'A lot of people are looking for a way out'

On Antoinette Lattouf and working at the ABC

Author

Alex McKinnon
January 19, 2024

I’ve had a long week but I’m betting the poor souls in the ABC’s legal department had a longer one. Sitting down at your desk on Tuesday morning and reading that your organisation’s chair and managing director had ordered a journalist fired because of “a high-level and co-ordinated letter-writing campaign from pro-Israel lobbyists” would be a good excuse to take your 15 a bit early that day I think.

One of the few high-profile ABC people who has actually stuck their neck out about this is Jan Fran, the host of Question Everything on the ABC and formerly of The Feed on SBS. If you’re not up on the ins and outs of Antoinette Lattouf’s firing and why it’s an atrocious and racist decision Jan’s explainer below is very good. Not coincidentally Jan is of Lebanese heritage and grew up in Bankstown which is not very media-kickons-at-the-Aurora of you Jan.

@jan__fran

Let’s talk about @ABC Australia and @Antoinette Lattouf #media #gaza #israel #Palestine #journalism #journo #reporting #middleeast #politi... See more

I don’t want to pre-empt the outcome of any lawsuit but the massive international news story Lattouf’s firing has become seems like proof that instantly caving to a letter writing campaign organised by a bunch of cranks is never the best idea. I’m not saying this is what happened but if you wanted to silence someone who was only employed by your organisation on a five day fill-in contract why wouldn’t you just let them run out the week and quietly not invite them back? If Lattouf’s lawsuit is successful she’s going to receive a payout that could have employed another few journalists or paid for Sarah Ferguson to go interview another fascist.

In my time in the workforce my impression is that people in senior managerial roles often exhibit a blend of malevolence and incompetence that leads to situations like this. They cut budgets and fire people and stifle dissent because they’re amoral and also because they’re not actually very bright. The consequences of treating people like dirt — reputational damage, staff discontent, constant turnover that’s a drain on resources — are usually very easy to foresee and avoid but they can’t help themselves. It doesn’t matter though because professional Linkedin-havers never die, they just move from role to role at a succession of NGOs and corporate guilt-assuaging initiatives and then write a book about executive leadership.

I’ve been speaking with people who work or recently worked at the ABC to get a better picture of what the day-to-day is like there. Spoiler alert it’s terrible and it has been for some time. One person in particular provided a very thoughtful and insightful perspective on how it feels to work at the ABC at the moment. They’ve asked to be anonymous for obvious reasons.

“Internally it's been a bit of a mess for a long time now, but Gaza's sort of brought all these issues up to the surface. A lot of people are looking for a way out or at the very least thinking seriously about it. Some are knuckling down, especially if they're not in the financial position to leave, but there's a lot of discontent.

“The ABC plays a hugely important role in our society so it's really disappointing that it can't live up to its potential and seems to be failing particularly people of colour and minority groups again and again.

"I don’t think the leaders of the ABC, whether that's the board, upper management, or even middle management, recognise how big of an issue this is. Almost every staff member who spoke up at that meeting in November expressed concerns about our coverage being too pro-Israel, meaning it was biased and not rigorous, but also that it was failing Arab and Brown communities here in Australia, but that hasn’t led to change.

“I don't really think the ABC cultivates an environment that encourages people to discuss these types of disagreements. it's very hierarchical and so everything feels very top-down. The journos’ open letter came up a few times in our team editorial meetings and the vibe was very much just, ‘don't sign it, don't attend rallies, don't do anything that would put the ABC's reputation at risk’.

“There are other people leaving than just the people who are making headlines like Nour Haydar or Antoinette, and those people make the news as well. I really hope that it gets better and I hope that people who are still at the ABC can push for meaningful change, but I'm just not really convinced that this will happen soon enough before things get worse.”

Anonymous

There you have it folks, working at the ABC is miserable especially for people of colour making it exactly the same as seemingly every other workplace in existence. It’s as though David Anderson’s message in the foreword of the ABC’s Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Plan 2023-2026 meant nothing 🙁 

What I’m reading

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