The boss of the ABC, Hugh Marks, has spent the week lashing out at people he’s accused of “misrepresentation”, “misinformation”, and finally “playing games”. To the people he’s talking about, those are serious charges: they’re ABC journalists.
It was the last of these that has done the most damage to Marks’ relationship with the ABC. It came in the final hours of the strike, during an interview with ABC Sydney Radio boss Nick Lowther, who was forced to host one of management’s ramshackle radio broadcasts.
“Nick, sometimes it feels like a bit of a game to me,” Marks said
“I think both sides need to say, you know what? The audience comes first, and we need to stop playing games.”
It’s very unclear if Marks even understands who he is talking about when he accuses the “other side” of playing games and not putting the audience first.
On strike this week were ABC journalists who have driven into bushfires, been cut-off by floodwaters, broadcast from warzones, and worked for days straight with no extra pay during national emergencies, just to make sure the public knew what was going on.
Marks, on the other hand, is 12 months into his ABC career and has spent most of his professional life in the executive suite.
Relatively unused to being under fire, Marks responded to the strike with a burst of public statements. In the span of 24 hours, he appeared twice on ABC radio and issued two different statements – all of them on the attack.
Judging that approach purely on strategic competence, Marks seems completely oblivious to the fact he actually has to win the support of unionised staff and demonstrate some diplomatic skill, rather than attack them.
There’s also nothing like needing to repeat again and again how right you are about everything, while the broadcaster you run can’t get an original program to air, to really make sure everyone knows you’re having a chill time.
