ABC managing director Hugh Marks has blamed disagreements over the national broadcaster’s future for the departure of news boss Justin Stevens, but defended its decision to platform a podcast hosted by former Australian of the Year Grace Tame.
Speaking to Radio National on Tuesday morning, Mr Marks brushed off criticism over the broadcaster’s decision to run the activists’ four-part podcast after she dismissed the rape of Israeli women as “propaganda” and led chants to “globalise the intifada” earlier this year.
“I think if you look at the program itself, it’s a great podcast, she’s done a great job on a topic that I’m sure will be of real interest and real importance to many Australians who suffer from those conditions,” he said.
“There’s a balance in all these things, for the ABC to be ensuring that we bring great content to air and also acknowledging that, you know, with some people that we work with, sometimes there will be controversy.”
Mr Marks claimed he had spoken to Ms Tame and she “really abhors violence of any kind, particularly against women and children”, before encouraging listeners to tune in to her podcast, which will explore life for autistic women and gender-diverse Australians.
In February at a pro-Palestine rally in Sydney opposing Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia, Ms Tame led a chant to “globalise the intifada” from Gadigal to Gaza. The following month she told ABC Radio host Hamish Macdonald that reports of Israeli women raped by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, had been “debunked”.
Mr Marks said he understood the backlash to the program given the activists’ controversial comments but claimed the broadcaster had engaged her for the project before Ms Tame had made those statements.
The decision to run Ms Tame’s podcast also drew heat from within the ABC, with presenter Charlie Pickering declaring her appointment was “problematic” before later walking back those comments.
Mr Marks on Tuesday said the ABC was comfortable that Pickering’s comments did not breach the broadcaster’s public comment guidelines.
The ABC boss also shed light on the circumstances around the departure of veteran news boss Justin Stevens late last month, confirming the pair could not reconcile differences over the future of the ABC news division.
“Justin and I were having discussions about what we both felt the future of news for the ABC was, and maybe we felt there were different directions to pursue,” he said on Tuesday.
“A lot of people, particularly in the live news area of the ABC, I think feel stretched and pressured, and that’s because we’ve added services to what we do. And more work obviously leads to more pressure. Sometimes that leads to having to spread our resources more thinly. And that’s a problem I know I’ve got to solve.”
Mr Marks confirmed the formal selection process to replace Stevens was under way before his resignation from the ABC without his knowledge, saying the latter’s exit was “inevitable”.
“We knew if we couldn’t get agreement on the way forward, that his resignation was inevitable,” he said.
“I’d been – in a formal way but also in an informal way – just meeting people as I should as the head of the ABC, making sure we’ve got the very best executive team to lead the organisation forward.”
The broadcaster last month announced Stevens would be replaced by former Reuters executive editor Simon Robinson, marking the first time in decades that the ABC tapped an external journalist for the role.
