Mrdak, who interviewed both Milne and Guthrie, said they had no doubt the government was “very concerned at the issues of opinion and accuracy and editorial standards raised” in the several pieces.
According to the report, Milne had said that if Guthrie didn’t fire Probyn, she would be jeopardising half a billion dollars in funding for the proposed Jetstream infrastructure project.
The ABC affair – which began with the sacking of Guthrie - spun out of control on Wednesday, following the leaking to Fairfax Media of a highly damaging email, showing Milne’s editorial interference.
In a blunt statement, the ABC board has announced the end of Guthrie’s tenure as managing director, declaring it was “not in the best interests” of the organisation for her to continue leading it.
In a strong defence of the public broadcaster, its chairman has warned against clipping the ABC’s digital wings and defended its place in preserving the nation’s identity.
Michelle Guthrie has hit back against critics with a Deloitte Access Economics assessment the public broadcaster contributed more than $1 billion to the Australian economy in the last financial year.
As the Trump administration settles into office, regulators and lawmakers have big plans for shifting the country’s media landscape, with potentially profound effects on the public.
There were high hopes that the SABC would become a true public broadcaster after the end of apartheid when it was used ruthlessly as a propaganda machine. But those hopes have since been dashed.
We who love and cherish the BBC, even from afar – and I am unashamedly one of them – have been awaiting with some anxiety the UK government’s white paper on the future of the corporation. The culture secretary…
ABC managing director Mark Scott’s recent speech to the National Press Club today had the quietly confident tone of a CEO who knows he’s leaving his organisation in broadly better shape than he found it…