By Calum Jaspan
ABC chair Kim Williams has criticised the priorities of the organisation’s digital news platforms, saying lifestyle stories were given too much prominence on the web and mobile sites at the expense of hard news.
In his strongest critique about news output at the public broadcaster since becoming chair in March, Williams, in an address to Radio National staff late last month, delivered a scathing assessment of the ABC’s failure to prioritise globally important news stories such as the Gaza war and the NATO summit, and foreign and state politics to its online audiences.
ABC chair Kim Williams.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Leaked audio from a staff meeting, obtained by this masthead through multiple sources, includes Williams lamenting the mix of stories and headlines on the ABC’s news feed and pointing to a preference for soft lifestyle stories.
“I think people have, in moments of public torment, crisis, division, challenges to leadership, a right to be able to access it from us reliably and immediately, and not to suddenly see a lifestyle story being No.1 or No.2 or No.3,” Williams told a large staff briefing.
Williams, who succeeded Ita Buttrose as ABC chair, met Radio National staff at the ABC’s Sydney offices and online in late July to reinforce his enthusiasm for the station before taking questions from staffers.
The comments indicate a departure from the style of his predecessors, including Buttrose, and suggests a high level of involvement in the direction of the broadcaster’s news output.
Asked about the mix of stories on the news home page, Williams said the prioritisation of the web itself is, in fact, a “pretty ancient concept now” and that access to news via smartphones was of primary importance.
And while saying the editorial prioritisation of the sequencing of stories will and should be a never-ending debate, he listed the top 10 stories on the ABC News website and mobile app on a particular day and critiqued their headlines and placement.
“We had ‘Biden’s refusing to back out of the election, but a big celebrity supporter has just given him a push’,” Williams said, before reading out the rest of that morning’s top stories, which included a story about the types of drugs consumed over Christmas and two tennis stories.
“There were no mentions of the NATO meeting [held that week], there were no mentions on Israel-Gaza, there was no mention on the continuing turbulence in the French election. There was no mention of Ukraine, this is in the top stories, and there was no mention of any state political story at all.
“Now that’s admittedly on the national feed, as News reminds me, and I’m not saying that to have a go at News, but I would just say it’s what I would describe as an idiosyncratic selection of story priorities.
“We need to have a better coherent logic in relation to story prioritisation. And I think that’s not surprising, and in fact, is much more responsive to the way in which people expect new services to be delivered.
“I think I make no apology for the fact I think news should be prioritised appropriately. Sorry if that’s unsatisfying.”
The ABC is rolling out a news website redesign, which it says allows it to present the latest news, explain the wider context and provide information to make life easier for its diverse audience, including making it easier for users to localise content for them. Some users are already offered the new site, which will go fully live on August 19.
The ABC’s new News website layout.
Internally, some at the ABC are split over Williams’ intervention. Some question whether it is the chair’s job to be involved on specific content output in a constructive manner, while others believe it displays genuine effort to lift standards and return the broadcaster from a “downmarket shift”.
“Is it his job? Yes, if there is a wider issue, it is the chair’s job to fix it. This whole downmarket shift is what he is pushing against. It’s heartening to see,” said one staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
On Sunday morning, the top stories on the new layout covered the prime minister at the Garma Festival, the US election, riots in Britain, the Olympics and a foreign affairs story on Russia.
Also in the meeting, Williams discussed his intention to establish Radio National as the ABC’s heartland, and to emulate the impact of the BBC’s Radio 4 on the Australian public.
Radio 4 reached 17 per cent of the British public weekly, Williams said. In the most recent radio ratings survey, Radio National’s audience share in Sydney was just 1.5 per cent, and 1.6 per cent in Melbourne.
“My aspiration would be to that level. My aspiration is to actually see it be a service that has a real impact.”
To help RN reach Williams’ aspiration, station manager Dina Rosendorff is leading a review, looking at how the station sells itself, its programming schedule, and to establish a new mission statement to replace the current “think bigger” tagline.
“I don’t believe [RN] should continue to be an exclusive silo inside the ABC. The ABC has this myriad of services which are extremely proficient at not cross-promoting each other, that are extremely practised and developed in the art of ignoring each other, and I think that is not only to be regretted, but it is to be rejected,” Williams said.
“My view of ABC programming is that [it] should always be distinctive. Why do it if it’s not? ABC programming needs to be bold. It needs to be something that actually stands up, and that you can embrace and feel proud of, and we need to do that on a very regular basis.”
Williams said addressing audience declines could not be solved by shuttering or cutting services.
“Audiences are down across the board, and that is something we need to address, and I don’t think the way to address them is to progressively eliminate services, or to migrate services into different delivery technologies,” he said.
Williams’ plans require increased funding, something he has placed top of his agenda publicly since taking the role four months ago. He was critical yesterday of the lack of effective efforts by the organisation to gain those funding increases.
“There has been precious little advocacy from a board level for the ABC for some decades, and that is to be regretted. No doubt, boards had reasons for what happened. I’m not particularly pointing a bone at anyone other than invoking effect,” he said.
“The last chair of the ABC that actually worked the rooms and worked the cabinet was back in 1988 with David Hill, and I find that surprising, and I don’t think the decline in funding is unrelated.”
An ABC spokesperson declined to comment.
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