There are several things to be detangled from the ABC board's dismissal of Michelle Guthrie as managing director, and the subsequent resignation of the chair Justin Milne.
First, Michelle Guthrie is not the ABC. The role of managing director is a role among many within the organisation, albeit one distinctly loaded with expectation and responsibility. It is the prerogative of the board to make decisions on executive appointments. Under certain circumstances, a decision to terminate can be read as protective of the institution rather than diminution of it.
Second, it cannot pass notice that internal dissatisfaction over the way Guthrie handled her role had become significant. Grievances reportedly include her Silicon Valley-style management, received as demoralising within public broadcasting culture; her trips to Singapore, which raised questions about commitment; persistent uncertainty over budget priorities, which was affecting staffing and production; and her failure to shield the ABC from political/ideological agendas.
These are reasonable concerns, falling beyond differences of personality or the whim of the board. Australians can treasure and defend the ABC while also demanding that the MD lead effectively, even if it means that those who have been attacking the broadcaster for years find opportunity in the tumult. With Guthrie engaging lawyers, the nature of her termination is now also a legal matter.
Other matters are less prosaic. In the lead-up to Milne's resignation, certain things came to light suggesting that he had exerted pressure to sack journalists, with the view of placating the then Turnbull government or avoiding its attention.
Fairfax reported that Milne had sent an email to Guthrie last May about firing economics journalist Emma Alberici after a series of complaints from the government. He allegedly also told her to fire political editor Andrew Probyn. The revelations raise questions about other interventions — ones that might have been made and not yet revealed, as well as those that could be made in the future.
Milne's own words bear noting: 'You can't go around irritating the person who's going to give you funding again and again if it's over matters about accuracy and impartiality.' The ABC has lost $254 million in funding under the Coalition since 2014, compounded in this year's federal budget by a three-year indexation freeze, as well as $43 million cut from news and current affairs.
"It does not take bad people to erode the things upon which democracies rest. It was enough that the ABC chair came to understand what the prime minister does not like."
The question of who must now lead the ABC cannot be separated from the circumstances which have vacated these two roles.
The managing director contends with a unique set of hostilities that can be so perverse and relentless that it must also be met with unusual mettle and finesse. There is a sense in Guthrie's case that things came to a head. Her dismissal was met with approval from ABC veterans Sally Neighbour and Jon Faine.
The bald truth is that change can be the hardest thing to pull off successfully in an organisation. It does not sound like she was able to bring enough people along with her.
As for Milne, his actions expose not just his own poor understanding of what constitutes media independence, but also how fragile that independence can be. It does not take bad people to erode the things upon which democracies rest. It was enough that the ABC chair came to understand what the prime minister does not like.
Most Australians expect something to be audible and intentional to count as corruption; like someone giving an order. But corruption is also the behaviours that have been made to make way for it without prompting. In the dark years of the Marcos regime in the Philippines, journalists came to know what coverage was allowed long after the calls from Malacañan Palace stopped. It was not even about whether something was true or even debatable, but whether it made government look bad.
Turnbull is of course no longer prime minister, and it would not make sense to say that he ruled like a totalitarian, given the many concessions he made to the right wing of his party. The point is that it would be a mistake to drop our vigilance about the character of our democracy, especially as the Australian media landscape becomes lunar: barren, cratered and losing any sense of gravity.
The events surrounding the ABC cannot be scrutinised in a vacuum. Fairfax and Nine might still merge, after the ACCC delivers its review in November. Sky News has made a deal with WIN to broadcast across its regional, free-to-air networks. It is obvious that Australians will need a robust national and public broadcaster long into the future, if they are to have an alternative to entertainment that poses as news, propaganda that poses as analysis, and advertising that poses as fact.
This will require some serious, honest imagining of what our politics and culture would be like if we let the ABC fall away. Perhaps after the ructions of the past week, some space can be made to figure out how to fight more effectively for it, including structuring funds in a way that better secures its independence from thin-skinned governments.
Fatima Measham is a Eureka Street consulting editor. She hosts the ChatterSquare podcast, tweets as @foomeister and blogs on Medium.