The ABC managing director, David Anderson, has told Senate estimates he believes the attack on the political journalist Laura Tingle this week was a “News Corp pile-on” but denies the broadcaster’s response was “cowering”.
Justin Stevens, the public broadcaster’s news director, said on Wednesday that Tingle’s remarks at the Sydney writers’ festival did not meet the ABC’s editorial standards and that she had been counselled.
In Senate estimates on Thursday, the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said there were a “lot of people who are angry that Laura Tingle has been thrown under the bus” and asked Anderson if the ABC had “cowered to a News Corp pile-on”.
“It was a News Corp pile-on, but I wouldn’t agree … that we’re cowering, we’re not cowering to News Corp,” he said.
“That’s not why Mr Stevens took the action that he took. Which, by the way, I agree with there, but it is not. It is not as a result of the News Corp reaction. I think that there are a lot of News Corp reactions, a lot of News Corp attention that the ABC gets regularly every week.”
In an editorial The Australian newspaper accused Tingle of demonstrating “loathing for the country the ABC is funded to serve” and called on the ABC chair, Kim Williams, to act.
Hanson-Young asked Anderson on Thursday: “News Corp are obsessed with the ABC, aren’t they?”
Anderson replied: “Yes they are.”
Anderson said Tingle’s comments had hurt the ABC and the journalist herself, partly because they had been unfairly reported by some media.
“I will say that some media organisations have really taken this and run with it. There is also social media trolling happening for our people as well.”
Anderson said the corporation disagreed with Hanson-Young’s suggestion he should “blacklist” all News Corp journalists from ABC platforms because of the company’s hostile attitude towards the ABC.
“It is important for the ABC to cover a perspective of views that are held in this country,” he said.
Anderson described the 7.30 chief political correspondent as one of the most respected and admired journalists in the country and said she did not deserve the “ferocity and, frankly, vicious attacks”.
Anderson clarified that Tingle was not counselled by Stevens for her comments saying that Australia was a “racist country”, but instead in relation to her remarks about the opposition’s post-budget policy position on immigration.
“As 7.30 chief political correspondent, Ms Tingle is required to ensure her comments, even at an external event, have sufficient context to support the statements made,” he said.
“Contrary to some media reports, the issue Mr Stevens raised with her was not a response to Laura calling out racism in Australia.”
Tingle had said at the writers’ festival that the Coalition’s immigration policy announcement sent a “terrible chill running through me” as she was afraid it would give license to people worried about housing to say “everything that’s going wrong in this country is because of migrants”.
In a lengthy statement issued on Wednesday, Tingle said another comment suggesting Dutton was blaming everything that’s going wrong in this country on migrants was an attempt to summarise and was not intended to imply he had said that verbatim.
She said her comments at the writers’ festival had lacked context and nuance due to the free-flowing nature of the panel discussion, but repeated her view that Australia “clearly has an issue with racism”.
Anderson said: “Unfortunately, there’s a history of racism in this country that goes back a long way and still needs to be dealt with.
“And you do that … through respectful discussion and debate … And I believe that [Tingle has] qualified that in her statement that was released yesterday.”
