The broadcaster is conducting a review into racism amid a flurry of complaints about its treatment of non-white employees including Stan Grant.
The wide-ranging probe was announced by ABC managing director David Anderson on Sunday in an all-staff email, in which he apologised to Grant and expressed sorrow that the veteran broadcaster had been exposed to “such sickening behaviour”.
On Friday, Grant penned a letter, published on the ABC website, stating that the fallout from the ABC’s heavily criticised coverage of the coronation of King Charles earlier this month had left him “dispirited”.
“I am writing this because no one at the ABC – whose producers invited me on to their coronation coverage as a guest – has uttered one word of public support. Not one ABC executive has publicly refuted the lies written or spoken about me. I don’t hold any individual responsible; this is an institutional failure,” Grant said.
ABC managing director David Anderson. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman
In his email to staff on Sunday, Mr Anderson said: “The ABC is never above scrutiny or criticism. However, the nature of the anti-ABC reporting from some commercial media outlets is sustained and vitriolic.
“This has real-world consequences for ABC presenters and journalists who are personally attacked and vilified. How the ABC supports people in these moments is important.
“Stan Grant has stated that he has not felt publicly supported. For this, I apologise to Stan.
“The ABC endeavours to support its staff in the unfortunate moments when there is external abuse directed at them.”
But since Grant’s column on Friday, in which he announced that he was standing down as Q+A host after Monday’s program, three prominent former and current ABC staffers have also publicly lashed the national broadcaster over its treatment of “non-white staff”.
Pakistani-Australian comedian Sami Shah said on Sunday: “My time at the ABC was some of the most exhausting and unrelenting racism I’ve ever experienced. From audiences, but especially from management who dismissed its severity and in the end practised it themselves. And that was just two years in local radio.
“Stan Grant’s experiences would be on a level I can’t imagine,” he said.
Sami Shah.
Osman Faruqi.
Former staffer Osman Faruqi, who was born in Pakistan and is now culture news editor for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, wrote a column in the weekend newspaper about his experiences at the ABC.
“The higher up the organisation you go, the fewer and fewer diverse faces you see (of the 17 people that comprise the ABC’s leadership team and board, only one is not white), contributing to a culture that is, at best, dismissive of the needs and concerns of staff and audience who aren’t white and, at worst, actively hostile to them,” he said.
On Friday, The Project’s co-host and ABC radio presenter Michael Hing said that he had “considered leaving the ABC several times over the years because of the ongoing racial abuse that all white management teams are too often incapable of (fully) understanding.”
The Grant furore, combined with the suggestions by other former and current ABC staff that racism is entrenched within the national broadcaster, puts Mr Anderson under enormous pressure, as he prepares to face a senate estimates hearing this week.
It is expected that Mr Anderson will face questioning over the ABC’s now infamous handling of its coverage of street violence in Alice Springs, the broadcaster’s widely panned treatment of the coronation, and now, the claims of racism at the level of senior management.
The Project co-host and ABC radio presenter Michael Hing.
Mr Anderson’s apology comes two days after the ABC’s news director Justin Stevens said that the fact that the broadcaster’s coverage of the coronation had elicited complaints from some viewers was “regrettable” and acknowledged that Grant had “borne the brunt of a tirade of criticism”.
However, when The Australian approached senior figures at the ABC for comment on the day after the coronation, none – including chair Ita Buttrose – wished to comment publicly.
Two weeks after the event, ABC director of news Justin Stevens said in a statement: “Any complaints, criticism – or vitriol – regarding the coverage should be directed to me, not to him (Grant).”
Grant was part of a panel of guests that, just prior to the coronation of King Charles III on May 6, canvassed the impact of colonisation and the monarchy on Indigenous Australians.
The ABC was swamped with more than 1000 complaints about the coverage.
On Sunday afternoon, an ABC spokeswoman said: “The ABC has zero tolerance for racism in the workplace, as well as bullying, harassment, discrimination or any anti-social behaviour.
“All ABC employees deserve to feel welcomed, included, supported and safe in the workplace,” the spokeswoman said.
A spokeswoman from Communications Minister Michelle Rowland’s office said: “Racism is completely unacceptable.
“I take this matter very seriously,” the spokeswoman said.
“I have instructed my office to contact ABC management to ensure all available eSafety complaint avenues and support resources are being utilised.”
Earlier this year, the ABC lodged an official complaint with Twitter about the racial abuse directed at Grant on the social media platform.