David Anderson: ABC Coronation coverage was appropriate

ABC management faced a four hour grilling at Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra yesterday, mostly around ABC’s Coronation coverage and the fallout which led to Stan Grant exiting Q+A.

Since the broadcast ABC has received 169 good faith, actionable complaints (defined as those which are an honest complaint about the content).

Of these, 110 were general in nature. The other 59 raised potential Editorial Policies issues and have been referred to the Ombudsman’s Office for investigation.

While there has been around 1800 audience contacts more than 1100 of those were either racist or abusive content or did not raise a substantive issue.

Managing director David Anderson conceded there were opinions about the timing of the broadcaster’s debate, but not the right to stage it.

“Some people thought it wasn’t appropriate to have that discussion at that moment in time,” he said.

“There are other people who would say it is appropriate to have the discussion, it just was not what they were expecting -really reflecting that we hadn’t set the audience expectation about this well enough.

“But like (News Director Justin Stevens), I stand by that discussion having happened. It was necessary. I’ve had people suggest to me, perhaps it should have been another day. Well, I think that it’s entirely appropriate to have it on that day.

“As Mr. Stevens said, it was a long coverage. It was over eight hours. And across those eight hours, diversity of perspectives was reflected that is held across the Australian community.”

Stan Grant was asked on as a guest in a panel discussion.

“He wasn’t there as the host of Q+A. He was there for his own lived experience, and his knowledge and history of our First Nations people, and from his experience, personally and his family. So for me, I think editorially, I think that was justified, I think it was relevant. I think it was appropriate.”

News Director Justin Stevens confirmed Grant is currently on 8 weeks leave -it isn’t clear if with pay- but he hopes he will return.

Repeating many points made earlier this week on ABC Radio he restated that he regretted not making a statement of support earlier for the profile presenter, amid social media and press criticism.

“We’re not saying all of that criticism was racist,” said Stevens. “What we’re saying was, there was a torrent of criticism. And I think he has very clearly expressed that he felt we ought to have defended his role in it. I accept that we could have in reflection, more publicly done that. And I think that prospers a question as to why didn’t we defend him at the time?

“I’ve done a lot of reflecting on that and I think there’s a few reasons. The first is, it’s not in our nature at the ABC to be the story. It’s not in our nature, to agitate on a daily basis to make ourselves the story. However, due to the climate that we function in, our approach will have to change and there are lessons in this in terms of how Stan felt we managed it.”

ABC has also denied it was “swamped” with a record number of complaints -according to Guardian Australia that honour goes to 2009 “Make a Realistic Wish” by The Chaser at 2,000 legitimate complaints investigated for editorial compliance.