Media union cries foul over ABC's 'back office' cuts

Extract from The Guardian

Amanda Meade

Michelle Guthrie’s plans for Aunty had a sting in the tail for programs.  

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance says the ABC’c cuts to cameras, editing and other production ‘cannot avoid having an impact on the delivery of quality news’. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

Friday 10 March 2017 06.00 AEDT 

ABC staff, many of them seasoned journalists trained in deciphering messages, were blindsided by the revelation that dozens of the job losses outlined by Michelle Guthrie on Tuesday were not middle management at all. Guthrie talked a lot about reducing red tape and eliminating over- management, about bottlenecks and about “reducing the number of management roles across the ABC” in order to create a $50m content fund and 80 new jobs in regional and rural content.
But not long after the MD gave the impression that the ranks of the so-called carpet strollers were to be thinned to make way for spending on content, television staff were being tapped for redundancy. In her staff address Guthrie said by the end of June between 150 and 200 positions would be eliminated and management would be reduced by by 20%. If it’s at the lower end of 150, more than half of those positions come from the people who make television programs such as 7.30, Landline, Gardening Australia and Foreign Correspondent. While they’re not journalist roles, most of these 85 roles are for skilled craftsmen and women and production co-ordinators who organise the crews as well as camera-people. They are not management roles or so called “back office staff”.

Host Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 7.30 program, where staff have been tapped for redundancy. Photograph: ABC

I left News Corporation in 2007 so, if I was a Murdoch stooge, then I’m far removed from that

Michelle Guthrie

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s media director, Katelin McInerney, said: “These cuts to cameras, editing and other production support areas fly in the face of assurances made to staff that the redundancies would be concentrated in back office management. While management say no editorial positions will be affected, these cuts to production and operations staff cannot avoid having an impact on the delivery of quality news and current affairs to the Australian public.” You can read Guthrie’s address in full here.

In her only interview on the restructure, Guthrie told RN Drive’s Patricia Karvelas that all programs are up for review just like Catalyst, including the flagship 7pm news bulletin. She also addressed wild accusations she was brought in by Rupert Murdoch to destroy the ABC, a rumour Karvelas says is regularly put to her by listeners.
“I left News Corporation in 2007 so, if I was a Murdoch stooge, then I’m far removed from that. I left the organisation a long time ago,” Guthrie said. “The important thing in terms of my role at the ABC is to really try to take all of my experience from the past, whether it’s from Google or my TV and pay TV experience from across the world, and figure out ways in which we can be more adaptable and deliver for audiences as their behaviour changes very substantially.”