’t think – from a journalistic and content perspective – the feelings of the government should be at the forefront of one’s mind. It does matter, but you shouldn’t change your behaviour for it.”

Ebeid also said Michelle Guthrie’s ambitions to reach 100% of Australians, and the pursuit of more “populist programming”, were “not what public broadcasting is about”, he added. This comes despite SBS copping criticism from commercial networks about their own titles including The Handmaid’s Tale, The Good Fight and Vikings.

The comments come on the day that ABC is unveiling their Content Launch for 2019 in the hope of putting a positive message across about the public broadcaster.

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