background briefing 3-1 ...............6

Dossier on Jonathan Shier

In February The Australian conducted a far reaching inquiry into the antecedents of Jonathan Shier and his record as managing director of the ABC. The series, run over several days, was titled Dossier. When we use information from that series we will source it to 'Dossier' for simplicity's sake.

In the last issue we voiced our strong suspicion that 'Mr Shier is intent on changing the culture of the ABC, root and branch'. Mr Shier has dropped any pretence and now avows his determination to change the culture of the broadcaster.

Mr Shier said he would be relentless in pursuing change at the national broadcaster. He said he was committed to completing the most far-reaching changes at the ABC in more than a decade and had the full support of the Howard Government.

"Every month it will become clearer and people will say this is unrelenting," Mr Shier told Dossier. He speaks the language of war: "When bushfires go off and bombs go off, your well-trained and professional colleagues deal with them so you, the boss, keep moving forward and say, I saw a bomb go off but it doesn't alter what we're going to do here."

Senior ministers have told the Dossier team that Mr Shier's aggressive reform agenda is a 'work in progress' but they are pleased he has shown a determination to crack an 'intractable'

ABC culture. You bet they're pleased. It is clear that when Mr Shier talks about public supporting him he is talking only to the Liberal party and pleasing only those keen to break the ABC and the 'single shareholder' he identified, the Coalition government.

The Dossier team produced an uneven report exposing much that is discreditable to Mr Shier - for example, the missing four years of unemployment on his CV - yet in seeming disregard of this the concluding editorial spoke of the need to give Mr Shier the chance to make the changes he wants.

Mr Shier and his supporters base their argument for changing the culture of the ABC and for 'reform' on myths and misrepresentations.

The myth that ABC staff are opposed to change. The myth that it is inefficient and that there is still fat to cut from the ABC. The myth that it is biased and irrelevant. The myth that it is mistrusted and widely criticised. The myth that it is out of touch with the Australian people. There is ample evidence to discredit these myths, much of which is included in this issue.

The misrepresentations are these: that he is revitalising the ABC; that he is fast-tracking great new ideas for programming; that cuts are not being made to the old ABC of radio and television; that key decisions that cut to the heart of the ABC have been made by not by Mr Shier but by his managers.

Meanwhile, so many highly talented and committed staff have gone that corporate memory is in danger of being lost, along with the ideals of public broadcasting.

Don't shoot Shier

He's only the messenger, writes HUGH MACKAY. The real creators of chaos at the ABC are his masters.

The ABC, long regarded as one of the cultural icons of the nation, is clearly caught in a downward spiral that will only be halted by drastic action.

But what action, and by whom? There's a gathering storm of outrage directed at the managing director, Jonathan Shier, but isn't he the wrong target? Shier is still a new boy; he could only be creating such comprehensive chaos if he were under instructions from his masters to do so.

If you're angry about what's happening to the ABC, look to the board that appointed Shier, just 11 months ago. The board advertised the position, scoured the market, weighed and sifted the pick of public broadcasters from all over the globe and came up with da-dah! a man few in the local media industry had ever heard of; a man devoid of public broadcasting experience; a man whose expertise lay in fields foreign to the philosophy and operations of the ABC.

It's not his fault. They gave him the job and, presumably, a policy brief to go with it. So it's reasonable to presume he's in the process of responding to that brief. If he's departing from it, the board has a clear responsibility to pull him into line; if he's following it ... well, draw your own conclusions. But don't blame Shier.

Some people believe the appointment of someone with Shier's ruthlessly commercial orientation was designed to distract the ABC from its traditional charter by promoting a hunt for new ways of making money in e-commerce, for example. Others characterise his appointment as a ploy by a cynical board at the behest of a cynical government. The best way to wreck the existing ABC culture, according to that theory, would be to appoint as managing director someone not up to the job, then stand by and watch him destroy the credibility of the organisation through managerial chaos and plummeting morale.

But who needs theories? The transparent reality is that the ABC board has appointed Shier and must accept absolute responsibility for the mass sackings, the ill-advised and hastily revised appointments, and the alternating panic and despair that seem to be gripping the organisation.

HUGH MACKAY From an article in The Age 24/2/01