The hearing has ended for today
The hearing has ended for today. David Anderson will be back tomorrow at 10.45am to complete his cross-examination.
The court will sit a little later on Thursday and end at 4.30pm, Justice Darryl Rangiah says.
After Anderson, Chris Oliver-Taylor, the outgoing ABC content chief, will enter the witness box. Oliver-Taylor ultimately made the decision to take Antoinette Lattouf off air.
Anderson said in his evidence today that in hindsight Oliver-Taylor should have taken more advice before making his decision but that ultimately it might not have changed the outcome.
If Mr Oliver-Taylor had his time over again, he might have sought additional advice from other people before he made his decision.
Thanks for joining me on the blog today. Good night.
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'I don’t know how you can deny racism in this country,' ABC managing director says in court
Antoinette Lattouf’s barrister, Oshie Fagir, has now asked David Anderson what action he took against staffers who made what he said were “contentious” statements.
He gave examples of the ABC chief political correspondent, Laura Tingle, saying Australia is a racist country, the former Media Watch host Paul Barry saying “Israel is killing journalists again” and the ABC chair, Kim Williams, criticising the Coalition’s energy policy. Guardian Australia reported on Tingle’s comments last year.
The question leads to an extraordinary exchange in which Anderson says that Australia is a racist country so it is not an impartial statement.
It’s not an impartial statement because it’s based in fact.
I don’t know how you can deny racism in this country.
Anderson says he wasn’t aware of Barry or Williams’ statements but Tingle had been sanctioned for some comments that were made alongside the racist country statement.
He says:
That statement was not what I had a problem with.
He agrees it was Tingle’s comment about the Coalition pressing hot buttons on race and that being very dangerous for the community.
For that, Anderson says: “She was not taken off air, but she was sanctioned … for undermining her effectiveness at work”.
So she was counselled because she was not meeting the standards that I would expect of someone in that role speaking publicly.
I believed that she was undermining her effectiveness at work and to be able to do her job.
Anderson says he recalls Patricia Karvelas has made comments about the Murdoch press, as part of its business model writing hit pieces about ABC journalists.
“I don’t think it’s contentious for news organisations to talk about themselves,” Anderson says, adding that he didn’t have enough information to assess it as a partial or impartial viewpoint.
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