A billion-plus taxpyer dollars a year buys a lot of things, but self-awareness clearly is not one of them. This is, after all, the organisation that touts itself as “Australia’s most trusted news source”, even though almost no Australians actually watch it. The ABC regularly trails the free-to-air news pack.
It’s also the organisation that bragged that it was sending its reporters to work in “regional” Australia, by sending them just 20kms from the ABC headquarters in the exclusive Sydney harbourside enclave of Ultimo, to Parramatta. It’s unknown whether the ABC luvvies needed guides and translators.
But nothing quite takes the cake for utter, hypocritical cluelessness than an ABC journalist finger-wagging the rest of us about owning up to mistakes.
Especially this journalist.
ABC investigative journalist Louise Milligan told a writers festival on Sunday that reporters and media outlets must correct any mistakes they make “immediately” – and if they fail to do so they “should hang their heads in shame”.
BFD readers may not be familiar with Milligan’s name — she’s on the ABC after all — but this is on a par with Tova O’Brien pontificating that journalists must never soft-soap a political leader.
The high profile Four Corners’ reporter, who has been involved in multiple defamation proceedings in the past year, told the Melbourne Writers Festival on Sunday it can be “exhausting and traumatic”, but if errors are made by reporters they must be quickly fixed.
“If we make mistakes we must correct it immediately and people who don’t should hang their heads in shame,” she told the audience of about 200 people.
Now, defo can be wielded against even the best journalists, but Milligan has a pretty long form, here.
Milligan, more than anyone, led the public witch-hunt against Cardinal George Pell. She won awards for peddling the story that ultimately landed Pell in court. None of those awards have, to my knowledge, been rescinded since the accusations were quashed by a unanimous decision of Australia’s highest court.
With Pell’s innocence confirmed, Milligan immediately turned to another target: joining in the “MeToo” mob-attack on then-attorney-general, Christian Porter. Solely on the alleged testimony of a deceased woman, who had had significant mental issues in life, Porter was summarily driven out of his job.
Then she turned her sights on another conservative politician.
Milligan’s comments at the event raised eyebrows, given her own failure to correct the record after making defamatory and untrue statements about former federal MP Andrew Laming in March last year.
Milligan accused Dr Laming of “upskirting” a woman, despite the fact that the politician had already been questioned by Queensland Police about the incident, and cleared of any wrongdoing.
Dr Laming initially asked Milligan to delete the tweet and apologise. She eventually deleted the post but refused to apologise, which prompted the Coalition MP to launch legal action.
What was all that about quickly fixing errors or hanging your head in shame?
It appears there’s no shame when the taxpayer pays for your mistakes.
The ABC funded Milligan’s legal costs in the matter, with the taxpayer-funded broadcaster covering the $200,000 bill, which including a $79,000 payout to Dr Laming.
“She preferred to use taxpayers’ money for a Federal Court settlement than have any risk of loss of face that comes with an apology,” Dr Laming told The Australian on Sunday.
The witch-finder general then tried putting on a pity party.
She spoke of the defamation proceedings she was involved in last year with former Attorney-General Christian Porter, who launched legal action in the Federal Court against the public broadcaster and herself.
“It’s absolutely exhausting and traumatic.”
The Australian
Now imagine how it must have felt to be Cardinal Pell, Christian Porter or Andrew Laming.
But that’s different, of course: they’re conservative white men.