Scott Morrison labels ABC Four Corners program on QAnon ‘disappointing’ and ‘poor form’

Extract from The Guardian

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Comments about program that is yet to air come after ABC boss tells staff ‘any suggestion that I “pulled” or “blocked” the program is simply not true’

ABC managing director David Anderson says he decided the Four Corners investigation into the relationship between Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and a QAnon supporter was ‘not yet ready for broadcast’.

Amanda Meade

Fri 4 Jun 2021 14.30 AEST

First published on Fri 4 Jun 2021 13.03 AEST

The prime minister Scott Morrison says it is “deeply offensive” and “poor form” of the ABC’s Four Corners program to investigate his relationship with a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy.

The program which has upset Morrison was slated for Monday but was delayed for review by the managing director, David Anderson.

“I find it deeply offensive that there would be any suggestion that I would have any involvement or support for such a dangerous organisation,” Morrison told reporters. “I clearly do not. It is also disappointing that Four Corners would seek to cast this aspersion not just against me but by members of my own family. I just think that is really poor form.”

Morrison’s comments came hours after Anderson revealed he had asked Four Corners to answer some “queries and concerns” he has about the program.

“Any suggestion that I ‘pulled’ or ‘blocked’ the program is simply not true,” Anderson told staff on Friday after reports the story had been delayed for broadcast.

The ABC news director, Gaven Morris, had “upwardly referred” the episode to Anderson, who is preparing for an additional appearance at Senate estimates on Monday. He was recalled to be questioned about Christian Porter’s defamation suit against the ABC which the former attorney general dropped on Monday.

The program was sparked by a story in Guardian Australia in 2019 that revealed that a significant Australian proponent of the QAnon conspiracy, Tim Stewart, was a family friend of Morrison and that his wife was on the prime minister’s staff.

The QAnon conspiracy purports that powerful forces are hiding and protecting satanic paedophile rings and that a secretive individual named Q leaves clues for his followers to decipher on internet forums.

Last year Stewart’s QAnon Twitter account, BurnedSpy34, was permanently suspended for “engaging in coordinated harmful activity”.

Stewart said in 2019 he had not attempted to influence Morrison, nor had he had conversations with him about any QAnon content.

Anderson told staff he had asked the program for more information because he wants to satisfy himself about a number of claims made in the story, which is reported by the multi-Walkley award-winning journalist Louise Milligan.

“I reviewed the material and made an editorial decision it was not yet ready for broadcast, as any responsible editor-in-chief would,” he said.

“My exact words were: ‘Please take on board the feedback and keep going. There is nothing in the program that I can see is time sensitive. I would like a written response next week addressing the feedback. I know the team have worked on it for a while now, but frankly I would prefer we took our time to make it as strong as possible.’”

The investigative team, led by Four Corners’ executive producer, Sally Neighbour, had been planning to air the program on Monday and were frustrated when management wanted to review it as they had already cleared legal and editorial hurdles.

“The ABC would not normally comment on the work of our journalists before their stories have been published, but in the interests of accuracy and transparency I am today compelled to put a few facts on the record,” Anderson said.

“My feedback was encouraging to the team and supportive of the hard work they had invested in this story, but I also asked them to come back to me with details of how they had addressed my queries and concerns.”

ABC news sources said the story had already been delayed by several weeks and deny claims by management that the story “needs more work”.

Guardian Australia understands that management wanted the program to get on-the-record responses from Morrison, as the prime minister has so far declined to respond to questions from Four Corners.

The ABC’s political editor, Andrew Probyn, was asked by Four Corners to put a series of questions to Morrison at a press conference this week. But Probyn asked no questions on the topic and focused instead on the Victorian lockdown.

Probyn declined to comment.

Four Corners sent another reporter to Canberra to ask questions but Morrison did not appear on the day he was in Parliament House.

Anderson said he had been given a “rough cut” of the program and confirmed it had been “endorsed by news management”, confirming that it was cleared by legal and editorial.

“In making a final decision about whether a program or other content is ready for broadcast or publication I consider all advice from the relevant team, ABC Editorial Policies and ABC Legal, among others,” he said. “I also trust my own judgement and knowledge about the high editorial standards that apply to all ABC content.

“I am absolutely confident of that decision and make no apologies for requiring the highest standards of our published journalism.”