A picture of Tamara and Mary on the 2014-2020 set. Was taken in 2018 when they became the new presenters after Ian Henderson’s retirement.
I didn’t know there was a dedicated arts unit.
Perhaps this will give some of the general reporters in the various newsrooms a chance to report across different issues.
What the reporters that are already overstretched and barely create enough local content as it is?
That’s not such a bad idea but then you have situations like what happens with things like some media outlets coverage around events like the Melbourne Comedy Festival, etc., where you have random journos who’ve never set foot at an event like that ever in their life and have no background on it offering half-baked reviews but are grateful for the free ticket to attend. I’m not saying that you need to have a PhD to review a comedy festival gig but there will obviously be some arts events where specialised knowledge is required. Although I see in the ABC operations thread that ABC has responded to criticism over changes to its arts reporting.
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Overstretched? I dunno about other places but there are ABC reporters here you’d only see every now and again, so I am sure they’ll be ok. The lack of local content is an editorial decision it’s not through lack of people.
Guess they’ll need to be sure to hire versatile journos who can easily adapt, like the other networks manage.
Sure, they’ll manage but we will all be poorer for it.
The benefit of a round, arts, health, technology, politics, whatever, is that the people working the round have a hyper focus on that and that only. They know exactly what is happening, will break stories, have strong contacts, and can easily tell PR spin from actual stories and won’t be just reading the media release as they know the topic inside out.
It is like reading an article on the Daily Mail on latest Westpac financial results, and then reading the same topic on the AFR from a markets reporter.
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Rare to see the ABC posting a statement on a weekend.
ABC statement on offensive comments published in The Australian
The Australian has in recent days run anonymous comments criticising measures by the ABC to ensure our journalism accurately and fairly reflects the diverse country we live in and is relevant to the lived experiences in our community.
These anonymous comments include:
One source said the push to put “diversity” concerns ahead of everything else was compromising the ABC’s news coverage.
“These demands for 50/50 diversity targets on absolutely everything – let’s call it for what it is, it’s woke shit,” the source said. “But that is all ABC management seems to care about these days.”
A Canberra press gallery insider said: “While there is some merit in the ABC’s stated diversity targets – insofar as they are intended to reflect a changing Australia – it’s not always an easy fit with the pursuit of straight-down-the-line journalism.”
One high-profile on-air personality claimed that Probyn was paying the price for “standing up to management over some of their more stupid editorial and staffing decisions”.
“We are obsessed with ‘diversity’, but it comes at a cost.”
These anonymous comments do not represent the values of the ABC or what we stand for.
The Australian, and its reporters Nick Tabakoff and James Madden, have failed to run a single word of the response provided to them on this issue by Director, News Justin Stevens, who said:
“Every journalist we hire at the ABC meets the highest standards. Everyone who gets an opportunity at ABC News earns it fairly and due to their talent and skills.
“In addition to that, as the national public broadcaster it’s incumbent on us to accurately tell the story of our nation and reflect a diversity of perspectives.
“We seek a diversity of talented people in our workforce to ensure our team reflects Australia and to make our journalism better, more relevant, and more accurate.
“To suggest that anyone on the ABC News team is a “diversity hire” to “meet a target” or to “tick a box” is completely wrong and offensive.”
The Australian also claimed the proposals regarding Canberra Parliament House positions were “proposed by the ABC’s Canberra bureau chief, Michelle Ainsworth”. This is incorrect. All initiatives are proposed by the News Executive, endorsed by the Director of News and approved by the Managing Director. Michelle Ainsworth does not sit on the News Executive.
Additionally, The Australian failed to include any of the ABC statement sent to them on all the measures that have been proposed this week, which can be found here:
ABC News announces digital transformation proposals
This is the information from the statement regarding proposed changes in the Canberra Parliament House Bureau:
FEDERAL POLITICAL COVERAGE
Under the proposal ABC News would lose two broadcast-focused roles in the Canberra Parliament House bureau and create three new roles which would be dedicated to taking our best political journalism to audiences who aren’t accessing it on linear TV. In a time of media fragmentation, connecting more Australians to political news they can trust, on the platforms they’re increasingly using, is more important than ever.
The Political Editor role was a job title created in 2015, primarily to report for the 7PM News, at a time when the majority of our audience was primarily serviced by the 7PM News. We retain the roles of Editor, Politics and Deputy Editor who manage and have editorial responsibility for coverage.
The ABC’s Canberra Parliament House bureau has more than 20 political reporters and editors, including numerous highly experienced journalists who would continue to lead our extensive, expert coverage and analysis of federal politics across television, radio and digital services.
Senior journalists within the bureau include David Speers, Laura Tingle, Greg Jennett, Nour Haydar, Jane Norman, Shalailah Medhora, Andrew Greene, Stephanie Borys, Stephanie Dalzell, Matt Doran, Dana Morse, Stephen Dziedzic and James Glenday (currently on secondment), among others.
We also have many other formidable journalists covering federal issues from outside Canberra, such as Sabra Lane (AM), David Lipson (PM), Sarah Ferguson on 7.30, Annabel Crabb, Patricia Karvelas (RN Breakfast), Dan Bourchier and Chief Elections Analyst Antony Green. This is in addition to our extensive coverage of politics from every state and territory in the country.
Additionally, on a separate issue, The Australian failed to attribute this quote to Mr Stevens:
“The claim that the ABC was reluctant to run an exclusive story that we prominently broke and followed is simply ridiculous. We rigorously interrogate the public interest test for our stories, and if they pass that — as this one did — we back them in.”
The ABC is contacting The Australian’s Editor-in-Chief Michelle Gunn to ask for the justification of how this report meets the Australian Press Council Principles for fairness and balance.
Fairness and balance
- Ensure that factual material is presented with reasonable fairness and balance, and that writers’ expressions of opinion are not based on significantly inaccurate factual material or omission of key facts.
- Ensure that where material refers adversely to a person, a fair opportunity is given for subsequent publication of a reply if that is reasonably necessary to address a possible breach of General Principle 3
Makes you wonder if there is truth in some of what The Australian printed…
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I think it is purely a cost-cutting move. I am sure ABC is paying penalty rates for work on Sundays. Saturdays would be next in line possibly next year.
Just on this, easier just to name them ‘ABC News 5PM’ etc, and distinguish where required for particular bulletin e.g: 7pm National Nightly bulletin, if they wish to do so. There would surely be other reason(s).
Previously, they would have to run 10-minute fillers prior to the 8:30 start time for evening content. They would have thought just easier to extend and provide 1-2 longer reports which could be produced during the previous week at lower cost which made sense.
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Saturday would have made more sense. It’s traditionally the lowest eating day of the week.
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It is a LIVE channel across the country. It would only be at 5pm in the Eastern states, for example.
Financially, Sundays make more sense. As @Aurora pointed out, the ABC probably pay penalty rates (especially as a lot of people will likely be casuals). Going from eight Sunday bulletins to one will save them a fortune.
How soon, do we think, might the ABC do a BBC and cut the news channel? I know it’s a bit different because the BBC replaced it with World News - so the Brits still have some sort of (alleged) news channel. But if money at the ABC is tight enough to start cutting state bulletins, I wonder how long it will be before some wiseguy decides ‘hey, we don’t need a news channel, we’re digital first’?
Think you need to have a live channel for breaking news. If you just stream stories how do you cover press conferences and events. News needs to have a live element to be able to react to things as they happen.
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They won’t. It might go online/streaming only. It’s an important content creator for news radio, online clips, radio news grabs, etc.
The BBC News Channel and ABC NC are apples and oranges. The ABC NC was set up on the smell of an oily rag eg it was automated from the start. The BBC NC would have been much, much more expensive to operate.
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I don’t understand this. Streamed content can also be broadcast when required.
Oh, I completely agree. I just wonder if some smartarse at Ultimo will try and justify their job by coming up with some way of ‘streamlining’ (ruining) the news channel.
The BBC have ruined what used to be two decent news channels. They effectively axed the UK channel and put the World News channel on in its place. But to ‘compensate’ UK viewers, lots of silly UK stories are covered that have little relevance to those viewers, never mind people watching internationally (such as your good selves).
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Isn’t the EPG data market specific or can it be made market-specific?